Biography of Barry Cooper

Barry
Cooper 
University of Calgary

Barry
Cooper, a fourth generation Albertan, was educated at Shawnigan Lake School, the
University of British Columbia and Duke University, where he received his
doctorate in 1969.   He taught at
Bishop’s University, McGill, and York University before coming to the University
of Calgary in 1981.   For the past
twenty-five years he has studied western political philosophy, both classical
and contemporary.   Much of his
teaching has focussed on Greek political philosophy whereas his publications
have been chiefly in the area of contemporary French and German political
philosophy.
  Over the years he has spent considerable time in both
countries, teaching and doing research.  

Cooper’s
other area of continuing interest has been Canadian politics and public policy.  
Here he has brought the insights of political philosophers to bear on
contemporary issues, from the place of technology and the media in Canada to the
on-going debate over the constitutional status of Quebec.  

Cooper’s
publications reflect the dual focus of his work.  
He has translated three books from French and assisted in the translation
of three others from German.   He has
written books on Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Michel Foucault and an influential
French interpretation of the German philosopher, Hegel.  
His work on Eric Voegelin, arguably the most important political thinker
of the century, has included translations, editing three volumes of his Collected
Works, numerous articles and papers, some of which have been collected into
a book, a major study of Voegelin’s restoration of political science as a
science of human order in history, Eric Voegelin and the Foundations of
Modern Political Science.   He is
currently at work on a continuing project, Voegelin Recollected,
consisting of interviews of colleagues and pupils of Voegelin, and is preparing
a companion volume to the Foundations book.  

A
bridge between political philosophy and Canadian politics was provided by
Cooper’s study of technology, Action Into Nature, which led to his
interest in the media, especially television news as an element that shapes the
particular configuration of technological consciousness in Canada.  
His books on Ralph Klein, most recently, Governing in Post-Deficit
Times: Alberta in the Klein Years, as well as the work he has done with
David Bercuson on Quebec, on the political importance of public debt, and their
newspaper columns in the Calgary Sun, The Globe and Mail, and The
Calgary Herald and other papers in the Southam chain, have all addressed
contemporary issues of concern to citizens.  

Cooper
has lectured extensively in Europe, the United States, India, Australia and
China.   He has received numerous
on-going research grants from public and private Canadian and American granting
agencies.   In addition he has
received two major awards, the Konrad Adenauer Award from the Alexander von
Humboldt-Stiftung, and a Killam Research Fellowship.  

Cooper
has served on numerous review committees for Canadian and international
publications and for many Canadian and American universities.  
He has served for many years on the Alberta Heritage Scholarship
Foundation, as well as on SSHRCC adjudication committees, both for Research
Grants and for Doctoral Fellowships.   In
addition, Cooper has adjudicated applications for the Konrad Adenauer committee
of the Royal Society of Canada, for the Donner Canadian Foundation, and for
other granting bodies.

He
has been an expert witness in several Charter cases pled before the Court of
Queenís Bench of Alberta and the Federal Court of Canada (Trial Division), and
has written major reports for the Law Commission of Canada, the Federal
Department of Justice, and the Alberta Department of Agriculture, and several
Calgary law firms.

Along
with Dr. Lydia Miljan, Cooper has assisted in the establishment of the Calgary
office of the internationally known Fraser Institute, a Vancouver-based,
market-oriented think tank.   As part
of his work with the Fraser Institute he has delivered numerous talks and
assisted in fund-raising across the prairie west, British Columbia, and Toronto.

He
is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, and a member of the Bohemian Club,
San Francisco, and the Pennask Lake Fishing and Game Club.