Ursula Niklas Peterson

Research interests: History of Philosophy, Philosophy and Literature.

Graduate education: M.A., Warsaw University, 1968; Ph. D., Warsaw University, 1977.

Representative articles: "Is Machiavelli a tragic philosopher?" (In print). "Semantic Aspects of Meinong's Theory of Objects," Studia Semiotyczne 4 (1973): 207-20 (in Polish). "Is exists a Predicate?" Studia Semiotyczne 5 (1974): 117-31 (in Polish). "On Languages with Non-Denoting Individual Names." Studia Semiotyczne 9 (1980): 205-23 (in Polish). "Kitsch: A Semiotic Approach," in Semiotics 1981, ed. J. N. Deely and M. D. Lenhart (New York: Plenum Press, 1983), 273-79. "An Empiricist Approach to the Problem of Intersubjectivity of Language and C. S. Peirce's Concept of Sign," in Sign, System, and Function, ed. J. Pelc, et. al. (New York: Mouton, 1984), 241-46. "On the Type-Token Distinction in C. S. Peirce," in Sign, System, and Function, ed. J. Pelc, et. al. (New York: Mouton, 1984), 231-39. "Peirce's Concept of Sign and Modern Semantics," in Semiotics Unfolding, ed. Tasso Borbe (Berlin: Mouton, 1984). "On the Practical and Theoretical in C. S. Peirce," Versus 49 (1988): 31-39; Portugese translation in Face 1 (1988): 27-35. "Semiotics and Hermeneutics," in The Semiotic Web: Recent Developments in Theory and History, ed. T. A. Sebeok and J. Umiker-Sebeok (New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1991), 267-83. "Language and Beyond: Theory of Metaphor as a Theory of Art," Semiotica 89 (1992): 205-13. "The Space of Metaphor," in In the World of Signs: Festschrift in Honor of Jerzy Pelc (Atlanta and Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1996), 341-46. "Praxiology," in Semiotik: Ein Handbuch zu den zeichentheoretischen Grundlagen von Natur und Kultur, ed. R. Posner (Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter, 1998), 2169-72. "What Are Poets For?" Periphery 5 (1999): 65-66. "Utopia and
Modern Times: Thomas More, Hannah Arendt and Suppression of the Political," History of
Philosophy Quarterly 18 (2001): 207-26. "The Poet in the Besieged City: Heidegger and the
Poetry of Zbigniew Herbert," Clio. A Journal of Literature, History and the Philosophy of History
32 (2003):129-52.

Selected grants, fellowships, and awards: Fellowship of the American Council of Learned societies, affiliated with the Center for Language and Semiotic Studies, IU Bloomington, 1981-82; NEH Summer Seminar: "A Genealogy of Postmodernism: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida, and Rorty," University of California, Riverside, 1991; IUPUI Summer Research Fellowship: "Heidegger and the Quarrel Between Philosophy and Poetry," 1992; IUPUI Grant-in-Aid for Teaching: "Philosophy Through the Experience of Art," 1993-94 (co-awardee); IUPUI NETwork for Excellence in Teaching Grant, 1994 (co-awardee); IU Extended Studies Grant to design Correspondence Course P282: "Women in Philosophical Thought," 1996; International Enhancement Grant, Office of International Programs, IU Bloomington: "The Philosopher and the Poet in Modern Times," 1997; Visiting Fellow, Centre for Research in Philosophy and Literature, University of Warwick, England, 1997; IUPUI Honors Program Research Fellowship, 2001.

Frequently taught courses: Introduction to Philosophy (P110); Modern Philosophy (P314); Twentieth-Century Philosophy (P316); Philosophy and Literature (P348); Philosophy of Art (P367). (**For course descriptions, see below.)

Other courses: Introduction to Philosophy-Honors (S110); Women in Philosophical Thought (correspondence course: P282); Philosophy and Modern Times-Honors (S314); Philosophy of Language (P367); Topics in Philosophy (P383); Philosophy and Culture (P414).

Course descriptions:

P110: Introduction to Philosophy (3 cr.): An introduction to the methods and problems of philosophy and to important figures in the history of philosophy. Concerns such topics as the nature of reality, the meaning of life, and the existence of God. Readings from classical and contemporary sources, e.g., Plato, Descartes, Nietzsche, and Sartre.

P314: Modern Philosophy (3 cr.): A study of Western philosophy from the rise of modern science through the Enlightenment. Covers such philosophers as Bacon, Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, Leibniz, and Kant.

P369: Twentieth-Century Philosophy (variable title) (3 cr.): A study of one or more twentieth-century approaches to philosophy, e.g., pragmatism, analytic philosophy, phenomenology, existentialism, postmodernism, and neo-Marxism. May be repeated for credit when topics vary.

P348: Philosophy and Literature (3 cr.): A study of philosophical issues raised by and in literature. Special emphasis on reading works of literature as texts of philosophical interest.

P367: Philosophy of Art (3 cr.): A study of fundamental concepts and theories of aesthetics and a philosophical exploration of major artistic movements and genres.