Empathy is a psychologically significant phenomenon. It plays a key role in the development of the self, sociality, and prosocial behaviour. The term empathy originated in 19th-century aesthetics, where the concept was seen as an explanation for aesthetic experience. Despite renewed interest in the relation between empathy and aesthetic experiences, investigations into how empathy shapes experiences of art are still scarce. Given this situation, we ask the following three questions: What does one experience when experiencing a work of art empathetically? (...) What is given during such moments? How is consciousness structured in aesthetic empathetic experience? To answer these questions, we analysed five different experiences with visual art using a phenomenological psychological methodology. We found that a complexity of psychologically significant meaning arises from the empathic experience of art. The core aspects of this meaning are captured in a structure incorporating experience of a foreign subjective sense, reliving and affective adherence, interiorisation, pleasure in sharing, and affective understanding. Based on this structure, we argue that aesthetic empathy features a sense of otherness to a degree not previously recognised and that aesthetic empathy is an inherently intersubjective experience in which the spectator is invited to participate and share feelings expressed in the work of art in moments of aesthetic presence. (shrink)

In a previous paper linking Simondon to biological and systems-theoretical discourses in autopoiesis and debates about contemporary technogenesis, I have argued that Simondon’s ontology of individuation furnishes a basis to theorize the “agency” of the environment that comes to the fore as we humans enter, as we do increasingly today, into alliances with sophisticated, computational technologies.1 In concert with researchers like Andy Clark and N. Katherine Hayles, I embrace the “technical distribution” of cognition and perception as a way of understanding (...) the complex couplings between humans and machines that are typical in our contemporary world, but that have, in fact, been part of human techno-genesis since .. (shrink)

Recently, two apparently quite different duality-based approaches to automata minimisation have appeared. One is based on ideas that originated from the controllability-observability duality from systems theory, and the other is based on ideas derived from Stone-type dualities specifically linking coalgebras with algebraic structures derived from modal logics. In the present paper, we develop a more abstract view and unify the two approaches. We show that dualities, or more generally dual adjunctions, between categories can be lifted to dual adjunctions between categories (...) of coalgebras and algebras, and from there to automata with initial as well as final states. As in the Stone-duality approach, algebras are essentially logics for reasoning about the automata. By exploiting the ability to pass between these categories, we show that one can minimize the corresponding automata. We give an abstract minimisation algorithm that has several instances, including the celebrated Brzozowski minimisation algorithm. We further develop three examples that have been treated in previous works: deterministic Kripke frames based on a Stone-type duality, weighted automata based on the self-duality of semimodules, and topological automata based on Gelfand duality. As a new example, we develop alternating automata based on the discrete duality between sets and complete atomic Boolean algebras. (shrink)

Reimagining the call to teach: A witness to teachers and teaching, by David T. Hansen, Teachers College Press, 2021, 192 pp., USD29.95 (pbk), ISBN 978-0807765463David Hansen and the call the teach:...

The aim of this essay is to reflect on the place and importance of the question of address and to show how it comes to the fore in Søren Kierkegaard’s writings. What shall be attempted, with regard to Kierkegaard’s already widely recognized renown as an existential thinker, is to catch a glimpse of issues that make up the larger background in which the question of address is embedded. In doing so, the essay explores several features of Kierkegaard’s inquiry into the (...) question of existence in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and connect them with the notion of the reader. This latter notion provides a way of understanding the singularity of voice, while offering an account of the testimony to existence. After a brief recapitulation, the essay identifies in conclusion unresolved issues relating to speech, silence, confidentiality, and listening. (shrink)

The period in the foundations of mathematics that started in 1879 with the publication of Frege's Begriffsschrift and ended in 1931 with Gödel's Über formal unentscheidbare Sätze der Principia Mathematica und verwandter Systeme I can reasonably be called the classical period. It saw the development of three major foundational programmes: the logicism of Frege, Russell and Whitehead, the intuitionism of Brouwer, and Hilbert's formalist and proof-theoretic programme. In this period, there were also lively exchanges between the various schools culminating in (...) the famous Hilbert-Brouwer controversy in the 1920s. -/- The purpose of this anthology is to review the programmes in the foundations of mathematics from the classical period and to assess their possible relevance for contemporary philosophy of mathematics. What can we say, in retrospect, about the various foundational programmes of the classical period and the disputes that took place between them? To what extent do the classical programmes of logicism, intuitionism and formalism represent options that are still alive today? These questions are addressed in this volume by leading mathematical logicians and philosophers of mathematics. (shrink)

