Maxine Sheets-Johnstone

Courtesy Professor of Philosophy, University of Oregon

Maxine Sheets-Johnstone is a philosopher whose first life was as a dancer/choreographer, professor of dance/dance scholar. She has an ongoing Courtesy Professor appointment in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Oregon where she taught periodically in the 1990s. She has published numerous articles in humanities, art, and science journals, the latter journals most recently being Psychotherapy and Politics International andAnthropological Theory. Her books include The Phenomenology of DanceThe Roots of ThinkingThe Roots of Power: Animate Form and Gendered BodiesThe Roots of MoralityThe Primacy of MovementThe Corporeal Turn: An Interdisciplinary Reader. She received an M.A. in Dance and a Ph.D. in Dance and Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin where she also studied for but did not complete a second doctorate in evolutionary biology. She was awarded a Distinguished Fellowship for her studies of xenophobia by the Institute of Advanced Study, Durham University, UK, in its inaugural year, the theme of which was “The Legacy of Charles Darwin.”

Participant In:

Life and Movement

Friday, October 26th
7:00 - 9:00PM

Past Event

How does the study of evolution, coordination dynamics, sports, social interactions, and aesthetics help us understand movement and life? In this roundtable, we will explore: movement and objects as distinctively different “things” to study; coordination dynamics and intrinsic dynamics and tendencies; kinesthesia; the evolution of social coordination; how, in the living company of others, we… read more »

Male-Male Competition: Globalization, War, and Violence

Saturday, October 27th
2:30 - 4:30PM

Past Event

Little attention is paid to the fact that in his book, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex, Darwin devoted twelve chapters to male-male competition (describing it as “the law of battle”), detailing intra-species male morphological and behavioral differences from molluscs through mammals, arriving finally and specifically at human mammals. Though this “law”… read more »