Bulletin 2020
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Cover design by Jonathan Wotka. The original cover of Overheard in Seville, used in its first thirty-seven issues, showed an enlargement of the figure taken from the emblem on the cover the Triton Edition of Santayana’s works. The Triton Edition was named after the Triton Fountain (Fontana del Tritone) by Bernini, which is in the piazza outside the Bristol Hotel, Santayana’s residence for many years in Rome. The current design restores the emblem to its approximate original size in relation to the cover, embedding it in a yellow background that recalls the gold of the emblem on Constable version of the Triton Edition. The dark blue color, the color that Santayana preferred, also comes close to the blue background of Constable version. For electronic distribution (page numbers link to articles) TABLE OF CONTENTS • Announcement of 2021 Annual Meeting Online, page 2 • Announcement of Online Symposium on Santayana and Emerson, page 3 • Two Online Reading Groups, page 4 • Editor’s Notes, page 5 • The New Cover, page 6 • Bibliographical Checklist Thirty-Fourth Update, page 125 • Some Abbreviations for Santayana’s Works, page 128 • Critical Editions of Santayana’s Works, page 129 • Overheard in Seville Submission Guidelines, page 131 • Announcement of the Angus Kerr-Lawson Prize, page 134 • Contributors, page 135 • Overheard in Seville Publication Information, page 136 ARTICLES Santayana 75, 100, and 125 Years Ago 7 Richard M Rubin 1895—A Philosopher in the Making 7 George Santayana Le Brévent (poem) 13 Charles Padrón 1920—Places and Books 14 Richard M Rubin 1945—Year of Recovery 18 George Santayana Santayana’s letter about Daniel Cory 30 George Santayana Letters to Charles A Loeser 33 Introduction by Daniel Pinkas Matthew Caleb Flamm Santayana Prefers Blondes 39 Charles Padrón Tragic Tension and Ancient Quarrels: 44 Reflections on Philosophers at Court David Dilworth Santayana’s Repression of Goethe 53 Katarzyna Kremplewska Further Reflections on Culture, 66 Humanism, and Individualism in the Context of Santayana’s Political Thought Lydia Amir The Democritean Tradition in 74 Santayana, Nietzsche, and Montaigne Angus Kerr-Lawson Physical Space and Time 93 Krzysztof Piotr Skowroński Santayana as a Stoic Pragmatist in John Lachs’s 109 Interpretation John Lachs Remarks from the Pandemic Conference 123 Overheard in Seville is edited, published, and distributed annually by the George Santayana Society and is archived by the Santayana Edition at Indiana University—Purdue University, Indianapolis. Archived issues are available at: https://www.iupui.edu/~santedit/sant/santayana-society/bulletin/. The George Santayana Society 2021 ANNUAL MEETING The annual meeting of the Society takes place in an online session hosted by IUPUI in Indianapolis. Chair Richard M Rubin George Santayana Society Speaker Nayeli Riano Georgetown University Winner of the 2020 Angus Kerr-Lawson Prize The Psyche as Aesthetic Arbiter of Politics Commentator Jessica Wahman Emory University Speaker David Dilworth SUNY—Stony Brook The Epicurean Roots of Santayana’s Philosophy 13:00-15:00 US EST, Friday, 29 January 2021 The George Santayana Society 2021 ONLINE MEETING The Society holds a session on the topic Santayana and Emerson This special seminar takes place in an online session hosted by IUPUI in Indianapolis. Chair Richard M Rubin George Santayana Society Speaker Ricardo Miguel-Alfonso Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha Emerson, Santayana, and the Natural History of Intellect Commentator Phillip L. Beard Auburn University Commentator David Dilworth SUNY—Stony Brook 13:00-15:00 US EDT, Sunday, 19 September 2021 Two Online Reading Groups The Life of Reason and Wallace Stevens In the fall of 2020, two discussion groups began holding regular meetings on Zoom. The first group (the LR Group) proposed by Eric Sapp, an attorney, plans to read all five volumes of The Life of Reason over the course of two years. The second group (the Stevens Group) proposed by Jerry Griswold, an emeritus professor in literature at San Diego State University, is dedicated to pursuing the possibility that Wallace Stevens used Scepticism and Animal Faith while writing his last book of poems The Rock. Both groups meet monthly in two sessions: Friday at 11 am US Eastern Time and Sunday at 1 pm US Eastern Time. Schedule for the Stevens Group, Schedule for the LR Group, first half of 2021 first half of 2021 Friday Month Sunday Friday Month Sunday 11:00 13:00 11:00 13:00 ET ET ET ET 8 January 10 22 January 24 5 February 7 19 February 21 5 March 7 19 March 21 9 April 11 16 April 18 7 May 9 21 May 23 4 June 6 18 June 20 9 July 11 Announcements about the meetings are sent out approximately one week before with the connection information. Each LR Group session (or pair of sessions) is introduced by a different group par- ticipant who typically prepares a