This paper presents an introduction to Arne Grøn’s existential hermeneutics as a philosophical method, while also attempting to indicate how Grøn’s work contributes to and engages in a number of crucial topics in modern continental philosophy. The first section of the paper shows how Grøn draws on Paul Ricoeur and Michael Theunissen to rethink the concept of existence through a reading of Kierkegaard that uncouples this concept from the self-evident status it attained in twenty-century existentialism. The second section of the (...) paper argues that Grøn proposes an existential ethics that takes the Kierkegaardian notion that humans are inherently normative beings and uses this as a basis for a critique of ethics, as well as for establishing an ethics of vision inspired by Kierkegaard. The third section of the paper presents a reading of Grøn’s notion of religion as an inextricable part of human existence. (shrink)

This article shares reflections from members of the community of philosophers of education in the United States and Canada who were invited to express their insights in response to the theme ‘Snaps...

Recent evidence indicates that transcriptional bursts are intrinsically amplified by messenger RNA cytoplasmic processing to generate large stochastic fluctuations in protein levels. These fluctuations can be exploited by cells to enable probabilistic bet‐hedging decisions. But large fluctuations in gene expression can also destabilize cell‐fate commitment. Thus, it is unclear if cells temporally switch from high to low noise, and what mechanisms enable this switch. Here, the discovery of a post‐transcriptional mechanism that attenuates noise in HIV is reviewed. Early in its (...) life cycle, HIV amplifies transcriptional fluctuations to probabilistically select alternate fates, whereas at late times, HIV utilizes a post‐transcriptional feedback mechanism to commit to a specific fate. Reanalyzing various reported post‐transcriptional negative feedback architectures reveals that they attenuate noise more efficiently than classic transcriptional autorepression, leading to the derivation of an assay to detect post‐transcriptional motifs. It is hypothesized that coupling transcriptional and post‐transcriptional autoregulation enables efficient temporal noise control to benefit developmental bet‐hedging decisions. (shrink)

This essay aims to outline in what ways Kierkegaard’s thinking of existence not only brings into view a concept of existence, but, more fundamentally, enables one to locate an opening to questioning anew the relation of thinking and existence. This thinking of existence does not seek to dissolve existence into knowledge but aims at intensifying the question of a thinking grounded not in the conclusion made in “an external relation between a knower and a non-knower” of which non-knowledge is the (...) negative determination of knowledge, but rather of a thinking grounded in existence. (shrink)

During the years leading up to World War I, America experienced a crisis of civic identity. How could a country founded on liberal principles and composed of increasingly diverse cultures unite to safeguard individuals and promote social justice? In this book, Jonathan Hansen tells the story of a group of American intellectuals who believed the solution to this crisis lay in rethinking the meaning of liberalism. Intellectuals such as William James, John Dewey, Jane Addams, Eugene V. Debs, and W. (...) E. B. Du Bois repudiated liberalism's association with acquisitive individualism and laissez-faire economics, advocating a model of liberal citizenship whose virtues and commitments amount to what Hansen calls cosmopolitan patriotism. Rooted not in war but in dedication to social equity, cosmopolitan patriotism favored the fight against sexism, racism, and political corruption in the United States over battles against foreign foes. Its adherents held the domestic and foreign policy of the United States to its own democratic ideals and maintained that promoting democracy universally constituted the ultimate form of self-defense. Perhaps most important, the cosmopolitan patriots regarded critical engagement with one's country as the essence of patriotism, thereby justifying scrutiny of American militarism in wartime. (shrink)

