Teaching

The M**ket

While just about everyone else is full of yuletide joy, this is a dreaded time of year for philosophers. It’s Job M**ket time. (The very word conveys so much Sturm und Drang that it feels like a profanity.) I imagine that this year is even more ulcer-inducing than years past because of the depressed economy…

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The “Public” Intellectual

Many of you probably read Daniel Drezner’s recent Chronicle of Higher Education article about the decline of public intellectuals (“Public Intellectual 2.0”), in which Drezner wants to contest the presumed Götterdämmerung that many–like Francis Fukuyama, Russell Jacoby and Daniel Bell— believe began in the 1950’s and has yet to abate. Specifically, Drezner takes to task…

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Blogging in the Classroom

I’m trying out a new pedagogical technique in all of my courses this semester. I’ve set up a blog for each course and have required students, as a part of their grade, to contribute regularly to those sites. In one of my courses, blog posts and comments are the only writing students are required to…

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Wake Up!

I’m teaching a course on “Existentialism” this semester, which is not only one of my favorite philosophical movements, but also one of my favorite things to teach. As I’ve said to my colleagues many times before, existentialism is the one philosophy that seems to have been created for 18- to 25-year-olds. The list of existentialist…

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Drinking the “Liberal Arts” Kool-Aid

I know, I know. I should be writing about Sarah Palin’s speech at the Republican National Convention. But I just can’t bring myself to do it. I’m still shocked and dismayed that I didn’t see one single non-white face in the Convention audience on television last night. And I’m also still amused that, at one…

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Classroom Governance

I had a somewhat odd conversation with a friend and colleague of mine recently about the implications of being considered a “cool” professor by students. Neither one of us were really sure what our students think of us, but we both guessed that if there were a kind of Kinsey Scale for such a thing,…

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The Graying of the Faculty

There’s an interesting article in the New York Times today– “The 60’s Begin To Fade As Liberal Professors Retire”— that touches on a number of issues surrounding what appears to be an impending “generational shift” in the American professorate. According to the author, over 54% of full-time faculty in the United States were over the…

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What if you were Gerald McGrew?

So, I saw this on anotherpanacea first, and therefore can’t take credit for what a great idea it is… You may remember the story by Dr. Seuss (né, Theodore Seuss Geisel) from 1950 entitled If I Ran the Zoo, in which the pint-sized protagonist, Gerald McGrew, speculates upon the amazing creation he could bring about…

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A Genuinely Original Thought About Race

Pace the author of Ecclesiastes, every once in a while we find that there is, in fact, something new under the sun. As evindence, I refer you to the political philosophy blog Public Reason, where Simon Keller (Philosophy, Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand) recently offered what I find to be a remarkably original “Thought…

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Strategic Misreading

I used to say that one of the things I both loved and hated about philosopher Richard Rorty’s work was that he was a master of what I call “strategic misreading.” If you’ve ever read Rorty’s famous foray into the “Continental” (European) philosophical tradition, Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, you may have some sense of what I…

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