General Support
General funds donated to the Society will be used for a myriad of beneficial activities: such as enriching the Society’s online presence; increasing opportunities for international dialogue in Ricoeur studies; developing online tutorials in education about Ricoeur and his themes; and enhancing Society conference opportunities (for example, to offset costs for meeting rooms and to fund some meals to allow for greater informal interchange). Over time the Society would like to establish an endowment to ensure long term resources for Society activities.
Student Flight and Lodging Funding for Ricoeur Studies Conference
The Ricoeur Society has made a continuing effort to promote and support presentations by students in its conferences. Typically, these are graduate students, but sometimes include undergraduate students. Because many students have limited travel budgets as part of their program, the Society seeks to provide more financial support for their conference participation. This benefits the individual students and supports the continued growth of Ricoeur studies over time. With enough funding, students could also be supported for travel to international Ricoeur conferences outside North America.
Digitization Project
This project aims to create an online site for access to books and articles by Ricoeur so that his texts can be more effectively searched digitally. Due to copyright restrictions, full texts will not appear on screen, but the searches will reveal “snippets” of information (as on Google Books) from the entire text and in that way ensure completeness of the search. The project initially includes material in English and will expand to other languages over time. The project also hopes eventually to include secondary material on Ricoeur as well. Costs of the project include the cost of digitization and costs of development and maintenance of the site.
Student Funding for Research at the Fonds Ricoeur
Many students – particularly graduate and post-doctoral students – find that undertaking research at the Fonds Ricoeur – the Ricoeur archive in Paris – is an extremely valuable way to engage in deep study and analysis of Ricoeur’s published and unpublished texts. Many published texts are still not available online, the trove of unpublished manuscripts, course notes, and so on is immense. Donations would support travel and living costs.
Support for the Fonds Ricoeur
The writings and thought of the philosopher Paul Ricoeur cover nearly three quarters of a century, from 1935-2005 and place him at the crossroads of one of the greatest traditions in philosophy and human sciences, a tradition with which he maintained a constant conversation. In 2003, he generously bequeathed his personal library and archives with the intention of making them available to researchers from all over the world. Thus the Fonds Ricoeur was born. Located on Boulevard Arago in Paris (14th district) this unique documentary collection comprises more than 12, 000 books, documents and written, audio and visual archives. This privileged location for study and meetings welcomes working parties and seminars and organises conferences. An area has been created to give access to archival documents. The Paul Ricoeur Association now exists and awards the Paul Ricoeur literary prize. Now, to fulfill Paul Ricoeur’s wish to open the Fonds Ricoeur to everyone, the Paul Ricoeur Foundation needs new funds.
How can you take part?
Donations to the Fonds Ricoeur through the Society website provide an expeditious way for donations to be provided to support the Fonds Ricoeur. For donors from the US, US law permits contributions to US nonprofits, as the Society is, are tax deductible even if the money is targeted for a foreign nonprofit, as long as the US entity provides some direction on how the funds will be allocated by the foreign organization.
Simply click HERE
The Fonds Ricœur is on Twitter @FondsRicoeur, on Facebook Fonds Ricoeur, on Instagram fonds_ricoeur and on Linkedin Fonds Ricoeur.
We also encourage other forms of contributions to the Society such as stock equities or estate bequests. For more information on these options or to raise any other financial questions, please contact Charles Sharp, the Society Secretary-Treasurer, at the following gmail address: CharlesSharp2