In this article, the insertion of a two-staged highly interesting question in an online, survey-based field experiment is shown to produce better survey completion rate (i.e., decreases completion refusal by 8%) and sample representativeness (increases the number of moderate answer patterns by 12%) than a typical (same) highly interesting question at the beginning of a survey only. Using nonparametric tests and subgroup probability analysis, measured effects include survey completion rates, response bias and reported demographic differences. In regards to sample representativeness, (...) the results also raise questions about the sensitivity of the conventional practice of comparing early to late respondent means scores as a method of investigating nonresponse bias in marketing research. Alternative approaches to measuring potential non-response bias are compared with the tradition of comparing early-wave verses late-wave mean respondent differences. The results indicate that the conventional mean test fails to identify differences in nonresponse bias; the scores of highly interested or opposed respondents in the first waves produce equivalent means to the scores of the less interested or opposed respondents in the latter wave between the surveys (e.g., 1's and 5's vs. 2's and 4's, both averaging to 3's) that are identifiable through kurtosis and probability analysis. (shrink)

In this essay I will examine the various ways in which the concept of decision emerges in the writings of Kierkegaard focusing mainly on the Philosophical Fragments and the Postscript. This prepares the way for revisiting Kierkegaard’s concept of decision. Doing so indicates the radical way in which Kierkegaard connects the concept of decision to an aporia. The crucial existential concept of decision not only concerns the difficulty, or even the impasse, pertaining to knowledge, but also relates to the question (...) of how the singular finds his or her own way through existence. (shrink)

In the study of the Hebrew Bible and ancient Israel, a consistent area of debate between mainstream and conservative scholars is whether or not the ancient Israelites were monotheists who worshiped El Elyon as their highest god, and whether or not the Hebrew Bible retains any of this. One particular passage of interest has been Deuteronomy 32: 8–9, which most academics interpret as El Elyon distributing the nation to his children, one of whom is Yahweh. This essay seeks to address (...) the rebuttals of conservative scholars who have sought to deny this, by arguing that ancient Israel’s conception of Yahweh was and that he was not a son of El in Deut. 32. This essay rejects these conclusions, principally arguing against the work of Michael S. Heiser, bringing attention to some neglected data which conservative academics have often overlooked in trying to elucidate this passage and demonstrating that the consensus reading of the passage makes the most sense of the text. (shrink)

If stem cell-based therapies are developed, we will likely confront a difficult problem of justice: for biological reasons alone, the new therapies might benefit only a limited range of patients. In fact, they might benefit primarily white Americans, thereby exacerbating long-standing differences in health and health care.

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a tortured concept. In this paper, we reframe CSR into a number of discrete Corporate Social Responsibilities (CSR’s), each of which can have a positive or negative social impact, and each of which has an endogenous managerially driven component, and an exogenous stakeholder driven component. Using an industry-level sample drawn from the KLD data base, we test the impact of hypothesized drivers of CSR on various CSR’s.

Co‐expression of two or more genes at the single‐cell level is usually associated with functional co‐regulation. While mRNA co‐expression—measured as the correlation in mRNA levels—can be influenced by both transcriptional and post‐transcriptional events, transcriptional regulation is typically considered dominant. We review and connect the literature describing transcriptional and post‐transcriptional regulation of co‐expression. To enhance our understanding, we integrate four datasets spanning single‐cell gene expression data, single‐cell promoter activity data and individual transcript half‐lives. Confirming expectations, we find that positive co‐expression necessitates (...) promoter coordination and similar mRNA half‐lives. Surprisingly, negative co‐expression is favored by differences in mRNA half‐lives, contrary to initial predictions from stochastic simulations. Notably, this association manifests specifically within clusters of genes. We further observe a striking compensation between promoter coordination and mRNA half‐lives, which additional stochastic simulations suggest might give rise to the observed co‐expression patterns. These findings raise intriguing questions about the functional advantages conferred by this compensation between distal kinetic steps. (shrink)

