Franco-Marsh Companion Comes Closer
Leslie Marsh and Paul Franco’s forthcoming Companion to Michael Oakeshott now has its own companion web site.
Although the book still does not get a mention on the web site of the publisher, Penn State University Press, the chapter line-up has reportedly been finalized. To mark this milestone, Leslie has created a new site for the book that reveals the table of contents and also offers a sample extract from the Introduction.
Judging by the new site, the book looks like it will be a must-buy for Oakeshott students. The contributors ably represent both the first and second generations of Oakeshott scholars. The sixteen chapters cover the long-debated “usual suspect” topics (such as Oakeshott’s political philosophy, his Idealism, conservatism and critique of Rationalism) as well as more recently-exposed aspects of Oakeshott’s thought (such as his religious sensibility and aesthetics). In addition, Robert Grant, Oakeshott’s biographer, is contributing a chapter on Oakeshott’s life and times.
Best of all, several of the chapters promise not just to describe and discuss Oakeshott’s thought, but also to criticise it — a quality that has been a little under-represented in the recent literature.
For further details, check out the extracts on the companion site or on Leslie’s personal site where they have been cross-posted.
Oakeshott Memorial Lecture, LSE, 19th October 2011
Are adverbial rules enough?
Michael Oakeshott famously distinguished the character of a state, as opposed to an enterprise association, as something that derives from the imposition of adverbial constraints on action rather than the adoption of social goals. Oliver Letwin [explores] the extent to which this is, and the extent to which it is not, an adequate account of what we can legitimately demand from the modern liberal state.
Oliver Letwin MP is Britain’s Minister of State for Government Policy, and (amongst other things) a former philosophy don. For further information about this lecture, see the London School of Economics’s event page.
Update (24 October, 2011): Now you can listen to the LSE’s podcast of the 2011 Oakeshott memorial lecture online.
2011 MOA Conference Program
The program for this month’s tenth Michael Oakeshott Association conference is now available for download as a PDF.
Jay Sigler on Oakeshott from 1968
I only recently stumbled upon this article about Oakeshott in the 1968 issue of New Individualist Review, but since it is freely readable online it deserves to be noted.
Jay Sigler discusses Oakeshott’s political thought, focusing on the essays in Rationalism in Politics but also drawing out its relationship with Oakeshott’s philosophy as expressed in Experience and its Modes.
MOA Conference Travel Grants now open
The George Feaver Young Scholars Fund, administered by the Michael Oakeshott Association (MOA), is seeking applications for grants enabling attendance at the fifth MOA conference to be held at the University of Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma from October 13-16, 2011 on the theme of “Religion, Politics and the Future of Liberal Education“.
The focus of the conference will be Oakeshott’s understanding of liberal education and the contemporary university. Also central will be the possible relationships among university education, politics and religion.
George Feaver Young Scholars Fund grants are intended to defray travel and accommodation expenses associated with attending the conference and are targeted at PhD candidates or early career scholars (no more than five years since PhD was secured) with an interest in the work of Michael Oakeshott.
Successful applicants will be expected to:
- present a paper at the conference;
- attend the entire conference;
- submit a brief written report describing their conference experience
To apply, email (subject heading “George Feaver Young Scholars Fund Application,”) Dr. Elizabeth Corey (Elizabeth_Corey@baylor.edu) by April 15, 2011.
Please include:
- a current curriculum vitae
- an abstract of no more than 500 words of the paper you intend to present, if accepted
Potential authors should strive both to engage Oakeshott’s work on its own terms and to locate it in broader discussions about education, religion and politics. Papers that compare Oakeshott to other relevant thinkers are encouraged.
Candidates will be notified by June 15, 2011 as to whether their application has been successful.
For further information about George Feaver and the Fund, see George Feaver Young Scholars Fund.