set of questions or selected quotations to start the discussion. The Friday and Sunday sessions are separate. There is no presumed continuity from the Friday to the Sunday session. The Stevens Group is moderated by Jerry Griswold, who usually prepares an essay posted online beforehand that points out the connections he has found between chapters in Scepticism and Animal Faith and poems in The Rock. Sunday sessions typically continue from where Friday sessions leave off. The link to Griswold’s posts and other records of and for the meetings are at https://j-griswold.medium.com/stevens-santayana-aa1def54325d. Editor’s Notes This thirty-eighth issue of Overheard in Seville has a new cover. This is the first time the cover has changed since the original issue in 1983. We have preserved the emblem from the original cover, but restored it to the size and approximate color it had when it appeared on the cover of the Triton Edition of Santayana’s works. The year 2020 began normally. The Annual Meeting of the George Santayana Society took place in Philadelphia in January. Katarzyna Kremplewska flew in from Poland to her give talk. She was followed by Lydia Amir, who had recently returned from Israel. The two articles derived from their presentations appear in this issue. Kremplewska probes the interplay among culture, humanism, and individuals in Santayana’s political thought. Amir focuses her overriding interest in the relation- ship between humor and philosophy on four figures: Democritus, Montaigne, Nie- tzsche, and Santayana. Laughter comes to fore in Matthew Flamm’s refreshing account of Santayana’s appreciation of the œuvre of Anita Loos. Charles Padrón gives us his thoughts about Santayana’s early play Philosophers at Court. David Dilworth concludes his three- part essay on Santayana and modernism with a defense of Goethe against Santa- yana’s criticism. John Lachs is the subject of Chris Skowroński’s article on Lachs’s reading of Santayana as a Stoic pragmatist. John Lachs has a contribution of his own. We had planned another Santayana session at the Pacific APA meeting in San Francisco, but the COVID-19 virus made that impossible. Other possibilities opened up, however, and in May we offered a well-attended Zoom session in conjunction with the Berlin Practical Philosophy In- ternational Forum e.V., on the topic “Harmony and Well-Being: Reflections about the Pandemic in Light of George Santayana’s Philosophy.” That session can be viewed at http://berlinphilosophyforum.org/santayana-video-session-harmony/. Near the end of the session, Professor Lachs offered some concluding remarks. A transcript of those remarks is included in this issue. Angus Kerr-Lawson, one of the founding editors of this Bulletin, left an incom- plete manuscript of a book on Santayana when he died in 2011. In this issue, we present the first selection from this book to be published. For the fourth year now, we have biographical sketches of Santayana 75, 100, and 125 years ago. The story of 1895 makes much use of the recently discovered letters to Charles A. Loeser, one of Santayana’s first college friends. Daniel Pinkas, who located them at Harvard, introduces photos and texts of two of these letters. In his account of 1920, Charles Padrón reflects on some of the nuances of Santayana’s politics that came into view that year. The chronicle of 1945 covers four aspects of Santayana’s life: finances, gifts, visitors, and his great-nephew Bob Sturgis. The viewpoint of the visiting soldiers comes to life in a poem by Edith Henrich. This issue also includes the regular Bibliographic Checklist Update compiled by Daniel Moreno with additional contributions from Guido Tamponi. The volunteer efforts of many people go into making an issue of the Bulletin. At the end of 2020, Hector Galván became Associate Editor. His help in the prepara- tion of this issue has been immense. Thanks go to the authors for their painstaking labors in producing their contributions and their patience throughout the revision process and to the editorial board for their many hours of editing and proofreading. RICHARD MARC RUBIN Editor and President, George Santayana Society The New Cover The new design began as a project for a design student, Jonathan Wotka. He spent some time talking to Herman Saatkamp, who helped select the original cover of Overheard in Seville. From these discussions, it became apparent that preserving an image of Triton, the son of the Greek sea god Poseidon, would be important. Santayana lived for many years in the Hotel Bristol in Rome on the Piazza Bar- berini. In the Piazza is the Bernini fountain the Fontana del Tritone. From 1936 to 1940, Santayana’s publishers, Scribner’s in New York and Constable in London, issued a deluxe multivolume edition of his works called the Triton Edition. The Constable version volumes had dark blue covers with a gold-embossed emblem in the center containing a Triton figure.