Epilepsy surgery is the most effective therapeutic approach for children with drug resistant epilepsy. Recent advances in neurosurgery, such as the Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy, improved the safety and non-invasiveness of this method. Electric and magnetic source imaging plays critical role in the delineation of the epileptogenic focus during the presurgical evaluation of children with DRE. Yet, they are currently underutilized even in tertiary epilepsy centers. Here, we present a case of an adolescent who suffered from DRE for 16 years (...) and underwent surgery at Cook Children's Medical Center. The patient was previously evaluated in a level 4 epilepsy center and treated with multiple antiseizure medications for several years. Presurgical evaluation at CCMC included long-term video electroencephalography, magnetoencephalography with simultaneous conventional EEG and high-density EEG in two consecutive sessions, MRI, and fluorodeoxyglucose - positron emission tomography. Video long-term EEG captured nine focal-onset clinical seizures with a maximal evolution over the right frontal/frontal midline areas. MRI was initially interpreted as non-lesional. FDG-PET revealed a small region of hypometabolism at the anterior right superior temporal gyrus. ESI and MSI performed with dipole clustering showed a tight cluster of dipoles in the right anterior insula. The patient underwent intracranial EEG which indicated the right anterior insular as seizure onset zone. Eventually LITT rendered the patient seizure free. Retrospective analysis of ESI and MSI clustered dipoles found a mean distance of dipoles from the ablated volume ranging from 10 to 25 mm. Our findings highlight the importance of recent technological advances in the presurgical evaluation and surgical treatment of children with DRE, and the underutilization of epilepsy surgery in children with DRE. (shrink)

We investigate quantifier-free induction for Lisp-like lists constructed inductively from the empty list $$ nil $$ nil and the operation $${\textit{cons}}$$ cons, that adds an element to the front of a list. First we show that, for $$m \ge 1$$ m ≥ 1, quantifier-free $$m$$ m -step induction does not simulate quantifier-free $$(m + 1)$$ ( m + 1 ) -step induction. Secondly, we show that for all $$m \ge 1$$ m ≥ 1, quantifier-free $$m$$ m -step induction does not (...) prove the right cancellation property of the concatenation operation on lists defined by left-recursion. (shrink)

This is part 1 of 6 of the dossier What Do We Talk about when We Talk about Queer Death?, edited by M. Petricola. The contributions collected in this article sit at the crossroads between thanatology and queer theory and tackle questions such as: how can we define queer death studies as a research field? How can queer death studies problematize and rethink the life-death binary? Which notions and hermeneutic tools could be borrowed from other disciplines in order to better (...) define queer death studies? The present article includes the following contributions: – MacCormack P., What does queer death studies mean?; – Radomska M., On queering death studies; – Lykke N., Death as vibrancy; – Hillerup Hansen I., What concreteness will do to resolve the uncertain; – Olson P., Queer objectivity as a response to denials of death; – Manganas N., The queer lack of a chthonic instinct. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Written on the Body, Written by the SensesJennifer L. Hansen"Explore me," you said and I collected my ropes, flasks and maps, expecting to be back home soon. I dropped into the mass of you and I cannot find the way out. Sometimes I think I'm free, coughed up like Jonah from the whale, but then I turn a corner and recognize myself again. Myself in your skin, myself (...) lodged in your bones, myself floating in the cavities that decorate every surgeon's wall. That is how I know you. You are what I know.1Ever since Plato wished to banish the poets from the republic (Republic 607b2),2 philosophy has stood in a vexed relationship to literature. There seem to be at least three reasons for philosophy's traditional contempt for literature as a reliable means to truth: (a) because literature engages the passions of a reader, it may cloud the reader's ability to deliberate calmly and rationally about any given account of how things really are; (b) literature most commonly deals with the particular and concrete and therefore cannot claim to a more general or universal truth, and; (c) literature is too open-ended and ambiguous in its meaning, which, again, obstructs the reader's view of how things really are. Though the writer is imitating the world, is holding up a mirror to it—a speculum mundi—literature's images are mere appearances.Philosophy, on the contrary, aims for a kind of "transcendental vision." Either philosophy looks beyond the particular appearances of things in the world to find the one structure which unites all instances of the thing, or philosophy claims that the structure of each object is supplied by consciousness, which then delimits and bounds each object, and places it in space and time so that the scientist can better dissect, measure, and catalogue it. That is, either philosophers, in the [End Page 365] tradition of Parmenides, aim to find the one in the many—as Socrates explains in the Republic "we are accustomed to assuming one Form in each case for the many particulars" (596a4–5)—or as in Kant's Copernican revolutionary thinking, consciousness renders the object of experience a knowable thing.While this transcendental vision proves quite useful for the scientist who deals with the empirical, it proves less useful where the task would be to conceptualize what is not a possible object of experience. While the scientist can indeed dissect and probe the body to understand how it functions, the scientist is less likely to discover what it means for a body to love, or to be free. In the "The Antinomy of Pure Reason" in the first Critique, Kant, in fact, left us with a choice about what philosophy's true object should be: either we restrict philosophy to the empirical world and its logic, or we pursue metaphysical questions about God or Freedom which cannot be grasped.3 On pain of contradiction, we cannot have both. In chapter three of the Transcendental Doctrine Judgment, "The Ground of the Distinction of all Objects in General into Phenomena and Noumena," Kant uses a wonderful metaphor to illustrate the dangers of Pure Reason venturing into metaphysical questions, and thereby employing the categories beyond the empirical: "This domain is an island, enclosed by nature itself with unalterable limits. It is the land of truth—enchanting name!—surrounded by a wide and stormy ocean, the native home of illusion, where many a fog bank and many a swiftly melting iceberg give the deceptive appearance of farther shores, deluding the adventurous seafarer ever anew with empty hopes, and engaging him in enterprises which he can never abandon and yet is unable to carry to completion" (CR, 257). If we allow ourselves to be allured by the deceptive appearance of farther shores, then we are not engaged in philosophy, but speculation or mysticism. We cannot provide an account for such knowledge in universal terms, in arguments, in logic. And yet, as Kant himself very well knew, these are questions that we are, as humans, compelled to raise. At the outset of the Transcendental Dialectic, Kant makes clear that reason will ineluctably be led... (shrink)

