Galen A. Johnson

Galen A. Johnson is Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at the University of Rhode Island and former Director of the URI Center for the Humanities and URI Honors Program. He served as the General Secretary (Executive Director) of the International Merleau-Ponty Circle (2005-2015). He is married to Jean M. Johnson, who served for 30 years as Executive Director of the House of Hope CDC, Warwick, RI, a provider of housing and services for the homeless. Together they have six children as well as six grandchildren. In addition to writing and teaching Continental philosophy, Galen is an avid cabinetmaker and has combined these interests in an article for Environmental Philosophy (Volume IV, Fall, 2007) on "Philosophy and the Forest: Toward an Aesthetics of Wood." His current research also includes the writings of Emerson and Thoreau, and Walden Pond in Concord, MA is a favorite destination. His book, The Retrieval of the Beautiful (Northwestern U Press, 2010), provided the welcome premise for traveling and looking at great art all over Europe and the US. Most recently, he is co-author with Mauro Carbone (U Lyon) and Emmanuel de Saint Aubert (CNRS, Ecole Normale Superieure, Paris) of Merleau-Ponty's Poetic of the World: Philosophy and Literature (Fordham U Press, 2020). The Montmartre district of Paris, France is another favorite destination.