Richard Shusterman

Richard Shusterman is an American pragmatist philosopher known for his work in aesthetics and for developing the field of somaesthetics.

born 1949Developing somaestheticsPragmatist aestheticsCenter for Body, Mind, and Culture

Born: 3 December 1949, Philadelphia
Occupation: philosopher, university teacher, cosmetologist, scholar of English
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem

Richard Shusterman was born in 1949 in Philadelphia

Richard Shusterman was born on December 3, 1949, to a Jewish family in Philadelphia. At 16 he left home and moved to Israel.

He studied English and philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, earning a B.A. and later an M.A. in philosophy. He did his doctorate in philosophy at St. John's College, Oxford, under J. O. Urmson. He defended his dissertation, The Object of Literary Criticism, in 1979, and it was published in 1984.

He taught at several Israeli institutions and received tenure at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. In 1986 he joined Temple University in Philadelphia, became a full professor in 1991, and chaired its philosophy department from 1998 to 2004. In 2004 he moved to Florida Atlantic University, where he holds the Dorothy F. Schmidt Eminent Scholar chair and teaches philosophy and English.

His focus shifted from analytic philosophy to pragmatism around his 1988 book on T. S. Eliot. His 1992 book Pragmatist Aesthetics was translated into 14 languages. He later developed somaesthetics and in 2007 founded the Center for Body, Mind, and Culture at the university.