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RMWMTMBM Archive

What You Can Do To Support PIKSI (which you *should* support) OTHER THAN Donating Your Money (which, if you are able, you *should* also do)

October 2, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson Philosophy, Politics, Race and Racism, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching, Women and Gender Issues Comments Off on What You Can Do To Support PIKSI (which you *should* support) OTHER THAN Donating Your Money (which, if you are able, you *should* also do)

It’s been a busy (in fact, record-breakingly busy) month here on RMWMTMBM, so I wanted to take a momentary break from the Leiter/PGR/SeptemberStatement brouhaha–about which this blog has more or less unfortunately become something akin to professional Philosophy’s version of TMZ— and instead remark upon an initiative as important to our discipline as, and not wholly…

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A Note on “The Archive”

September 30, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Leiter, PGR, Philosophy, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive 1 Comment

This is just to let readers know that I continue to update the Archive of The Meltdown daily.  I’m trying to catch everything substantive that shows up in re the recent events surrounding Leiter, the PGR and the September Statement– and I’m aiming to avoid redundancy as much as possible– but there has been a…

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Professional Philosophy Triage

September 29, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Leiter, PGR, Philosophy, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive, Women and Gender Issues Comments Off on Professional Philosophy Triage

Justice tempered by Mercy Because I’m maintaining an Archive of (what I’ve called) The Meltdown here on this blog, I think I’ve read most, if not all, of what professional philosophers have said publicly in the last several days’ scrum regarding  Brian Leiter’s objectionable behaviors (or “civility” more generally) as well as the merits and demerits…

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Archive of The Meltdown [Now Closed]

September 24, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Leiter, PGR, Philosophy, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive, Women and Gender Issues 8 Comments

If the current results of Brian Leiter’s poll (which asks whether or not he should continue producing the Philosophical Gourmet Report) are any indication– it’s 1709 to 1118 in favor of “No” votes as I write this– and if Leiter intends to take those poll results as some sort of mandate, then Philosophy may very well…

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Normalizing Civility, Policing Critique, Enforcing Silence and Misunderstanding Collegiality

September 14, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Philosophy, Politics, Race and Racism, RMWMTMBM Archive, Salaita, Women and Gender Issues 1 Comment

How we ought to understand the terms “civility” and “collegiality” and to what extent they can be enforced as professional norms are dominating discussions in academic journalism and the academic blogosphere right now.  (So much so, in fact, that it’s practically impossible for me to select among the literally hundreds of recent articles/posts and provide…

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Witch-Hunting in the Digital Age

September 6, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Digital Humanities, Philosophy, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive, Salaita Comments Off on Witch-Hunting in the Digital Age

Much to my own embarrassment, I’ve neglected to post here on the Steven Salaita controversy thus far, an affair with far-reaching implications not only for how we determine what constitutes both the civic and academic limits to the “right to free speech,” but also for a number of hiring-and-firing practices that are customary within the Academy but…

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The Ferguson Lesson: Another Way To “Take Up Arms”

September 5, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson #BlackLivesMatter, Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Democracy, Ferguson, Philosophy, Politics, Race and Racism, RMWMTMBM Archive, Weak Humanism 2 Comments

As someone who has spent the better part of her career researching, analyzing and teaching not only about the structure and nature of oppressive power regimes, but also better and worse ways to resist or transform such regimes, I’ve nevertheless been unable to settle in my own mind, to my own satisfaction, my position with…

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Ferguson Syllabus for Philosophers

August 28, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson #BlackLivesMatter, Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Ferguson, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Politics, Race and Racism, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching 7 Comments

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…

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Democracy Must Always Be Severe

August 18, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson Bon Mots, Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Democracy, Philosophy, Politics, RMWMTMBM Archive Comments Off on Democracy Must Always Be Severe

“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…

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“Somehow Philosophy Got Left Behind”

August 15, 2014 Leigh M. Johnson Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Philosophy, Race and Racism, RMWMTMBM Archive, Women and Gender Issues Comments Off on “Somehow Philosophy Got Left Behind”

There’s a really great essay by Eugene Sun Park entitled “Why I Left Academia: Philosophy’s Homogeneity Needs Rethinking”  that appeared yesterday on HIPPO Reads.  Stop whatever you’re doing and go read it now. I’ve posted a fair bit of material on this blog addressing the racial and gender disparity in professional Philosophy, which remains truly embarrassing, but…

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