Arthur C. T. Strum

Arthur Strum teaches interdisciplinary courses drawing particularly upon philosophy, literature, and political theory. He began his career in the field of German Studies, teaching and writing for more than a decade on 18th and 19th century German philosophy, the Bildungsroman, The Frankfurt School, Kant, German Classicism, Romanticism, and Contemporary German Film, among other topics. Since leaving his previous teaching position for family reasons, Prof. Strum’s teaching and scholarship have focused more and more upon the wider horizons in the humanities which are usually obscured in contemporary universities by scholarly specialization and the nearly exclusive focus on marketable ‘research.’ Instead, Prof. Strum focuses in his writing and teaching on who Virginia Woolf called ‘the common reader’ — someone interested in how literature and philosophy might help teach him/her about how to live. He has taught in the IHON Program since its inception in 2008, contributing courses at every level of the program. Prof. Strum also regularly teaches in the Writing 101 program, teaches an interdisciplinary introduction to the Humanities in PLU’s new Summer Academy, and has taught in the German, Philosophy, and English departments. Prof. Strum co-wrote a book on the conceptual history of the public sphere (Öffentlichkeit: Geschichte eines kritischen Begriffs (The Public Sphere: History of a Critical Concept), Metzler, 2000), and has published articles on Kant’s philosophy, on the legacy of the Enlightenment, on the field of German Studies, and on humanistic pedagogy, as well as on other topics. He is currently working on several book-length projects, as well as a number of articles, on topics ranging from Kant, to the historical relation of private life to ethics, to the legacy of the jazz and blues critic Albert Murray.