A considerable portion of the Wagner material serves as a testament to Wagner’s interest in and devotion to the work of Alfred Schutz. As a friend, biographer and former student of Schutz, Wagner established an impressive body of work on his mentor, including a monumental biography of which only an edited version appeared in print. Among the collection’s numerous Wagner essays on Schutz are “Alfred Schutz’s Importance for Sociology,” “Methodology and Research Techniques of Alfred Schutz’s Sociology” and “Social Field and Situational Intersubjectivity: Complementary Polarities in early works of Gurwitsch and Schutz.” The collection also contains Wagner’s analysis of the correspondence between Schutz and Aron Gurwitsch, as well as a detailed commentary on the Schutz-Voeglin correspondence that includes personal reflections by Wagner on Schutz’s style of working, in addition to an historical account of how the work of Gurwitsch and Felix Kaufmann informed the debate between Schutz and Voeglin. Included as well are several meticulously detailed indexes of Schutz’s correspondence (compiled by Wagner), listing Schutz’s correspondents, together with information as to the date and content of the correspondence in question. There are also various drafts of Wagner’s translation of Schutz’s Life Forms and Meaning Structure, including Wagner’s correspondence with the publisher.
In addition to the work on Schutz, the Helmut R. Wagner Papers contain a host of material attesting to the diversity of Wagner’s interests. There are empirical studies (“Management and Labor in a Small Shop”), theoretical works (“Systematic Sociological Theory: Universe or Multiverse?”; “Signs, Symbols, and Interaction Theory”), historical studies (“The Influence of German Phenomenology on American Sociology”), works on the sociology of religion (Church And Authority in Early Lutheranism; Authority and Theocracy in Calvinism; Sociology of Magic and Religion: In the Light of Max Weber’s Theory), and studies of various sociologists whose work was of interest to Wagner (“General Theory of Action Systems: A Critical Appraisal of Talcott Parsons’ Sociology”; “James Mickel Williams: Forgotten Pioneer of Modern American Sociology”; “Max Weber On Social Stratification: Class and Social Order”). There are also several lengthy works on the political and sociological effects of cold war Soviet occupation, such as the two-volume study, The Sovietization of East Germany, and the three-volume The Cultural Sovietization of East Germany. Of biographical as well as scholarly interest are such materials as the Master’s Thesis Wagner submitted to the New School for Social Research (Mannheim’s Historicism: A Study in Sociology of Knowledge [1952]), and Schutz’s personal comments on a proposed chapter of Wagner’s dissertation. And given the growing body of literature on the philosophy of Henri Bergson, Wagner’s analysis of the influence Bergson had on the early work of Alfred Schutz (cf. “The Bergsonian Period of Alfred Schutz” in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Dec. 1977, Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2), together with Wagner’s own book exploring the link between Bergson and phenomenology (A Bergsonian Bridge to Phenomenological Psychology, with Ilja Surba), provide timely insight into some of the earliest investigations of Bergson’s work by American phenomenologists. These and hundreds of other manuscripts are to be found among the in the Wagner Papers at the University of Memphis.
Additional Resources
Felix Kaufmann
In addition to the Wagner Papers, the Archival Repository at the University of Memphis contains thousands of documents by other leading American scholars, all of whom drew inspiration from phenomenological theory and methodology. The most extensive of these additional collections is that of Felix Kaufmann, which includes 29 small, softbound notebooks and 45 larger, hardbound notebooks containing course lectures on such topics as “Dewey’s Logic,” “The significance of mathematics for the social sciences” and “Political Education and Socialism”. Also among the Kaufmann material are numerous essays in various stages of realization (drafts, revisions, hand-corrected typescripts, etc.). These essays include “The Pursuit of Clarity,” “Three meanings of ‘truth’,” “Basic Issues in Logical Positivism,” “What is a scientific problem?” and “John Dewey’s Theory of Inquiry”. Of special interest are Kaufmann’s letters. The Kaufmann Collection contains extensive correspondence between Kaufmann and such figures as Karl Popper, Alfred Schutz (with a detailed catalogue by Helmut Wagner), Eugen Fink, Rudolph Carnap and Arthur F. Bentley. Other correspondents represented in the collection include Bertrand Russell, Jan Patochka, Alfred Tarski, Carl Gustav Hempel, Roman Ingarden, Ludwig Landgrebe and John Dewey. Also included is Kaufmann’s correspondence with members of Husserl’s family (with an accompanying catalogue by José Huertas-Jourdas). Of biographical interest is Kaufmann’s “Memo On Dr. Eugen Fink,” which was written in an effort to secure a visiting professorship for Fink at the New School in spring of 1949, and in which Kaufmann—in addition to lauding Fink as “probably the most gifted living phenomenologist”—provides an account of Fink’s academic career to date (including Fink’s refusal of Heidegger’s offer to help advance Fink’s career in Germany). Another item of interest among the Kaufmann material is a bound lecture notebook containing a typescript of Husserl’s “Die Krisis des europaeischen Menschentums und Philosophie,” dated May 7th, 1935. Included as well is Kaufmann’s 1923 manuscript, Die Idee der logischen Grundwissenschaft, and a manuscript by Heinrich Behmann entitled, Zur Frage der Konstruktivitat von Beweisen, together with correspondence between Kaufmann and Behmann.
