Oakeshott’s place in the Big Society
A pingback from an LSE blog has alerted us to a new book that apparently bears the marks of Oakeshott’s influence.
Jesse Norman, British Conservative and local campaigner, has been a long-time Oakeshottian. He edited one of the first posthumous anthologies on Oakeshott, The Achievement of Michael Oakeshott (Duckworth, London, 1993). Now he has reportedly drawn on Oakeshott in his recent book, The Big Society: the Anatomy of the New Politics (University of Buckingham Press, November 2010).
For further information, check out the following links:
- LSE Professor Paul Kelly’s review of Norman’s book
- The “Look Inside” preview at Amazon UK
- The sample Introduction (PDF format) available from Norman’s personal web site
A second Oakeshott conference
It looks like this year’s tenth anniversary MOA conference, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is not going to be the only conference devoted to Oakeshott this October. A joint Spanish-American effort has announced its own colloquium on Oakeshott, to be held at California State University.
Oakeshott, Dewey and democratic skepticism
Oakeshott’s “skepticism” and “non-foundationalism” seem to be topics of growing interest. The theme was picked up by Aryeh Botwinick in his recently released book, and in December a (relatively) new voice joined the choir. Conor Williams, summarising his recently defended dissertation, declared:
Despite their surface-level differences [one a political progressive, the other decidedly not] there are some surprising affinities between the two on a more theoretical level…In essence, both recognized the importance of historical context in political right, but refused to settle for pure multi-culturalism. The technical terms are eye-poppingly awkward: they both accept a coherentist approach to truth, an idealist epistemology, and discomfort with metaphysics/ontology…How could they be so similar and so different?
We look forward to the book.
Thanks to Recent Donors
As President of the Michael Oakeshott Association, I would like to recognize and thank some of our recent donors. Dan Crosby has made a generous donation to the Association’s general fund. The George Feaver Young Scholars Fund has received generous support from Dr. Diane Mauzy & Dr. R.S. Milne and from Dr. and Mrs. Robert Banks.
The Association is very grateful to past and present donors for their support. The Association holds a biennial conference, and is exploring the possibility of providing more active support for research on Oakeshott in a variety of different ways, of which the George Feaver Fund for Young Scholars, is one example. To continue our now ten year tradition of holding conferences, and to extend the reach of our activities, we will, of course, need financial support. So I would like to encourage all members of the Association, and readers of Oakeshott to follow the example of those who have given financial support to the Michael Oakeshott Association. And we hope to see many of you in Tulsa!
Donors can send checks to:
Michael Oakeshott Association
c/o Mark North
2625 Alcatraz Avenue, #177
Berkeley, CA 94705
Thank you again, to all those who have supported the MOA, including the many past donors not named here. – Corey Abel
2011 MOA Conference: Call for Papers
Religion, Politics and the Future of Liberal Education
The Tenth Anniversary Meeting of the
Michael Oakeshott Association, 2001-2011
UNIVERSITY OF TULSA
OCTOBER 13-16, 2011
2011 marks the tenth anniversary of the founding of the Michael Oakeshott Association, a group established to encourage the critical study of one of the twentieth century’s most important political philosophers. Previous conferences have taken place at the London School of Economics, Colorado College, the University of Jena in Germany, and Baylor University.
The University of Tulsa will host the Association’s meetings this year. The focus of the conference will be Oakeshott’s understanding of liberal education and the contemporary university. Also central will be the possible relationships between university education, politics and religion. 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.
Abstracts, no more than 500 words, should be sent by April 15, 2011 to Elizabeth_Corey@baylor.edu. Abstracts should also include:
- title of paper
- full name(s)
- affiliation
- current position
- email address