Daniel Smith
Please join me in congratulating Daniel Smith, professor of philosophy, who recently received a National Endowment for the Humanities grant to translate a series of seminar lectures given by French philosopher Gilles Deleuze.
The two-year award for $175,000 will allow Daniel and his colleagues to translate several lectures that Deleuze (1925–1995) gave at the University of Paris 8, where he taught for many years. Deleuze, who authored more than 25 books, is widely recognized as one of the most influential and important French philosophers of the second half of the 20th century. Several of his books, such as Nietzsche and Philosophy and Difference and Repetition, have become classics in their fields. Large crowds attended his seminar series from 1979–1987, and student recordings were archived in the National Library of France. The translations will be posted online and freely available to scholars.
The transcriptions of the seminars were supported by a Global Synergy Grant from the College, which continued work that had been initiated by a team at the University of Paris 8 at Vincennes/St. Denis. Daniel also has translated two of Deleuze’s books, Francis Bacon: The Logic of Sensation and Essays Critical and Clinical.
Daniel’s collaborators include Nicolae Morar, a Purdue alumnus and an assistant professor in philosophy and environmental studies at the University of Oregon, and Thomas Nail, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Denver. The project’s translators are Mary Beth Mader, a professor of philosophy at the University of Memphis; Melissa McMahon, a professional translator who earned her doctorate degree in philosophy at the University of Sydney; and Chris Penfield, who received his doctorate degree in philosophy from Purdue in 2015. He is also working with the French National Library, the University of Paris 8 at Vincennes/St. Denis, and the Purdue University Research Repository.
Congratulations to you and your team, Professor Smith!
David A. Reingold
Justin S. Morrill Dean
College of Liberal Arts