Abstract
This paper is a personal and theoretic commemoration of Peter McHugh’s life and commitment through the prism of the writer’s discovery of, and involvement in, the effort from the late 1960s to diagnose and respond to “the failure of positivism” in sociology. Peter’s work (with that of Alan Blum) formed a central component of that effort. I trace the genealogy of Peter’s teaching and conversational practice, to his roots in ethnomethodology and his involvement with Harold Garfinkel. This is followed by an account of how Peter developed and transformed the ethnomethodological impulse, from the “uninterestingly” enforceable towards the invitation to share in the discovery and reconstruction of interest. The paper concludes by situating the time that is its focus, acknowledging the depth of Peter’s impact, and opening for future engagement the subsequent development of his work, in the context of various debates and questions (briefly alluded to) that form a part of the life of theorizing in the early twenty-first century.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Blum, A. (1974). Theorizing. London: Heinemann.
Blum, A., & McHugh, P. (1984). Self-reflection in the arts and sciences. New Jersey: Humanities Press.
Dallmayr, F. et al. (n.d.). Self-reflection in the human sciences. Edmonton: Faculty of Education, University of Alberta.
Derrida, J. (1973). Speech and phenomena. Evanston: Northwestern University Press.
Desmond, W. (2005). Religious imagination and the counterfeit doubles of God. In Is there a Sabbath for thought? Between religion and philosophy. New York: Fordham University Press.
Garfield, J. (1995). The fundamental wisdom of the middle way. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Garfinkel, H. (1984). Studies in ethnomethodology. Malden: Polity/Blackwell.
Heidegger, M. (1962). Being and time. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Husserl, E. (1970). Logical investigations, 2 vols. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
McHugh, P., et al. (1974). On the beginning of social inquiry. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Plato Parmenides in Plato (1961). Collected dialogues. In E. Hamilton & H. Cairns (Eds.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Plato Republic in Plato (1961). Collected dialogues. In E. Hamilton & H. Cairns (Eds.). Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Zizek, S. (2005). Interrogating the real. London: Continuum.
Zizek, S., & Milbank, J. (2009). The monstrosity of Christ. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Colfer, P. Peter McHugh: A Memoir of the Passion of Theorizing. Hum Stud 33, 281–286 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-010-9152-y
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10746-010-9152-y