Hugh J. Silverman

Hugh J. Silverman (born August 17, 1945 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American philosopher and cultural theorist whose writing, lecturing, teaching, editing, and innovative international conferencing has participated in the development of a postmodern network that reaches around the world. He is Executive Director of [http://www.iapl.info The International Association for Philosophy and Literature] and Professor of Philosophy and Comparative Literary & Cultural Studies at Stony Brook University (New York, USA) where he is also affiliated with the Department of Art and the Department of European Languages, Literatures, and Cultures. He is also co-founder and co-director of the annual International Philosophical Seminar since 1991 in Alto Adige, Italy. From 1980-86, he served as Executive Co-Director of the [http://www.spep.org Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy] . His work draws upon deconstruction, hermeneutics, semiotics, phenomenology, aesthetics, art theory, film theory, and the archeology of knowledge.

Biography

Silverman was awarded the inaugural Fulbright-Distinguished Chair in the Humanities at the University of Vienna(Austria) for 2000-01 and an Institute for Advanced Study Distinguished Fellowship at [http://www.latrobe.edu.au/ias/ Michael J. Osborne Centre Institute for Advanced Study at La Trobe University] (Melbourne, Australia) for June-July 2008. He was honored with the Helsinki Medal by the Rector of the University of Helsinki (Finland) in 1997 and was Visiting Senior Fellow at the Institute for the Human Sciences (Vienna, Austria) in 1998. He received the State University of New York Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching and was awarded an American Council of Learned Societies (NEH) Fellowship in 1980-81.

Since 1980, he has held visiting professorships at the University of Warwick and the University of Leeds (UK), University of Torino and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universit%C3%A0_degli_Studi_di_Roma_Tor_Vergata University of Rome-Tor Vergata] (Italy), University of Vienna and University of Klagenfurt (Austria), University of Helsinki and University of Tampere (Finland), University of Sydney and University of Tasmania in Hobart (Australia), University of Trondheim (Norway), and University College, Cork (Ireland), University of Nice (Faculte des Lettres)(France).

He received his doctorate from Stanford University (1973) with a Fulbright -French Government Scholarship to France (1971-71) and an FASCEA Scholarship in Paris (1968). After teaching at Stanford for a year, he joined the Stony Brook University Philosophy faculty in 1974 (with a joint title appointment in Comparative Literature).

Publications

Silverman has published more than 25 books, over 100 articles and book chapters, and has delivered over 400 invited lectures in North and South America, Europe, Scandinavia, Australia, Korea, and Taiwan.

His authored books include:
*"Textualities: Between Hermeneutics and Deconstruction" (Routledge, 1994), translated into German as [http://www.turia.at/titel/silv.html "Textualitäten: Zwischen Hermeneutik und Dekonstruktion"] (Turia + Kant, 1979), Italian as [http://www.spirali.com/product.php3?prodid=712 "Testualità tra ermeneutica e deconstruzione"] with an introduction to the Italian Reader (Spirali, 2003), and Arabic, and
* [http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Inscriptions/Hugh-J-Silverman/e/9780810114968/ "Inscriptions: After Phenomenology and Structuralism"] (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 2nd ed., Northwestern University Press, 1997 ).

His more than twenty-three edited and co-edited books in English, German, Spanish, and Korean include studies of Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Sartre, Piaget, Žižek, hermeneutics, deconstruction, and postmodern theory.He is also known for his published translations and editions of Merleau-Ponty's writings into English.

As Editor of the [http://www.routledge.com/books/series/Continental_Philosophy Routledge Continental Philosophy] series, volumes are both edited and introduced by Professor Silverman. Book titles include:
*(1988/1997) "Philosophy and Non-Philosophy since Merleau-Ponty"
*(1989) "Derrida and Deconstruction"
*(1990) "Postmodernism--Philosophy and the Arts"
*(1991) "Gadamer and Hermeneutics"
*(1994) "Questioning Foundations: Truth / Subjectivity / Culture"
*(1998) "Cultural Semiosis: Tracing the Signifier"
*(2000) "Philosophy and Desire"
*(2003) "Lyotard: Philosophy, Politics, and the Sublime"

Book Series Editor

In addition to the Routledge Continental Philosophy Series, he is editor of the [http://www.prometheusbooks.com/index.php?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=silverman Humanity Books] "Philosophy and Literary Theory" series and co-editor of the Humanity Books "Contemporary Studies in Philosophy and the Human Sciences" , he is also editor of the [http://www.rowmanlittlefield.com/Catalog/Flyer2.shtml?SKU=0742534170 Rowman & Littlefield - Lexington Books "New Frameworks for Continental Philosophy"] series and the [http://covers.rowmanlittlefield.com/L/07/391/0739124099.jpgIAPL Lexington Books "TEXTURES: Philosophy / Literature / Culture"] book series.

Earlier series edited by Professor Silverman with a number of published books in each include "Contemporary Studies in Philosophy and Literature" (SUNY Press) and the [http://nupress.northwestern.edu/Titles/SeriesSubjects/tabid/59/title/tabid/66.Default.aspx?SeriesID=13 "Philosophy. Literature, Culture" Series] (Northwestern University Press)

Intellectual Links

Professor Silverman writes and teaches particularly in the areas of continental philosophy, aesthetics, postmodern ethics, and cultural / art / film / social theory. His work builds upon the writings of Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Jacques Derrida, Mikel Dufrenne, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jean-Francois Lyotard, and is in dialogue with major contemporary figures such as Julia Kristeva, Gianni Vattimo, Mario Perniola, and Carlo Sini. His writings draw upon the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger, Hans-Georg Gadamer, and Paul Ricoeur.

Additional References

* [http://www.agalmaweb.org/articoli3.php?rivistaID=13 Mario Perniola: "Pensare il Between. Sul pensiero di Hugh J. Silverman"]
*"Hugh J. Silverman" in James R. Watson, "Portraits of American Continental Philosophers" (Indiana University Press, 1999), 186-202 ISBN 0253213371, 9780253213372

External links

* [http://ms.cc.sunysb.edu/~hsilverman/ Hugh J. Silverman]
* [http://www.iapl.info The International Association for Philosophy and Literature]
* [http://www.dif-ferance.org/4771/69638.html Society for the Study of Difference]