Alfred Schutz
Among the repository’s Schutz material are mimeograph copies of various essays by Schutz, including “Equality and Meaning Structure,” as well as copies of Schutz’s notebooks (containing such entries as “notes on Jean Wahl’s Bergson”). Also among this material is Schutz’s correspondence with Kaufmann, Fink, Spiegelberg et al. Particularly helpful here is Helmut Wagner’s detailed index of Schutz’s correspondence. Wagner also compiled an index of courses taught by Schutz at the New School from 1943 to 1948 (this index is included among the Schutz documents).
Erwin Straus
Also in the repository is a box which contains, according to the accompanying index, the Gesammelte Schriften of Erwin Straus. This collection of 82 folders is primarily made up of photocopies of Straus’s published works, in both German and English, accompanied by an index prepared by Stuart F. Spicker (dated May 6, 1973). Among the works represented here are essays presented by Straus at the Lexington Conferences on Phenomenology: Pure and Applied, a conference founded by Straus. There are also several additional folders of material not included in Spicker’s index.
Winthrop Bell
The Winthrop Bell material is comprised of xeroxed copies of a variety of Bell’s works, accompanied by an anonymous “Finding List For Winthrop Bell Papers.” Included in the material is a copy of Bell’s Ph.D. dissertation, Eine kritische Untersuchung der Erkenntnistheorie Josiah Royce’s. In addition there are a number of essays by Bell, as well as class notes taken when Bell was a student and dating for 1911 to 1917. Among the latter material are notes from a seminar on Lotze’s “Logik” given by Husserl in Gottingen in summer of 1912.
Microfilm
In addition to the Wagner documents that have been transferred to microfilm so far, the archive also has on microfilm The Hannah Arendt Papers (15 rolls), The Felix Kaufmann Papers (10 rolls), The Manuscripts of Franz Brentano (rolls 1-7; roll 34) and The Alfred Schutz Papers (7 rolls, consisting of documents from the archive at the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology). There are also two rolls containing work by Husserl (Psychologische und Logische untersuchungen; Philosophie als Strenge Wissenschaft), and a single roll consisting of Wilhelm Schapp’s Beitrage Zur Phanomenologie Der Wahrnehmung.
Proceedings
Proceedings available at the archival repository are as follows:
An International Conference: “Husserl And The Idea of Phenomenology,” University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, April 10-13, 1969. Includes papers by H. G. Gadamer, Roman Ingarden, Al Lingis, Herbert Spiegelberg et al.
8th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, Ohio University, April 9-11, 1976. (5 copies.)
9th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, Penn State, April 1-3, 1977.
14th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, Colorado State University, May 27-31, 1982. Includes papers by Kathleen Haney, Dallas Willard et al.
15th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, Emory University, June 2-5, 1983. Includes papers by William McKenna, Herbert Spiegelberg et al.
16th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, University of Toronto, May 24-27, 1984. Includes papers by David Carr, Lester Embree, Kathleen Haney et al.
18th Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, DePaul University, June 27-30, 1986. Includes papers by Claude Evans, Harry Reeder et al.
21st Annual Meeting of the Husserl Circle, Colorado State University, Aug. 10-14, 1989. Includes papers by José Huertas-Jourda, Tom Nenon et al.
Heidegger Conference: International Colloquium on Heidegger’s Conception of Langauge, Penn State, September 18-21, 1969. Includes papers by Otto Poggeler, Walter Biemel, Henri Birault (handwritten draft), Joseph J. Kockelmans et al.
10th Annual Meeting of the Heidegger Circle, Wilfred Laurier University, Waterloo, Ontario, May 16-18, 1975. Includes papers by Walter Biemel, Theodore Kiesiel, Joan Stambaugh et al.
10th Annual Heidegger Conference, DePaul University, May 14-16, 1976. Includes papers by John Caputo, Reiner Schurmann et al.
12th Annual Heidegger Conference, Villanova University, May 26-28, 1978. Includes papers by Parvis Emad, Don Ihde, Thomas Sheehan, Joan Stambaugh et al. (2 copies.)
13th Annual Heidegger Conference, Duquesne University, May 18-20, 1979. Includes papers by Reiner Schurmann, Wilhelm Wurzer et al.
14th Annual Heidegger Conference, University of Toronto, May 16-18, 1980. Includes papers by John Caputo, Parvis Emad, Charles Scott et al.
Internationale Phanomenologische Studientage, Vol. 1, Main Programme, Berlin, 1974. Includes papers by Klaus Held, Paul Ricoeur et al.
Internationale Phanomenologische Studientage, Vol. 2, Auxillary Programme, Berlin, 1974. Includes papers by Robert Sokolowski et al.
Miscellaneous Items
One manuscript copy of Dallas Willard’s Studies in Husserl’s Early Philosophy. Among the proceedings are to be found three book-length essays: Entendons-Nous Logiquement—un essai, by Laurent Godbout; Five Papers On The Foundations of Mathematics, by John Tucker; Practical Phenomenology: Introductory Lectures in the Theory and Method of Husserl’s Phenomenology, by Harry P. Reeder (for those interested in research on Felix Kaufmann, and who wish to consult documents not available in the archive at the University of Memphis, cf. Reeder’s The Work of Felix Kaufmann for an indispensable index and classification of nearly twenty thousand pages of Kaufmann’s manuscripts, correspondence and bound notebooks preserved in the archive at the Center for Advanced Research in Phenomenology). In the box of material by Erwin Straus is a detailed “Bibliography of The Posthumous Papers of John Wild,” compiled by Richard I. Sugarman and Roger B. Duncan (according to the bibliography, these papers are currently at the University of Vermont at Burlington, c/o Richard I. Sugarman).
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