Leigh M. Johnson

10 Things I Love About Memphis

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Dr. J's Lists, Memphis, Pop Culture/Film/Literature 4 Comments

Here’s my contribution to the meme begun over at Smart City Memphis: 1. Wild Bill’s Juke Joint I’m sure that it doesn’t come as any surprise to readers of this blog that I’ve got Wild Bill’s first on the list. This is the single greatest place in Memphis… or in any city I’ve ever been…

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Move ’em on, Head ’em up, Cut ’em out, Ride ’em in…

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Teaching 2 Comments

This time of year, I always here the theme song to “Rawhide” in my head. Only instead of “rollin’, rollin’, rollin’…”, I hear “gradin’, gradin’, gradin’…” This verse is especially inspirational:Keep movin’, movin’, movin’ Though they’re disapprovin’ Keep them dogies movin’ Rawhide! Don’t try to understand ’em Just rope, throw, and brand ’em Soon we’ll…

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Redactional Fatigue

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Human Rights, Philosophy, Politics, Torture Comments Off on Redactional Fatigue

Lest you think that the “author” is really “dead,” here’s a term I stumbled across recently that you might find interesting: redactional fatigue. Our friends at Wikipedia define it thus: When making changes to a large text, a redactor may occasionally overlook a piece of text that conflicts with the redactional goals. Since many important…

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Cheating and Swine Flu

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Teaching Comments Off on Cheating and Swine Flu

Did I mention that I don’t care about cheating? Check. Did that already. Of course, if you read the earlier post, you know it’s not so much that I don’t care about cheating as it is that I don’t care about policing cheaters. (Read linked blog-post for my amazing argument in support of said apathy.)…

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President Jokes-A-Lot

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Obama, Politics 1 Comment

Hey, did you hear our President is FUNNY? Here is the video from his gig at the annual White House Correspondent’s Dinner. Targets of Obama’s barbs: Dick Cheney, Larry Summers, FOXNews, Arlen Specter, Hillary Clinton, swine flu, Somali pirates, Joe Biden, the First Dog (Bo), and of course, himself, himself, himself. What a nice change…

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Small Groups

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Teaching, The Search for Values 17 Comments

Last week and this week, I’m participating in the annual seminar that reviews and (occasionally) amends the curriculum of the core humanities course-sequence at my college. Some of the work that we do is tedious and bureaucratic, but a lot of it includes really interesting sessions on pedagogy, core text discussions, interdisciplinarity and more general…

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On Being (And Not Being) A “Philosopher”

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Women and Gender Issues 3 Comments

There’s a debate ensuing over on The Leiter Report (which, for all intents and purposes, serves as the internet bulletin board and agora for professional philosophers) over whether or not the pensive-looking woman to your left, Hannah Arendt, is a “philosopher.” The question that started the debate, posed by Jason Stanley, is articulated in his…

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A Community of Kitsch

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Pop Culture/Film/Literature 8 Comments

There’s an interesting review of Brithish philosopher Roger Scruton’s new book, Beauty, that looks at the value (or, more accurately, lack thereof) of kitsch. In “Finding Kitsch’s Inner Beauty,” Robert Fulford praises Scruton’s text for holding the “now marginalized view” that philosophers should help the rest of us “think about issues that really matter.” (Marginalized?…

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Torture Reading

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Human Rights, Philosophy, Politics, Teaching, Torture Comments Off on Torture Reading

Just a couple of quick recommendations for those of you keeping up with the current scandal over the so-called “torture memos.” I’ve been doing a lot of reading on this stuff over the course of the past year as a part of my research, and I plan to include both of these texts in my…

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Right Place, Right Time

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Memphis, Music 17 Comments

File this away under “The Story I Would Want To Tell My Kids, If I Ever Had Any Intention of Reproducing (Which I Don’t).” Last Saturday night, I was at Wild Bill’s (per usual) enjoying myself greatly (per usual) and hanging out with a great group of friends and an even greater stock of delicious…

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