A Reply P. Flensted-Jensen/M. H. Hansen: Pseudo-Skylax' Use of the Term Polis M. H. Hansen: City-Ethnics as Evidence for Polis Identity .

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In Memoriam: Bennett ReimerForest HansenIn late afternoon on January 9, 2014, family members, colleagues, former students, and other friends met at Northwestern University to reflect upon and honor the life of Bennett Reimer, who had died from cancer on November 18, 2013 at the age of 81. The printed program fittingly called it a “Memorial Celebration,” because that is what it was. Fine wine and savory hors d’oeuvres were (...) served, a woodwind quartet of Bienen School of Music graduate students played Reimer favorites, and Beth Hebert, Bennett’s life partner of 27 years, greeted every person as they entered the hall. Reimer would have approved of the exuberant tastefulness of the event. He would probably have blushed and demurred, however, when in the formal part of the program his colleagues, daughters, and former students praised him in recalling specific occasions of his mentoring, inspiring, modeling, guiding, collaborating, and originating. (In his writing Reimer loved such extensive discriminatory lists.) Included among the expressions of respect and affection were these words by Estelle Jorgensen, who could not be present, read by Randall Allsup: [End Page 101]We have lost a wonderful person who lived life richly and made an outstanding contribution to the field of music education and beyond. In honor of his work as a philosopher of music education, among the many facets of his professional life, the Philosophy of Music Education Review will have a special issue devoted to the ideas that he left us, contributed by prominent music educational leaders and writers. Such moments of professional loss leave a rent in our midst that can never quite be patched. Along with our sorrow is our memory of the joy, idealism, and hope that characterized his lived life. We cling collectively to the memories of the blessings he brought us in simply being Bennett.Reimer was born on June 19, 1932 in Brooklyn, where he grew up. He earned a B.S. in music education in 1954 at SUNY at Fredonia and an M.S. (1955) and Ed.D. (1963) at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. His teaching career started at the Richmond Professional Institute of the College of William and Mary (1955–57) and continued at Madison College (Harrisburg VA) (1958–1960) and the University of Illinois (1960–65). At Case Western Reserve University (1965–1978), he became chair of the Music Education Department and holder of the Kulas Endowed Chair in Music. Then at Northwestern University he held the John W. Beattie Chair in Music from 1978 until his retirement in 1997. He chaired the Music Education Department there, directed the doctoral program in music education, and founded and directed the Center for the Study of Education and the Musical Experience—a weekly research forum for graduate students and faculty. Although Reimer had started out as an instructor in clarinet and oboe, musical theory, conducting, and music appreciation, he became a scholar, teacher, and lecturer in the new field of philosophy of music education with a worldwide following and reputation.Reimer was most noted for his seminal A Philosophy of Music Education (1970), which can fittingly be described as the founding document of the discipline. Typically he made revisions for the second edition in 1989 and more radical ones for the third edition in 2003, retitled as A Philosophy of Music Education: Advancing the Vision. This work has been translated into French, Japanese, and Chinese, and, forthcoming, Greek. He was associated with PMER and the International Society for Philosophy of Music Education (ISPME) from their beginnings in 1990.Besides his seminal works, Reimer wrote or co-wrote another twenty books and more than 150 articles, reviews, and book chapters. A few of his book titles indicate the range of his thought, from his early and widely used textbooks The Experience of Music (1971) for college students and Silver Burdett Music for grades 1–8 to his more recent Performing with Understanding: The Challenge of the National Standards for Musical Education (2000), World Musics and Music [End Page 102] Education: Facing the Issues (2002), and Seeking the Significance of Music Education (2009). He was an active participant and leader in a host of other music... