Month: November 2015

Prayers for the Precariat

Tonight, on Facebook and Twitter, I posted that I was “praying” for Minneapolis, for Chicago, for #BlackLivesMatters, for refugees fleeing violence and seeking safety and, more generically, for anyone and everyone who loves justice, defends and protects the most vulnerable among us, who is under assault, in danger and in need of not only our supportive solidarity, but our active advocacy. This was…

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Everybody’s Damaged By Something: On “Room” (2015)

I read Emma Donoghue‘s novel Room somewhat by accident shortly after it was released in 2010  No one recommended it to me and I didn’t know anything about it in advance. Rather, I found myself stuck in an airport waiting on an indefinitely delayed connection, my attention-span for grading papers was exhausted, and so I wandered…

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Handy Guide to Tone-Policing

I won’t even bother with summarizing or linking to the most recent debacle in the Philosophy blogosphere.  Instead, I’ll just note that, commensurate with the rest of the nation, the discipline of Philosophy has a real problem determining between when one ought and ought not “tone-police.” I’ve said my peace (here) before about tone-policing and/or…

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Closed Borders, Open Doors

Paris was ambushed by seven separate terrorist actions last night, a horrific set of events eerily reminiscent of both the Charlie Hebdo massacre less than a year ago and the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Any one of them– the mass shootings in various restaurants and bars, the suicide bombing outside of a soccer match at the Stade de…

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