Leigh M. Johnson

Loving Lolita

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Pop Culture/Film/Literature, Teaching, Women and Gender Issues 1 Comment

I can’t remember the first time I read Vladimir Nabakov’s Lolita— it must have been more than 15 years ago now– but I can remember with absolute clarity how utterly besotted I was with it. If memory serves, I think the only other books that I’ve read straight through in one sitting were Les Misérables…

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Work-Guilt and Time-Management

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy 6 Comments

It’s really surprising how long it takes to acclimate oneself to a full-time position in academia. I’m nearing the end of my second year now, and I still find myself constantly tweaking all of my best-laid-plans for “balancing” the Holy Triumvirate of responsibilities: scholarship, teaching and service. As I’ve said many times before, one of…

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I See London, I See France…

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Politics, Women and Gender Issues 4 Comments

I hope you’re not one of those people who already felt vulnerable and exposed by having to remove your shoes and belt in the airport security check, because things are about to get a lot worse for you. According to William Saletan over at Slate, the Transportation and Safety Administration (TSA) has revised its position…

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x-phi

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy 4 Comments

In an article titled “Philosophy’s Great Experiment,” David Edmunds and Nigel Warburton (hosts of one of my favorite podcasts, Philosophy Bites) consider the recent rise in what has come to be known as “experimental philosophy” or “x-phi.” Experimental philosophy is exactly as it sounds: a form of inquiry that makes at least partial use of…

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Social Networking, the Ivory Tower, and “Friend”-ly Disagreement

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

There is an old, well-worn and tired stereotype of academics that figures them/us as people who restrict their/our lives to the Ivory Tower, engaged in intellectual pursuits and disengaged from the practical concerns of everyday life. (Incidentally, the “tower” pictured to the left really is one of the towers on my campus.) I suppose that…

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Tell 3 (Philosophers)

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

There’s quite a bit of chatter going on in the American Philosophical Association right now concerning that organization’s antidiscrimination policy– more specifically, it’s policy forbidding institutions from discriminating against homosexuals in hiring. Professor Charles Hermes (University of Texas- Arlington) authored a petition, which now has over 1300 signatures, calling for the APA to either (1)…

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Tourney Time!

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Memphis, Sports Comments Off on Tourney Time!

It’s that time of year again. March Madness. The Big Dance. Win or Go Home. The single most exciting time of the annual sports calendar. The NCAA Basketball Tournament. And my beloved and beleaguered University of Memphis Tigers are there again. Coming off a truly heartbreaking loss last year in the Champoinship Game to the…

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Science v. Values

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics 5 Comments

According to President Obama, I was solidly within the majority American opinion last Monday when I breathed a sigh of relief upon hearing his decision to lift the ban on federal funding for stem-cell research using destroyed human embryos. In his trademark careful and conscientious rhetoric, Obama acknowledged the deep moral difficulties this issue poses,…

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Communists

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Teaching 8 Comments

I forgot to mention that Angela Davis visited my institution a couple of weekends ago and delivered the keynote address for the Women’s and Gender Studies Conference that we hosted. (Aside: I’m not generally inclined to be star-struck, but I definitely was a little around Dr. Davis. I was charged with taking care of her…

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God Plays Laser Tag

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Politics 5 Comments

One of the true crazies of the religious Right in this country is the Reverend Fred Phelps, bona fide hatemonger and pastor of the Westboro (Kansas) Baptist Church. He’s the man who claimed that 9/11 was God’s payback to America for its tolerance of feminists and homosexuals, as was Hurricane Katrina, and he regularly drags…

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