Dr. James Hersh
Professor Emeritus, Philosophy
Contact Information:
Education:
Research Interests:
My chief interest is political philosophy. Particularly I am curious about the role that the artistic/poetic imagination plays in both supporting and threatening the production of a more just society (see "From Ethnos to Polis: The Furies and Apollo," "Ethnic Cleansing: The Erinyes are Still Angry," papers published in Spring Journal, "Render and Surrender: Fundamentalist Monotheism Confronts the Separation of Church and State" published in The Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy; and my book "Poeticized Culture: The Role of Irony in Rawls's Liberalism," published by Rowman & Littlefield). The content of my writing is usually concerned with racial and sexual violence, especially when that violence is produced by a breakdown of what I call "poetic understanding."
I am also drawn to "the hard problem," the relationship between the mind and the world; of particular interest to me is the recent debate between Hubert Dreyfus and John McDowell regarding how deep conceptualizing permeates the human experience with the world (see "A Model for McDowell").
Books:
Poeticized Culture: The Role of Irony in Rawls’s Liberalism (Rowman & Littlefield/University Press), 2005
Papers Published in Journals:
“De la Etnia a la Polis,” Mediterranio Mitico, November, 2003.
“Render and Surrender: Fundamentalist Monotheism Confronts the Separation of Church and State” The Journal of the Proceedings of the Twenty-First World Congress of Philosophy: Philosophy Facing World Problems, in Istanbul, Turkey, August, 2003.
“Ethnic Cleansing: The Erinyes are Still Angry,” Spring: Journal of Archetype and Culture (#53), 1993.
“Hegel and Nationalism,” Akmee (Moscow), 1993.
“Enthroning the Furies in Germany,” Gorgo: Zeitschrift für archetypisches und bildhaftes Denken (Heft 12), 1987.
From Ethnos to Polis: The Furies and Apollo,” Spring: The Journal of Archetype and Culture, 1985, and Gorgo: Zeitschrift fur archetypisches und bildhaftes Denken (Heft 13), 1987.
“Model-Making and the Promethean Ego,” Spring: The Journal of Archetype and Culture, 1982.
“The Ethnic Unconscious,” Journal of Analytical Psychology (London) (Vol. 25, #2), April, 1980.
“Ancient Celtic Incubation,” Sundance Journal (Vol. 3, #1), Winter, 1979.
Poems Published in Journals
Named a Finalist for The Pablo Neruda Prize for Poetry (July, 2005) for three poems (“Srebneniza”, “Caitlyn Corwyn, Age 7”, and “Whispers” published in The Nimrod International Journal, 49, University of Tulsa, Fall 2005).
“Centering” in The DeKalb Literary Journal (1968)
“Totem,” Tri-Quarterly, (#10), Fall, 1967
Papers:
- Beauty's Plea
- Ethnic Cleansing
- Ethnic Unconscious
- Furies and Apollo
- A Model for McDowell
- Render and Surrender