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Explode and Die!A Fat Woman’s Perspective on Prenatal Care and the Fat Panic EpidemicJennifer HansenClassifying obesity as a disease provides more ammunition for the “war on obesity.” I gather that this is supposed to be a good thing. The problem is that obesity isn’t a germ or a crime; it’s a word applied to a particular kind of body—and thus to the person inhabiting it.From a fat person’s perspective, (...) the “war on obesity” is a war on fat people. It’s a license to bully, shame, and ostracize fat people and deny us employment, medical care, and even ordinary family life because we don’t look right. Fat people, proclaimed by medical authority to be the enemy and identifiable on sight as outsiders, are made into targets for all kinds of free–floating anger. For example, I am apparently sucking away people’s tax dollars via my fat, and it’s also my fault that men expecting to fantasize about every woman they see on the street encounter my distasteful fatness instead. But no matter how many times we get told that we are wrong just for existing, we go on existing, in public even. How dare we? The answer, obviously, is to keep at us. If we would just admit that we have no right to exist, then we would all either vanish or become socially acceptably thin, and then the whole world would be unicorns and butterflies and everyone would be rich and nobody would get old. Or something like that. If obesity is a disease, then phrenology is a science.Of course, we get a lot of well–meaning flak along with the bullying; after all, concentrating on weight loss can only be good for us, because fat people are always about to explode and die. This assumption has definitely affected my relationship with the only medical practice I can reach that’s in my network. During the 20–plus years since I became visibly obese, I have gotten used to the constant drone of “You’re fat, you’re fat, you’re about to explode and die, we don’t care about what you actually came in for because it’s vitally important that we bug you yet again about your pants size,” but some things can still shock me. For example, during all three of my pregnancies, I never had a result that was even borderline for gestational diabetes (GD). And yet, some time after my last baby was born, someone wrote “HISTORY OF GESTATIONAL DIABETES” in my file. I first heard about it during my annual checkup, when the doctor referred to it when talking about my increased risk of Type 2 diabetes due to age (unavoidable), my first–ever non–whitecoat–syndrome borderline blood pressure (BP) reading (taken with a standard cuff, gee how could it possibly have been inaccurate), and GD (gosh, I felt so safe and supported at this fine reality–based practice). And of course my weight.Whoever wrote that felt free to make things up because I’m fat. To repeat, somebody with access to my file at my only source for affordable health care felt free to write things in it that were completely contradicted by the facts just a few sheets below. There’s no need to fact–check your assumptions when you can tell by looking at her that she’s F–A–T, and everybody knows what they are. They’ll explode and die, every last one of them. Better medicate them now before they inevitably break down!Speaking of which, there’s a particular OB at the practice who I’ll call Doctor Eeyore. At every appointment, Doctor Eeyore would take measurements, stare, and say, “Hmm … tch.” If I asked him to tell me what he had found, he would say, “Too big,” or, “Too small,” or indicate some other inadequacy in his glum, word–miserly way. He only bothered to produce complete sentences when he enthusiastically told me that I would die if I didn’t give birth with an IV in place to administer the life–saving drugs for my inevitable cardiac event... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:In MemoriamForest HansenKingsley Blake Price, Professor of Philosophy at The Johns Hopkins University for more than three decades, died in Baltimore on October 27, 2009, at the age of 92. He had long served as an editorial consultant for PMER and participated in numerous PME international symposia. His personal and academic life drew admiration from his colleagues, students, and friends (overlapping classes).Kingsley was born in Salem, Indiana, where his (...) father was a Baptist minister. The family moved from there to California, and Kingsley grew up in Berkeley. He earned his B.A. with highest honors from University of California, Berkeley (1938) and went on there for his M.A. (1942) and Ph.D. (1946). His