From MLK's Letter from a Birmingham Jail:
"Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial "outside agitator" idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds."
Read the whole thing, if you haven't lately.
http://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham.html
17 January 2011
05 January 2011
2011 will be a good year...
...because (among other things) there's not zero, not one, but two Jamaican-born philosophers in the Chicago area teaching seminars on John Rawls's political philosophy. Three cheers for Jason Hill (DePaul), Charles Mills (Northwestern), and the careful criticism of ideal theory!
31 December 2010
Resolution: The Bloomingdale Trail
In the new year I hope to learn more about the progress on Chicago's Bloomingdale trail:
http://www.bloomingdaletrail.org/
Rain or shine, it cuts a lovely elevated trampable east-west path across NW Chicago.
http://www.bloomingdaletrail.org/
Rain or shine, it cuts a lovely elevated trampable east-west path across NW Chicago.
Year's End Reading - Academic Papers Division
This year I've been fortunate to learn & think more critically about epistemic justice; to find some new (for me) articles in the philosophy of religion; and to continue to puzzle over trust. So, here's to the following noteworthy journal pubs:
- Kristie Dotson's exciting and important work on epistemic violence, testimonial quieting, testimonial smothering, and Black feminist philosophy. Among other places, look to her forthcoming paper in Hypatia for more details.
- Elenore Stump's 1979 paper on petitionary prayer. Not terribly new, of course, but new for me, and in trying to expand my intro course on philosophy of religion, this has been an example of the sort of material I hope to find more often.
- Sandy Goldberg's 2006 paper on testimony and evidence, which I really ought to have dug into 3 years ago. But the sophisticated analysis here is challenging me in an especially fruitful way.
- Sarah Stroud on friendship and epistemic partiality.
- Cressida Heyes's "Changing race, changing sex: The ethics of self-transformation," in You've Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity, edited by Laurie Shrage (OUP 2009).
- Kristie Dotson's exciting and important work on epistemic violence, testimonial quieting, testimonial smothering, and Black feminist philosophy. Among other places, look to her forthcoming paper in Hypatia for more details.
- Elenore Stump's 1979 paper on petitionary prayer. Not terribly new, of course, but new for me, and in trying to expand my intro course on philosophy of religion, this has been an example of the sort of material I hope to find more often.
- Sandy Goldberg's 2006 paper on testimony and evidence, which I really ought to have dug into 3 years ago. But the sophisticated analysis here is challenging me in an especially fruitful way.
- Sarah Stroud on friendship and epistemic partiality.
- Cressida Heyes's "Changing race, changing sex: The ethics of self-transformation," in You've Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity, edited by Laurie Shrage (OUP 2009).
Year's End Reading - Bound as Books Edition
On the eve of the new year, some reflection upon good books read in the past year. Please share your own recommendations in the comments!
- No One Would Listen, by Harry Markopolos. This first personal account of a decade-long attempt to expose Bernie Madoff's staggeringly vast Ponzi scheme is readable and well paced. In places the author may seem a bit melodramatic, but then, perhaps his fears of retaliation in trying to bring down a $60 billion fraud were pretty warranted.
- Betraying Spinoza, by Rebecca Goldstein. This is some nice intellectual history, placing Spinoza in his Spanish and Dutch contexts and teasing out the peculiarities of religious tolerance.
- Sciences from Below, by Sandra Harding. The author works to bring neglected work in science and technology studies to those who at least should be receptive to it, and find it valuable, even if they/we have overlooked it to our peril. Harding offers careful critiques of mainstream STS and northern feminist philosophy of science, and illuminates postcolonial feminist STS. This has been a fruitful challenge for my own thinking on science studies methodology.
- Brother West and Race Matters by Cornel West. The first is a new-ish popular memoir by the philosopher and public intellectual, and really worth reading if only for the chapters on his early teenage and colleagiate life. The latter is pretty old now, but its early 1990s focus is for better or worse still quite relevant today.
- Feminist Theory and The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, by bell hooks. Neither of these is especially new, and both have been on my shelf for a few years, but for some reason I found both especially valuable this year as I had not before.
- No One Would Listen, by Harry Markopolos. This first personal account of a decade-long attempt to expose Bernie Madoff's staggeringly vast Ponzi scheme is readable and well paced. In places the author may seem a bit melodramatic, but then, perhaps his fears of retaliation in trying to bring down a $60 billion fraud were pretty warranted.
- Betraying Spinoza, by Rebecca Goldstein. This is some nice intellectual history, placing Spinoza in his Spanish and Dutch contexts and teasing out the peculiarities of religious tolerance.
- Sciences from Below, by Sandra Harding. The author works to bring neglected work in science and technology studies to those who at least should be receptive to it, and find it valuable, even if they/we have overlooked it to our peril. Harding offers careful critiques of mainstream STS and northern feminist philosophy of science, and illuminates postcolonial feminist STS. This has been a fruitful challenge for my own thinking on science studies methodology.
- Brother West and Race Matters by Cornel West. The first is a new-ish popular memoir by the philosopher and public intellectual, and really worth reading if only for the chapters on his early teenage and colleagiate life. The latter is pretty old now, but its early 1990s focus is for better or worse still quite relevant today.
- Feminist Theory and The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, by bell hooks. Neither of these is especially new, and both have been on my shelf for a few years, but for some reason I found both especially valuable this year as I had not before.
14 December 2010
And the leaves that are grue turn to bleen
With apologies to Simon & Garfunkel.
& apologies even greater to loyal readers of The Grass is Grue, whom this blog has neglected for too many months. I promise to post frequently from now on.
In true grue fashion, whether this activity will constitute a change is to be determined in part by observation & in part by your chosen ontology.
& apologies even greater to loyal readers of The Grass is Grue, whom this blog has neglected for too many months. I promise to post frequently from now on.
In true grue fashion, whether this activity will constitute a change is to be determined in part by observation & in part by your chosen ontology.
12 May 2010
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