The Objectivist Center is offering a paid 10-12 week internship at its offices. The internship is intended to provide training in writing on Objectivist themes. In addition, unpaid internship applications and fellowship project ideas will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
More information along with the application is available on the internship and fellowship page of the TOC web site.The application deadline is April 9, 2004.
Category: The Atlasphere
All things Atlasphere can be found here, columns, podcasts, interesting anecdotes, and more.
TOC Graduate Scholarships
The Objectivist Center has announced plans to offer up to a maximum of $12,000 annually in living expenses and tuition and fees to support qualified graduate students pursuing advanced degrees in philosophy and closely related fields such as psychology and cognitive science. The application Deadline for Fall 2004 is March 1st.
More information and application forms are available on the graduate scholarship page of the TOC web site.
New 'We the Living' Movie Site
Duncan Scott Productions has launched a new web site for the We the Living movie, which includes historical information about the movie as well as a link to purchase the video via PayPal.
The Atlasphere recently published a two-part interview with Duncan Scott, wherein he talks extensively about his experiences releasing the movie in America, with Ayn Rand’s approval and guidance.
…Stay tuned for developing news about the big screen re-release of We the Living in San Francisco next month.
IHS Summer Seminars
Interested in receiving training to help advance the cause of liberty? The Institute for Humane Studies is offering a variety of free seminars targeted towards students and recent graduates who want to bolster their understanding of the economic, political, and cultural foundations of liberty.
From their seminar overview:
If you’re like many students, you’re not quite satisfied with standard answers to social and political issues. You like to think for yourself, and you often come up with answers that don’t fit neatly into “left” or “right” pigeonholes.
In the face of new global challenges, IHS seminars provide an opportunity to re-examine society and politics from outside the usual boundaries. They open a window on the classical liberal or libertarian perspective – a perspective that begins with individual liberty and explores where that leads for the individual, community, government, economy, culture…
The seminars are offered in a number of locations across the country. Visit the IHS summer seminars page for further details.
Lecture on Kay Nolte Smith in Washington, D.C.
Atlasphere columnist Michelle Fram-Cohen will be delivering a lecture entitled “A Tribute to Kay Nolte Smith” at the Washington Metro Objectivism Discussion (WMOD) group on Saturday, January 31st.
From her recent column for the Atlasphere on this same topic:
This year is the tenth anniversary of Kay Nolte Smith’s death. It is hard to believe that less than twenty years ago, her novels stirred up an audience of admirers of Rand’s work yearning for romantic writings, and were the topic of animated discussions, while today, all but one of her eight books are out of print. Yet Kay Nolte Smith was the most prolific, successful and original
novelist to come out of Ayn Rand’s inner circle.
For more information about her upcoming lecture, see the WMOD announcement on their web site.
Ed Hudgins on Bush's State of the Union
TOC Washington Director Ed Hudgins has written a response to George W. Bush’s State of the Union speech.
His primary criticism is that Bush and the Republicans in general act “based on sentiments or short-term pragmatism rather than on a consistent set of core principles.” Hudgins argues that this way of making policy and governing leads to limitations on individual liberty and autonomy.
Hudgins explains how the Republicans should govern:
If Bush and the Republicans lived up to their limited government reputation, they would hold to the principles of individual liberty on which America was founded. The purpose of government, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence, was to protect the life, liberty and property of each citizen. The federal government, as established by the Constitution, had certain limited and enumerated powers, with all other powers reserved for the states and the people. A system of checks and balances was established and a Bill of Rights added to make certain that government didn?t get out of hand.
These principles in turn were based on the understanding that individuals are ends in themselves; that they own their own lives; that to survive and prosper they must be free to act; that they thus should be left alone and in turn should leave others to live as they see fit. Based on these principles it is generally easy to judge which functions of government are legitimate and which are not. Thus government welfare programs are seen as based on the altruist principle that individuals must take care of others and be forced by government to do so, which of course limits everyone?s personal autonomy.
His full response is available on the TOC web site.
Maryland Seminar on Ayn Rand's Vision
In February, the Fountainhead Institute will be sponsoring a seminar in Maryland on applying Ayn Rand’s vision to your own life:
Ayn Rand’s Vision: Understanding It And Using It In Your Life
A weekend seminar on applying Objectivism to your life. The seminar will be taught by Marsha Enright of The Fountainhead Institute on February 7-8 in Columbia, Maryland.
Topics covered will include but not be limited to “The Importance of Art in Human Life,” “Rand’s Heroes: How To Be More Like Them,” “The Psychology of Individualism,” and “Rand’s View of Capitalism and the Social Order.” Marsha will combine short lectures with guided discussions to maximize the intellectual and personal value of the seminars.
