Introduction: Tales from the Whitehead Mines – On Whitehead, His Students and the Challenges of Editing the Critical Edition

Abstract

Joseph Petek discusses some of the more exciting of the Whitehead Research Project’s archival finds, including photographs of Whitehead as a teenager, while describing the atmosphere of Harvard upon Whitehead’s arrival and its reception of him. The chapter discusses Whitehead’s teaching style and his students’ attitudes towards him, including those of the Radcliffe women. In its latter half, the chapter discusses the challenges involved in editing student notes together to form a coherent account of Whitehead’s lectures, providing exemplars of three sets of handwritten notes.