Bruce Wilshire is Senior Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J. For most of his career he has taught there, although he has also held positions at Purdue University, Indianapolis, and at New York University. He has been Visiting Professor at Oberlin College, Colorado College, and at Texas A & M University.

Through Wilshire's publications he has become known (1) as a William James scholar (William James and Phenomenology: A Study of "The Principles of Psychology," and William James: The Essential Writings ) (2) as a writer on the phenomenology and ontology of theatre (Role Playing and Identity: The Limits of Theatre as Metaphor) (3) as a theorist of education (The Moral Collapse of the University: Professionalism, Purity, and Alienation; he also authored Metaphysics: An Introduction to Philosophy) (4) as a tracer of the connections between humans' evolutionary formation as hunter-gatherers in Nature, on the one hand, and our post agricultural life, ecstasy deprivation, and addiction, on the other (Wild Hunger: The Primal Roots of Modern Addiction ) (5) as a scholar of the deep-rooted affinities between Anglo-American and Indigenous American thought and practice, particularly between Emerson, James, Peirce, on the one hand, and Black Elk, on the other (The Primal Roots of American Philosophy: Pragmatism, Phenomenology, Native American Thought) (6) as a critic of analytic philosophy (Fashionable Nihilism: A Critique of Analytic Philosophy) (7) as a theorist of genocide and terrorism (Get 'Em all, Kill 'Em!: Genocide, Terrorism, Righteous Communities).

Bruce Wilshire has been active on the national scene, both through many presentations in U.S. colleges and universities (see Engagements), and also as a leader of the Committee on Pluralism in the American Philosophical Association (see relevant essays in Fashionable Nihilism). He has also been active internationally, not only through his books, but through lecturing in Europe, Australia, and South America.

As of this date, Wilshire continues to teach and to write. In fall, 2004, he expects to give a graduate seminar at Rutgers University on American philosophy, both Anglo and Indigenous. He was awarded The Herbert Schneider Award for lifetime achievement by the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (2001). He anticipates to thoroughly rewrite Role Playing and Identity, with a view to deepening his understanding of Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. His original book made much of theatre's disclosure of the erosion of authority in the West. He proposes now to deepen this disclosure through explicit treatment of music and music-theatre in prehistoric times (for example, Nietzche's adumbration of the goat-men chorus in the pre-classical Greek era), perhaps also in ancient and modern East Indian music and theatre, then through Wagner's mythic and erotic operas, and into dionysian explorations by, for example, Schoenberg, Berg, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. How does 20th and 21st century music and music theatre attempt to discover new, or more expanded, criteria for authorizing us in our identity? (See the chapter "An Atonal World" in William Barrett's Irrational Man.)

Wilshire welcomes exchange with interested parties. See Contact Page on this website. He values shared interest and concern.

© 2004 Bruce Wilshire. All Rights Reserved.