dissertation was on Locke’s theory of knowledge. Kingsley taught first at the University of Washington, then at the University of Nevada and Sarah Lawrence College (where he became a good friend of Susanne Langer) before becoming an assistant professor of philosophy and education at Hopkins in 1953. He retired from Hopkins in 1986. In the meantime he published books and articles, presented invited papers, and traveled extensively, especially to England, France, Italy, and Greece. In 1973–74 he was president of the Philosophy of Education Society.What is especially remarkable about this is that Kingsley became blind at the age of four, as a result of undiagnosed scarlet fever. For the rest of his life he was dependent upon others to read to him (he was never keen on taped readings, and was a consultant to the Library of Congress concerning recordings for the blind). He also needed others to help him with daily practical tasks. Yet he remained fiercely independent and lived alone until his death. He did not use a seeing-eye dog and only rarely a white cane.Besides his two books, Education and Philosophical Thought (1962) and On [End Page 194] Criticizing Music (1982), Kingsley published numerous articles and reviews in the Journal of Philosophy, the Review of Metaphysics, the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Educational Theory, the British Journal of Aesthetics, the Philosophy of Music Education Review, and others. His publications were mostly on topics of art (especially music) and education. He had long been working on a manuscript of reflections upon the alleged emotional qualities of music. Kingsley criticized other theories as having inconsistent of otherwise insupportable claims. Some of his former students hope to bring this work to fruition as a book.Kingsley took piano lessons as a youngster and, typically, excelled. As a teenager he placed second in a Major Bowes Amateur Hour radio competition and considered a career as a concert pianist. When one former student asked why he had not pursued that, Kingsley replied that philosophy was more in need of an excellent philosopher than music was of an only good pianist.A February memorial for Kingsley was postponed because of a blizzard in the Baltimore area. On April 25, 2010, former graduate students, readers, colleagues, and friends—some from as far away as California, Wyoming, Hawaii, and Florida—gathered in Baltimore to honor Kingsley and share their remembrances. Besides their expressions of admiration for his philosophical acumen and his rigorous teaching, people noted Kingsley’s high moral principles, his wide range of interests in the humanities, his commitment to efforts promoting world peace, and his connoisseurship in gardening and antique furniture. Many graduate students rode with him on his tandem bicycle, and later invited him to give papers at their colleges. He was a meticulous dresser and was proud of his bow ties, his four-in-hands, and his beret. Besides such personal testimonies by those present, letters by family members, friends abroad, former graduate students, and other friends were read. Photographs were on display, and recordings of some of Kingsley’s favorites by Bach, Schubert, and Vaughan Williams were played.Above all, Kingsley was that rare professor who maintained friendship with many of his students. He is survived by an older brother, two sisters, and numerous nephews, nieces, and their offspring. And by his many friends for whom his life has made a lasting impact. [End Page 195]Forest HansenEaston, Maryland Professor Emeritus, Lake Forest College forestval2... (shrink)

This is part 1 of 6 of the dossier What Do We Talk about when We Talk about Queer Death?, edited by M. Petricola. The contributions collected in this article sit at the crossroads between thanatology and queer theory and tackle questions such as: how can we define queer death studies as a research field? How can queer death studies problematize and rethink the life-death binary? Which notions and hermeneutic tools could be borrowed from other disciplines in order to better (...) define queer death studies? The present article includes the following contributions: – MacCormack P., What does queer death studies mean?; – Radomska M., On queering death studies; – Lykke N., Death as vibrancy; – Hillerup Hansen I., What concreteness will do to resolve the uncertain; – Olson P., Queer objectivity as a response to denials of death; – Manganas N., The queer lack of a chthonic instinct. (shrink)