SCANLAN, James P. 1927-

(James Patrick Scanlan)

PERSONAL: Born February 22, 1927, in Chicago, IL; son of Gilbert Francis (a manufacturer) and Helen (Meyers) Scanlan; married Marilyn Morrison, June 12, 1948. Education: University of Chicago, B.A., 1948, M.A., 1950, Ph.D., 1956; postdoctoral study at University of California—Berkeley, 1960–61, at University of Moscow, 1964–65.

ADDRESSES: Home—1000 Urlin Ave., Apt. 206, Columbus, OH 43212-3324. Office—Department of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Institute for Philosophical Research, San Francisco, CA, research fellow, 1953–55; Case Institute of Technology, Cleveland, OH, instructor in humanities, 1955–56; Goucher College, Baltimore, MD, instructor, 1956–59, assistant professor, 1959–64, associate professor of philosophy, 1964–68; University of Kansas, Lawrence, professor of philosophy and chair of Slavic and Soviet area studies, 1968–70; Ohio State University, Columbus, beginning 1971, became professor of philosophy, currently professor emeritus. University of Moscow, Moscow, Russia, participant in cultural exchange program and researcher, 1964–65, 1969; visiting research scholar, University of Fribourg, 1982–83; resident scholar, Bellagio Study Center, 1983; foreign visiting fellow, Sapparo, Japan, 1987–88; visiting research scholar, Moscow State University, 1993; visiting research scholar, Russian State University for the Humanities, 1995. Military service: U.S. Marine Corps, 1944–45.

MEMBER: American Philosophical Association, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS: Ford Foundation foreign area training fellowship, University of California, 1960–61; National Translation Center award, 1967; Woodrow Wilson International Center fellow, 1982; Fulbright-Hays faculty research award, 1982–83.

WRITINGS:

(Editor, with James M. Edie, Mary-Barbara Zeldin, and George L. Kline) Russian Philosophy, three volumes, Quadrangle (Chicago, IL), 1965.

(Editor, author of introduction, and translator) Peter Lavrov, Historical Letters, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1967.

(Editor, with Richard T. De George) Marxism and Religion in Eastern Europe: Papers Presented at the Banff International Slavic Conference, September 4-7, 1974, D. Reidel (Boston, MA), 1975.

Marxism in the USSR: A Critical Survey of Current Soviet Thought, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 1985.

(Translator and author of introduction and notes) Michael Gershenzon, A History of Young Russia, Charles Schlacks, Jr. (Irvine, CA), 1986.

(Editor) Technology, Culture, and Development: The Experience of the Soviet Model, M. E. Sharpe (Armonk, NY), 1992.

(Editor) Russian Thought after Communism: The Recovery of a Philosophical Heritage, M. E. Sharpe (Armonk, NY), 1994.

Dostoevsky the Thinker, Cornell University Press (Ithaca, NY), 2002.

Contributor to Ethics, Review of Politics, Bucknell Review, Choice, Slavic Review, Russian Review, and Baltimore Sun. Member of editorial board, Encyclopedia of Philosophy, published by Macmillan.

SIDELIGHTS: James P. Scanlan is a scholar of Russian philosophy whose book Dostoevsky the Thinker examines the Russian novelist's philosophical views, which were based on his strong religious faith and expressed in his fictional writings. For Dostoevsky, the spiritual was far more important than the material. He even dreamed that a Christian Utopia may well be possible. According to Virgil Nemoianu, writing in the Review of Metaphysics, Scanlan's discussion of Dostoevsky's thinking is done "with great clarity and objectivity." "The strength of Dostoevsky the Thinker," according to Catriona Kelly in the Times Literary Supplement, "is that it gives a clear exposure of a subject that has sometimes inspired what one can only call enthusiastic rambling." "Scanlan does excellent work," Ron Ratliff noted in the Library Journal, "discussing Dostoevsky's ideas in terms of his religious faith."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice, February, 1986, review of Marxism in the USSR: A Critical Survey of Current Soviet Thought, p. 926; April, 1995, review of Russian Thought after Communism: The Recovery of a Philosophical Heritage, p. 1316.

Journal of Economic Literature, March, 1993, review of Technology, Culture and Development: The Experience of the Soviet Model, p. 364.

Library Journal, June 15, 1985, review of Marxism in the USSR, p. 63; December, 1994, review of Russian Thought after Communism, p. 96; May 1, 2002, Ron Ratliff, review of Dostoevsky the Thinker, p. 100.

New York Review of Books, December 5, 1968, review of Historical Letters.

Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, September, 2002, Gary Saul Morson, review of Dostoevsky the Thinker.

OnCampus, March 25, 1999.

Reference and Research Book News, August, 1992, review of Technology, Culture and Development, p. 43; March, 1995, review of Russian Thought after Communism, p. 3.

Review of Metaphysics, March, 2004, Virgil Nemoianu, review of Dostoevsky the Thinker, p. 637.

Russian Review, April, 1994, review of Technology, Culture and Development.

SciTech Book News, August, 1992, review of Technology, Culture and Development, p. 29.

Times Literary Supplement, January 3, 1985, review of Marxism in the USSR, p. 7; July 26, 2002, Catriona Kelly, review of Dostoevsky the Thinker, pp. 5-6.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 1986, review of Marxism in the USSR, p. 24.