William James Lectures

The William James Lectures are a series of invited lectureships at Harvard University sponsored by the Departments of Philosophy and Psychology, who alternate in the selection of speakers. The series was created in honor of the American pragmatist philosopher William James, a former faculty member at that institution. It was endowed through a 1929 bequest from Edgar Pierce, a Harvard Alumnus, who also funded the prestigious Edgar Pierce Chair in Philosophy and Psychology. Pierce stipulated that the delivered lectures be open to the public and subsequently published by the Harvard University Press.[1] The program was initiated in 1930 and has continued to the present. Its invited lecturers have included some of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century. In some cases, the selection of lecturer has generated considerable controversy.[2][3]

Chronological list of invited lectureships[4]

Published versions of the lectures

Notes

  1. Harvard Alumni Bulletin, 34 (22), (Fri. March 4, 1932).
  2. Monk, R. (2001). Bertrand Russell: The ghost of madness, 1921-1970. NY: Free Press.
  3. Schweber, S.S. (2008). Einstein and Oppenheimer. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  4. This compilation is based on a mimeographed list found in the clippings file at the Harvard Library Archives. The mimeographed list only covered the lectures delivered through 1971. The remaining items were supplied by searching for relevant monographs in the catalogs of the Harvard Library and the Library of Congress; one further lecture was sourced as noted in the following footnote. Since not all of the lecture series resulted in a published book, the list may be incomplete.
  5. http://religiousstudies.stanford.edu/people/lee-yearley/curriculum-vitae/
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