Colin Koopman
Robert F. and Evelyn Nelson Wulf Professor of Humanities
Associate Professor, Department of Philosophy
University of Oregon
Walter Lippmann and John Dewey Roundtable
FRIDAY, APRIL 15 • 1:00-3:15p
Colin Koopman works primarily through the critical traditions of Pragmatism and Genealogy, with an eye toward using methods and concepts from these two traditions to engage current issues in politics, ethics, and culture. He is currently working on a few related research projects including, Infopolitics. This project focuses on the overlay between information and politics in the context of liberal democratic cultures. He aims to use genealogy to historically problematize informational cultures and deploys pragmatism to develop a future-oriented pluralistic response to this problematization. Koopman’s long-term project is Philosophy as Cultural Critique which aims to bring into focus an engaged conception of philosophy exhibited in diverse traditions and figures in the history of philosophical thought. He is the author of two books: Genealogy as Critique: Foucault and the Problems of Modernity (Indiana Univ. Press, 2013); and Pragmatism as Transition: Historicity and Hope in James, Dewey, and Rorty (Columbia Univ. Press, 2009). He founded the Critical Genealogies Collaboratory and has written pieces in the New York Times and The New Inquiry.