Eugene
Halton
professor emeritus
Department of Sociology
The University of Notre Dame
Eugene Halton is an American sociologist and philosopher. He is professor
emeritus in Sociology and American Studies at the University
of Notre Dame. Halton has written extensively on consumption and
materialism, and the problematic nature of modern civilization and the
civilizational mindset more generally. His recent works concern a new
philosophy of history regarding the limitations of the civilizational mindset,
and guideposts toward re-attuning contemporary civilization to what he has
termed “sustainable wisdom.”
More on his: career and related.
Halton is the author of:
From the Axial Age to the Moral Revolution:
John Stuart-Glennie, Karl Jaspers, and a New
Understanding of the Idea
(Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)
and
The Great
Brain Suck (University
of Chicago Press, 2008)
Bereft of Reason
(University of
Chicago Press, 1995, paperback, 1997)
Meaning and
Modernity (University
of Chicago Press, 1986)
The Meaning of
Things,
coauthor with M. Csikszentmihalyi
(Cambridge University Press, 1981) an
enlarged version of Halton's dissertation
Also in German, Italian, Japanese and Hungarian translations
And coeditor, 2019:
Indigenous
Sustainable Wisdom:
First Nation Know-How for Global
Flourishing
Edited by Darcia Narvaez, Four Arrows, Brian Collier, Eugene Halton,
and Georges Enderle.
New York:
Peter Lang Publishing.
Recent:
2024 Is God Sustainable?
Philosophies 9 (4): 93.
2024. Essay in special issue of the journal Philosophies
on the theme of The Creative Death of God.
Selected
additional publications
And
other news:
Audio/Video
* See Halton interviewed
by Gerry Fialka on YouTube, Innerviews #184, December 30, 2022
and Innerviews #142, September 30, 2022.
* Video
from Author Meets Critics Session on Halton's book, From the Axial Age to the Moral Revolution, sponsored by
The Karl Jaspers Society
of North America in conjunction with the 92nd Annual Meeting of the American
Philosophical Society,
Pacific Division, San Diego,
March 31, 2018.
* Listen to Halton
speaking at the Kansas City Public Library: Kansas City Public Library, January 8, 2009
* Listen to Halton on WCUR
Kansas City's The Walt Bodine Show: Walt Bodine Show Archives, January 8, 2009
* See Halton interviewed on Christmas and
Materialism, 2008.
* Hear Halton on the
National Public Radio show The Connection, speaking with Tom Litton from the self storage
industry and host Dick
Gordon on the theme of "Storing the Self," from August 25, 2003:
Print Media
and Related
* An article on Halton by
Bill Moor in the South Bend Tribune,
Jumpin Gene Looks to New Heights After Retiring from Notre
Dame
May 17, 2020.
* 2023:
Retro news from the archives!
Halton New York Times
Op-ed from 1990:
Cold War's
Victims Deserve a Memorial
* Halton interviewed by
Brian Resnick of Vox on
Why objects can be more meaningful gifts than experiences
December 23, 2016.
* Halton's
contribution, What Could Possibly Go Wrong? to wallethub.com debate on
the theme of
Will Donald Trump be a
Good President? December 15, 2016
* Rockne on the
Move. Money is no object when it comes to moving
quarter of a million dollar football coach statues at Notre Dame for
single games.
South Bend Tribune photo by Halton.
* Notre Dame Magazine, Winter "Lists" issue, 2015, Eugene
Halton, 10 Signs the Apocalypse is Upon Us.
* A blog entry from
September 28, 2011 on The Megapower Elite
* A blog entry from August
9, 2011 at Notre Dame Magazine on Where U
At?
* Halton reading his poem Keystrokes at a 2011 poetry marathon sponsored by Artpost.
* An Op-ed on Swine or
"NAFTA" flu from 2009, responding to Indiana Health officials:
Recent op-ed
on H1N1 flu leaves public ill-informed
* Read an essay from Notre Dame Magazine, "Spent," by John Monczunski, who visited Halton's class on materialism: Spent
* And another visit to the class by English actor Paul
McCleary:
British Actors Make the Classroom Their Stage
* And a short piece on
Halton from The Bend Magazine, Fall, 2005: Jumpin' Gene
* From Jumpin'
Gene's
early high jumping and protest days, 40 years later, May, 2010: Tin Soldiers and Nixon Coming
* And an excerpt from a
short interview with Halton by Andrew S. Hughes in The South Bend Tribune on When
Stars Die
Biographies:
* You can read a brief
biographical statement here about the American philosopher Charles Sanders
Peirce,
the founder of pragmatism and the doctrine of signs known as
semeiotic.
* And here is a
brief biographical sketch of Lewis Mumford , another American original, who Malcolm
Cowley called the last of the great humanists.
* Another brief
statement is on Charles Morris , a philosopher associated with semiotics,
pragmatics, and George Herbert Mead's work.
Music:
Halton has
performed blues harmonica internationally over a few decades.
2023:
Retro news from the archives!
* Jumpin' Gene Halton performing harmonica live with legendary blues
pianist and multiple Grammy Award
winner
Pinetop Perkins and The Swingin' Crawdads in 1993.
This is
the Roosevelt Sykes tune, Miss Ida B: Pinetop
Perkins and The Swingin Crawdads Miss Ida B
* Jumpin' Gene Halton performing
harmonica with the Mighty Hurricanes in 1994 on the Little Walter classic, Fast Boogie.
* And more recently Gene performing the tune he wrote, Big Bad Wolf,
live with The Newports at the Acorn Theater in Three
Oaks Michigan on November 27, 2021.
* And the Muddy Waters classic, Got My Mojo
Working live.
* Interviewed on Jonny's Secret Stash, Radio Harbor Country, WRHC in
Three Oaks, Michigan and WRHZ in Sawyer, Michigan. Episode 48 with Bill Bielby and Gene Halton of The Newports,
November 26, 2021: Jonny's Secret Stash, Episode 48
* Click for The
Newports YouTube Channel
* And with The Newports at The Jazz Showcase in
downtown Chicago, Aug. 24, 2015: Cold Shot
* And here's Jumpin' Gene performing at Buddy Guy's Legends in Chicago
in 2008 with the legendary performer, The Tail Dragger: Don't
Start me Talkin' and My Head is Bald
* Gene's lyrics for the song "Smoke
and Mirrors" appear on the Rockin’ Johnny
Burgin CD, Neoprene Fedora, 2017.
* Gene's lyrics for the song "Empty Bed Blues" appear on the Rockin’ Johnny Burgin CD, Greetings from Greaseland, released in 2015.
* Gene's lyrics for the song "Tow
Truck Man" appears on the Willie Buck CD on Delmark
Records, released in 2012.
* Here are some other samples
of Jumpin' Gene's music
High Jumping
Days:
* Where
Jumpin' Gene's Name Originally Came From
* Halton elected to Jersey Shore Athletic Club Hall of
Fame Class of 2021
* An
article on Halton by Bill Moor in the South
Bend Tribune,
Jumpin Gene Looks to New Heights After Retiring from Notre
Dame
May 17, 2020.
* Jumpin' Gene at 7 feet,
Princeton University, October 21, 2023
* Jumpin' Gene's Basketball Background
* And just
shooting baskets, May, 2023
Email
address
is ehalton@nd.edu