Month: June 2024

The Sweet, Succulent Smell of Swine

In my humble opinion, May is absolutely the best month to be in Memphis. We have a month-long festival every year called “Memphis in May,” which includes a killer Music Fest to kick things off and a beautiful Sunset Symphony at the end of the month. Spring is also the best time to catch our…

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Why Hillary Should NOT Drop Out (yet)

I suppose it was inevitable that, when the results came back from North Carolina and Indiana, people would begin calling for Clinton to drop out of the race. I don’t think she should. I’m not going to appeal to the most obvious reason, which is that many of the superdelegates still remain uncommitted. (In the…

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Strategic Misreading

I used to say that one of the things I both loved and hated about philosopher Richard Rorty’s work was that he was a master of what I call “strategic misreading.” If you’ve ever read Rorty’s famous foray into the “Continental” (European) philosophical tradition, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, you may have some sense of what I…

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We’ve Come A Long Way, Baby?

Consider this a friendly (though not completely unrelated) break from the Clinton/feminism discussion of late on this blog.

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Debating the κανών

I’m giving the discussions of Hillary Clinton and strategic misreading a rest for a bit to make room for another, more immediately pressing, question of mine. What counts as the central “canonical” text of Platonism? Let me set the stage for this question: At my academic home, we have a great-books-ish series of courses that…

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Human Rights Goes Viral

If you keep a blog, I urge you to check out the upcoming event Bloggers Unite for Human Rights, which will occur on May 15th (in just a couple of days). This blog will be participating!

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KMN

Some of you may have seen Mary Kolesnikova’s recent Los Angeles Times article entitled “Language that makes you say OMG.” There, Kolesnikova tells of a Pew Research Center study that polled 12- to 17-year-olds and found that almost 40% admitted to letting “chat-speak” slip into their essays and homework. And a full 25% of them…

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Habeus Corpus

[Argh! I was having blog problems on the UNITE day, so this post is late (and severely truncated). I think I have things figured out now, though, so more on human rights later…] Bloggers Unite for Human Rights day is a joint venture of Amnesty International and BlogCatalog.com intended “to help elevate human rights by…

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Mardi Gras Mayhem

It was a rough day in Memphis yesterday. When I got to my office, it was almost 75 degrees outside, and humid. It didn’t feel anything like February. It felt like April or May… and to a native Memphian, that means it felt like “tornado season.” Turns out, it was. As I am sure many…

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Better Late Than Never…

After a (too) long absence on this blog, I am happy to report that things are beginning to slow down enough in the Life-of-Doctor-J to make my return here possible. I’m in the process of marking final papers and exams now. Grades are due on Monday. Commencement will follow shortly after that (May 10). Then,…

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