It will be assumed that the student will have read at least Atlas Shrugged. A limited number of essays and articles will be assigned to read in preparation for the course.
Additional information and registration instructions are available on the Fountainhead Institute web site.
Camille Paglia on Ayn Rand
A Salon.com search for “Ayn Rand” yields a real gem ? Camille Paglia answering the question: “You remind me a lot of Ayn Rand. Both of you are foreign-born American writers who are unafraid atheists and brilliantly and fiercely analytical. Do you welcome this comparison? What is your opinion of Ayn Rand?”
Many people have noticed the very real parallels between Ayn Rand and me. (I was born in the United States, however; my mother and all four of my grandparents were born in Italy.) A New Yorker profile of Rand several years ago in fact called her “the Camille Paglia of the 1960s.”
Ayn Rand was the kind of bold female thinker who should immediately have been a centerpiece of women’s studies programs, if the latter were genuinely about women rather than about a clichéd, bleeding-heart, victim-obsessed, liberal ideology that dislikes all concrete female achievement. Like me, Rand believed in personal responsibility and self-transformation as the keys to modern woman’s advance.
Rand’s influence fell on the generation just before mine: In the conformist 1950s, her command to think for yourself was brilliantly energizing. When I was a college student (1964-68), I barely heard of her and didn’t read her, and neither did my friends. Our influences were Marshall McLuhan, Norman O. Brown, Leslie Fiedler, Allen Ginsberg and Andy Warhol.
When my first book finally got published in 1990, a major Rand revival was under way. I was asked about her so often at my book signings and lectures that I researched her for the first time. To my astonishment, I found passages in her books that amazingly resemble my own writing: This is certainly due to the fact that we were inspired by the same writers, notably Nietzsche and the High Romantics.
The main differences between us: First, Rand is more of a rationalist, while I have a mystical 1960s bent (I’m interested in astrology, palmistry, ESP, I Ching, etc.). Second, Rand disdains religious belief as childish, while I respect all religions on metaphysical grounds, even though I am an atheist. Third, Rand, like Simone de Beauvoir, is an intellectual of daunting high seriousness, while I think comedy is the sign of a balanced perspective on life. As a culture warrior, I have used humor and satire as the most devastating weapons in my arsenal!
Spreading Ayn Rand in Russia
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of Rand’s birth, the International Society for Individual Liberty (ISIL) has launched a project titled the “Year of Ayn Rand” Book Project.
From ISIL’s description:
Current Russian president, Vladimir Putin, is unusually popular with the Russian populace with about 70% public support. He is considered a patriot in Russia, as well as in his home city of St. Petersburg ? and the probability of his re-election in 2004 is quite high.
Being concerned about his historical legacy, it is widely thought that he will try to introduce significant changes in both the economic and ideological policies of the country.
But he is distrustful of western authors and philosophers and wants to come up with something uniquely Russian. Thus Ayn Rand and her Objectivism, with such obvious Russian roots, could very well satisfy this demand for a new ideology ? and could shape the ideological and philosophical foundation of the Russian-speaking world for many years to come.
Inroads have already been made with the introduction of the Russian edition of Rand’s Atlas Shrugged to Putin’s top economic advisor Andre Illarionov by myself (Jaroslav Romanchuk) and Dmitry Kostygn at a Moscow book fair. Illarionov subsequently published strong endorsements of Rand in The Moscow Times (and Wall Street Journal).
The Book Project
The long-term goal of the project is to introduce the works of Ayn Rand and her philosophy to Russian-speaking countries, and to make these ideas a part of the intellectual mainstream of the culture. To accomplish this, we intend to print and sell millions of copies of Rand’s works throughout the Russian-speaking world.
Cross-posted to Improved Clinch.
Call for Papers: Rand & Nietzsche
The Journal of Ayn Rand Studies announces this “Call for Papers” for a special symposium:
Ayn Rand and Friedrich Nietzsche
Despite her criticisms of Friedrich Nietzsche, even the mature Ayn Rand recognized in him a poet who projected, emotionally, “at times … a magnificent feeling for man’s greatness …” Indeed, the young Ayn Rand had learned much from Nietzsche, reflected in her early unpublished and published works.
The aim of this forthcoming issue of the journal is to trace the similarities and the differences between these thinkers in metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, politics, and aesthetics. As a nonpartisan periodical, the journal welcomes contributions from every perspective and every discipline toward that end.
Proposals should be sent by 1 July 2004 by email to Chris Matthew Sciabarra, or by mail to: Chris Matthew Sciabarra, Visiting Scholar, NYU Department of Politics, 726 Broadway, 7th floor, New York, New York 10003.
Completed manuscripts will be due by 1 July 2005; the symposium won’t be published prior to 2006.
See the journal’s website for further information on style guidelines.