Many of you have probably seen the excellent “Ferguson Syllabus” created by Sociologists for Justice, which has been circulated widely over the last several days and which provides a collection of research articles used to inform the arguments and positions represented in their Statement on Ferguson. I strongly encourage you to keep circulating that document, and…
Read More“Democracy must always be severe. Without either desire or dread of paradox, we may go even further. Democracy must always be unpopular. It is a religion, and the essence of a religion is that it constrains. Like every other religion, it asks men to do what they cannot do; to think steadily about the important…
Read MoreFor they know they are not animals. And at the very moment when they discover their humanity, they begin to sharpen their weapons to secure its victory. –Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth America has always been and remains an apartheid state. The latter part of that sad but increasingly undeniable fact was made apparent last night in…
Read MoreIn the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong. We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. — President Barack Obama, Press Conference (Aug 1, 2014) “That is another of your odd notions,” said the Prefect, who had a fashion of calling everything “odd”…
Read MoreThere’s been a good bit conversation recently about the merits and demerits of “public philosophy” and, as someone who considers herself committed to public philosophy (whatever that is). I’m always happy to stumble across a piece of remarkably insightful philosophical work in the public realm. Case in point: Robin James (Philosophy, UNC-Charlotte) posted a really…
Read MoreIt is indeed difficult to imagine the world without America, which is what the one-sheet movie poster for Dinesh D’Souza’s America dares us to imagine. After all, America is every bit as much a symbol, an aspiration and an idea as it is a nation-state. However, it is not difficult to imagine the world without D’Souza’s “America” or…
Read MoreToday and tomorrow, student-workers are going on strike to protest unfair labor practices (ULPs) by the University of California after its administrators refused to meet their (very reasonable) bargaining demands and threatened union members who might participate in a strike. The UC Student-Workers Union, UAW Local 2865, represents over 12,000 graduate and undergraduate Academic Student Employees– all…
Read MoreThe news has just been released that Rev. Fred Phelps, founder and lifelong shepherd of the Westboro Baptist Church (in Topeka, Kansas) has died at the age of 84. I find it difficult, I confess, to summon the normal human compassion that usually accompanies news of another’s death in this case, largely because Phelps dedicated…
Read MoreLet’s face it: exercising solidarity is tricky business, not the least of which is because “solidarity” itself is a tricky concept, which requires the subordination of real differences (across a whole host of important categorical domains) for the sake of some particular common interest that might prioritize similitude– often for prudentially strategic reasons– over, across…
Read MoreAs some of you already know, I am also one of the bloggers at NewAPPS. I’m re-posting here a piece co-authored by Edward Kazaian and I that appeared this past Tuesday on NewAPPS. It’s generated a lot of conversation so far, and I’ll have a post forthcoming soon on my take on that conversation. What…
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