I’ll just assume that many non-Catholics, like myself, have absolutely no idea what authority Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia exerts (or exhorts) as a “Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation.” So, first, a primer on Papal texts. An apostolic exhortation is but one of many different types of communications from the Pope to the community of clerics and laypersons that constitute…
Read MoreThere are so many things about Netflix’s original comedy series Grace and Frankie (now in its second season) to recommend it, not least of which is its pitch-perfect gallows humor. Orbiting around the decidedly 21st century lives of four septuagenarians– the eponymous Grace (Jane Fonda) and Frankie (Lily Tomlin) and their now ex-husbands, Saul (Sam Waterston)…
Read MoreOnly a couple of weeks ago, I noted on this blog (in “Philosophy’s Gatekeepers”) that it had been 190 days since the last major breaking-news story about sexual harassment or assault in professional Philosophy. That was a noteworthy fact, And then, last Friday, the Thomas Pogge story broke. I’ll just direct readers to the news coverage…
Read MoreLike many people, I’ve found myself referring to “Trump supporters” in the last several weeks as a conceptually coherent, identifiable category of voters/citizens and, correspondingly, referring to the things “they” do as the actions of that collective. And every single time, I feel the words slipping, grinding, and catching, as if the very transmission system…
Read MoreAs a general rule, I’m not a fan of the contemporary obsession with gerunding (#seewhatIdidthere), i.e., turning words that were perfectly fine being nouns, perfectly fine accepting the assistance of helping verbs to make sense of some phenomenon, into stand-alone verbs themselves. My allergy to this practice is, for the most part, a consequence of countless, maddening…
Read MoreI dedicate a significant amount of time in my courses to thinking with students about our “digital selves” and our “digital lives.” Most students– most people, for that matter– tend to think of the aggregate data that constitute their digital selves (social media profiles, Google searches, Netflix or Amazon preferences, banking transactions, medical records, online…
Read MoreWhat difference does a signature make? I’ll assume that the phenomenon of trolling is one familiar to most of us on the interwebs, a phenomenon that is, in turns, infuriating, exasperating, unpleasant, and often genuinely hostile and threatening. There’s much to abhor about trolls– their pettiness and vitriol, their disregard for basic conversational decorum, their…
Read MoreSeveral years ago, a friend and colleague of mine invited me to come speak to his class about torture. The class was a writing seminar organized around the theme of “citizenship” and my colleague was feeling (understandably) frustrated because, in his words, he “just didn’t feel like [he] had the tools or the knowledge to…
Read MoreI 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…
Read MoreExactly one year ago this month, I attended and photographed my first #BlackLivesMatter event and this image (left) has not left my mind since. This is a photograph of a student at my University. Christian Brothers University, who on that day (December 9, 2014) participated in an event called #WalkOutToChalkOut. Students that day on our campus walked…
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