Stonewall

In light of my recent infatuation with certain houses-- 95 Irving Street in Cambridge, and the "14 doors opening out" summer home they now call "Stonewall," in Chocorua, New Hampshire, specifically-- Alain de Botton's Architecture of Happiness offers some interesting insights.

John Ruskin proposed that we seek two things of our buildings. We want them to shelter us. And we want them to speak to us - to speak to us of whatever we find important and need to be reminded of.

What a load of expectation to place on any mere human construction. But those two buildings in New England reminded me how important it is to have a place to hang not just your hat, but your head too.

I toured Stonewall a week ago this afternoon, with a group of Jamesian pilgrims. The stone wall in this image is not the wall, where James and his metaphysical idealist bete noire Josiah Royce perched for their staged debate-it's out back, just to the right.

In Our Time

What an intelligent, insightful, English look at William James and his Varieties of Religious Experience on the latest installment of the BBC's radio program "In Our Time." But one of  the panelists complained near the end that the Americans oddly were planning no public commemoration of the impending centenary of James's August 1910 death. That may have been the only incontestably-false statement on the show.

The William James Society (http://wjsociety.org), in cooperation with the Chocorua Community Association and Harvard’s Houghton Library, is planning a long-weekend symposium, August 13-16, 2010, to honor the life of James on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his death. In the spirit of James, the symposium, “In the Footsteps of William James,” will be an opportunity to explore the local settings of James’s life and to reflect on James’s ability to encounter experience afresh and approach problems creatively.

The symposium will be held in two places: in Chocorua, NH, and Cambridge, MA, and it will include:

􀂃 opportunities to explore James’s settings in Chocorua, including his summer home and hiking trails, along with performance of period music and stories of his experiences in the area;

􀂃 attendance at the opening of the Houghton Library’s exhibition on James;

􀂃 tour of James’s Cambridge, including his home and work settings;

􀂃 presentations by leading scholars and public intellectuals on James’s life, work, and impact;

􀂃 seminar conversations with James experts to allow more informal and in-depth exploration and reflection.

Please see the William James Society web page (http://wjsociety.org, under Symposium 2010) for more information, as it becomes available, on schedule, speakers, registration, and other attendance information.