Harvey5

I am an American expat intellectual living in southwest France. I have a Ph.D. in Classics from U.C. Berkeley (1984), an M.B.A. from U.C. Berkeley (1985), and a Masters in Philosophy from Penn State University (1973). I graduated from U.C. Santa Cruz  with a degree in Medieval Studies (1971).

I was born in San Francisco and lived in San Francisco for most of my life, prior to moving to France in 2006. My childhood (1950 – 1961) was spent in Columbus, Ohio, however, where my father was on the faculty in psychology at Ohio State.  My father died suddenly of heart failure in 1964 at age 47, just after the family had moved back to San Francisco permanently and had purchased a house in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.  I attended public schools in Columbus (Clinton Elementary) and San Francisco (Presidio and Roosevelt Junior Highs and Lowell High School), before attending university at UC Santa Cruz. My dissertation on Plato’s dialogue “The Statesman”, entitled “Diaeresis and Myth in Plato’s Statesman,” was published by Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht (Germany, 1987). I have published an interview with the deceased German emigre philosopher Hans Jonas in “Social Research” (vol. 70, number 2,  Summer 2003).

After finally leaving graduate schools in 1985, I worked in various capacities in commercial real estate in the San Francisco Bay Area for approximately twenty years. I was a commercial real estate appraiser for approximately ten years.

I will be blogging about the various subjects that interest me, including politics, philosophy, literature, music, film, life in France, and possibly NBA basketball.

I am also a singer-songwriter and guitarist.   I began playing the guitar at age 13, prior to which I was “studying” classical piano, and have studied jazz guitar in a desultory way over the years.  I hope to develop my guitar playing a good deal in retirement.  I invite you to listen to a selection of my songs by clicking on the My Songs tab on the main page of this blog.   I will probably rotate the selection somewhat.   Hope you enjoy the songs.

I have been married for nearly forty years to Georgiana Prata.  We have no children, which has allowed, or caused us to remain somewhat childlike ourselves.

3 Responses

  1. Looking good Harvey … thx for the song lyrics — there’s a couple of verses of intellectual crooks that I hadn’t heard. And I love the last sentence in your profile … could apply to Pat and I also.

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