Professional Academia

How To Score An Academic Meeting

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Codifying Civility and Collegiality, Professional Academy, Public Philosophy, Race and Racism, RMWMTMBM Archive, Women and Gender Issues 0 Comments

I do not, in principle, hate academic faculty or departmental meetings. In fact, as someone who (many of my friends have rightly dubbed) a “certifiably pathological proceduralist“– no kidding, I would voluntarily stand out on the corner and pass out Roberts Rules of Order like evangelists pass out Bible tracts– I genuinely (ahem, naively) look…

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The Material Conditions of Grade Inflation

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Labor Issues, Open Source Pedagogy, Philosophy, Politics, Professional Academy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Teaching 0 Comments

One of my colleagues, Jeff Gross (Asst Professor of American Literature and Culture), posted a really excellent essay entitled “Rethinking Grades” earlier today, which I want to recommend that everyone (especially educators in Tennessee) read post haste.  There, he raises a number of questions about how we think about the phenomenon, widespread in higher education today,…

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The Leigh Johnson Mystery

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Labor Issues, Leiter, Philosophy, Politics, Professional Academy, Public Philosophy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Women and Gender Issues 0 Comments

Here’s the thing everyone needs to understand before s/he starts picking a fight: you can only back people into a corner so far before they come out swinging. UChicago law professor Brian Leiter has decided to pick a fight with me in a comment thread on his blog here. There, in a moderated thread allegedly addressing “issues…

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It’s the Exploited Labor, Stupid

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson 99%, Labor Issues, Philosophy, Politics, Professional Academy, RMWMTMBM Archive, Women and Gender Issues 0 Comments

Despite much well-earned Sturm und Drang in the last few years surrounding the so-called crisis in the humanities, the regrettably pernicious corporatization of higher education, the imminent death of American universities, the (at turns, but more often in conjunction) sexist, racist, homophobic, classist and just garden-variety asshole-ish paucity of civility/collegiality in academia— especially in the discipline of Philosophy—  I sometimes fear we…

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The Problem with Poaching

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Uncategorized 33 Comments

As promised, here is the first of my reflections on what I see as a very troubling trend in Continental philosophy. I call it “poaching,” Brian Leiter calls it “plundering,” and over the last several years I’ve heard it called many other things that I wouldn’t repeat in front of small children or my mother……

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What’s SPEP Got To Do With It?

June 9, 2024 Leigh M. Johnson Uncategorized 15 Comments

Ahhhh, SPEP. It’s a guilty pleasure for most of us. The Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy conferences happen only once every year, and for folks like me anyway, it’s about the only chance I get to see my far-flung friends. Sure, it’s also a chance to reunite with the Continental Philosophy Diaspora, to see…

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