Gelett Burgess, a Renaissance Man

Alfred Jan

April 3, 2016

Who coined the word “blurb”, published a short story in 1905 which anticipated the 1980s movie “Ghostbusters”, and was responsible for Picasso getting his first solo exhibition in America? Gelett Burgess, a truly remarkable Renaissance man, started out as a civil engineer and became a West Coast bohemian who responded to the European Decadent movement with nonsense poetry. He wrote essays and short stories about the nature of humor, the function of art, gender relations, and the basis of empathy. Our speaker, Alfred Jan, is a practicing optometrist with an M.A. in Philosophy specializing in Aesthetics. He compiled a collection of Gelett Burgess’ works called “A Gelett Burgess Sampler: Ethics and Aesthetics” in 2012, and has lectured several times about Burgess since.

 

Humanist Community Forum (2016-04-03): Gelett Burgess, a Renaissance Man (Alfred Jan) from Humanist Community-SiliconValley on Vimeo.