In this talk, philosophy professor John Kaag will draw from his recent American Philosophy: A Love Story, a book that traces his deeply personal engagement with the American philosophical tradition, from Ralph Waldo Emerson to William James. Hailed as “a lucid, winning blend of autobiography, biography, and serious philosophical reflection” (National Public Radio), Kaag’s American Philosophy raises compelling questions about immanence and transcendence, and how one lives a life worth living in our so-called secular age. Kaag’s talk will be accompanied by a temporary exhibition of William James materials in the Doug Adams Gallery, drawn from the archives of the GTU’s Center for Swedenborgian Studies, that includes James’s annotated copies of his father’s philosophy and William James’s rocking chair.
John Kaag is professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He is author of several books, most recently, American Philosophy: A Love Story, which was named one of NPR’s Best Books of 2016, a New York Times Editor’s Choice, and the winner of the Kirkus Star. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Paris Review, Harper's Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and many other publications.
Co-sponsored with UC Berkeley’s Center for the Study of Religion and the Center for Swedenborgian Studies, Graduate Theological Union
The Doug Adams Gallery is the primary exhibition space for the Center for the Arts & Religion at the Graduate Theological Union.