Workshop on the Thought of Simon Critchley

The University of Texas at San Antonio

Department of Philosophy & Classics

announces a workshop on the thought of

Simon Critchley

who will be the

Brackenridge Distinguished Visiting Professor

The workshop will take place on Monday February 22^nd and Tuesday February 23^rd 2010

Professor Critchley will deliver the keynote address on Monday evening

Confirmed participants include:

Anne Marie Bowrey (Baylor)

Costica Bradatan (University of Wisconsin-Madison/Texas Tech)

Tina Chanter (DePaul)

Paul Lewis (University of the Incarnate Word)

Anne O’Byrne (SUNY Stonybrook)

Davide Panagia (Trent)

Philip Quadrio (University of New South Wales/ Macquarie University, Centre for Research on Social Inclusion)

Jill Stauffer (Haverford College).

The workshop will be free and open to all; for more information, please contact Alistair Welchman (alistair.welchman@utsa.edu) or see www.colfa.utsa.edu/pc

A letter to Alain Badiou

At the last plenary session held on October 6th, the students were informed that the famous French philosopher Alain Badiou, who was supposed to come to Zagreb and meet with the students on October 16th, has fallen ill and will not be able to come after all. The plenum has decided to write a letter to Mr Badiou wishing him to get well soon and expressing desire to welcome him in Zagreb some time in the future. This is their letter.

Banksy in Palestine

The first video is a news segment on the work Banksy did in Palestine and the second video capture Banksy at work.

Religion for Radicals: An Interview with Terry Eagleton

Here is an interview with Literary critic Terry Eagleton by Nathan Schneider for MRzine. Eagleton discusses his new book, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate, which argues that “new atheists” like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens “buy their rejection of religion on the cheap.”  He believes that, in these controversies, politics has been an unacknowledged elephant in the room.

CFP: Symposium’s Special Issue on Rancière

Symposium The Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy

Call for Papers Special Issue on Jacques Rancière

Guest Editor: Joseph J. Tanke

This special issue of Symposium seeks to assemble essays dealing with all aspects of the work of Jacques Rancière and the conversations generated by his writings. We are interested in contributions that examine, critique, and extend his readings of the history of workers’ movements, the practice of philosophy, his notion of politics, the import of his work in educational theory, and his analysis of the politics of literature, aesthetics, and cinema.

Papers should be no longer than 8,000 words, accompanied by an abstract of 100 words, and submitted as Microsoft Word documents. All submissions must be received no later than July 1, 2010 for an issue expected to appear in 2011. Manuscript Submissions: Please consult the Chicago Manual of Style, 14th or 15th Edition, for all issues of style and formatting.

Contributors are strongly encouraged to avoid excessive use of footnotes; use internal citations wherever possible. After mentioning a title and providing full bibliographical information in a footnote, page numbers should be given with abbreviation and placed within parentheses after the period ending the sentence. For example, a citation from Malaise dans l’esthétique should appear as: …. (ME 4) If the reference is clear from the context, it is not necessary to provide an abbreviation.

Correspondence and submissions may be sent either electronically or via regular mail.

Joseph J. Tanke Chalsty Professor of Aesthetics and Philosophy

California College of the Arts

1111 Eighth Street San Francisco, CA 94107-2247

USA

jtanke@cca.edu

Confessions; or, crapping on about me

I guess this is a little over due. I’ve been meaning to write the “About” page for some time but was never really sure as to what I should write. Do I actually write about me, or do I write about what I want to do with this blog, or both? Anyhow…

My name is Nathan, I’m married (coming up 9 yrs) with two children (9 y.o boy, 7 y.o girl), and I’m fast approaching my 30th birthday (23rd August). I guess the reason why most people read or come to this blog is because of the philosophical content, broadly construed. Truth be told, I’m a second year undergraduate, studying externally (meaning I study online) and part-time out of Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. (I study part-time and externally purely because of the fact that I have to work full-time at a shitty job to help provide for my family – I know, you’ve heard this story before, right?) I came to my tertiary study a little later than most, I thought I was going to be a professional baseball player.

As a teenager I played baseball for Australia for a number of years. I travelled through the U.S and the eastern parts of Cananda in large part in pursuit of my dreams. I was awarded a scholarship to play baseball for a Div. 1 college and was shown some interest by the Minnesota Twins and the Atlanta Braves. My choice would definitely have been the Braves, my hero as a kid was Greg Maddox. Unfortunately while finishing my final year in high school I had injured my elbow pitching in the World Youth Series in Canada. I lost my scholarship and my chance of playing both college and professional baseball. After all, who wants to have an injured 18 y.o playing for you when you have more (healthier) kids playing baseball in the state of California than people actually living in the whole of Australia? Regardless, I finished highschool, had the necessary surgery to repair my elbow (I had an elbow reconstruction) and found a job labouring at a cabinet-makers factory.

About a year after I began my labouring job I decided to take on an apprenticeship as a woodmachinist for the company I was working for. I completed my apprenticeship with the second highest marks in the state. During my apprenticeship I got married, and by my fourth year as an apprentice, I had two children. All the time earning very little money. At this point I guess I really was the philosopher’s poor.

It was about this time, now my mid-twenties, that I started to gain a real interest in philosophy. I had always been very inquisitive, discovering that I was an atheist at the age of 6, though obviously not knowing what the term meant, that simply I was incredulous to the belief in God or anything outside of this world. I knew the world wasn’t always as it seemed to be. I began reading texts by Nietzsche and Camus, though to no surprise, I had no idea what the hell these guys were on about. I hadn’t done the usual philosophy 101 courses that most had done by the time they get to Nietzsche and Camus. Nevertheless, I kept borrowing the limited amount philosophy books from my local library to feed my new found hunger for knowledge and to naïvely answer all those burning questions I had: why am I here? what is the purpose of life? etc, etc. Unfortunately, I found now answers, only more questions. Tired of not understanding what the hell I was reading (which is funny, cause I still have no idea what the hell I’m reading half the time), in 2006 I decide to undertake university study in philosophy.

In the four short years I have been studying philosophy at a university level, my interests have varied from the more analytic inclined fields of A.I, philosophy of science, philosophy of language to the more ‘continental’ inclined fields of political theory, film theory, philosophy of religion, animal rights, philosophy of language, and critical theory. While my interest in philosophy and my philosophical interests grow, I still lack overall direction. It is hard to know where to begin with well over 2000 years of philosophical thought to cover and try to ingest. With baseball it was easy; for those who know anythign about baseball I was a closer, my job was to go in there and get outs. I knew how to do that and I was good at it. The problem I face now is that I feel as though I’ve entered into this a little too late to get where I want to be. There is always someone younger, smarter, more capable, and who have the time to understand the intricate systems of thought presented by those who come before us. (I feel at this point like the wife of 25 years who is trying to justify why her husband has cheated on her for his younger, sexier secretary.) Nevertheless, the one thing that studying philosophy at uni has taught me is that philosophy is nothing like the self-indulgent, public jerkfest academic philosophy seems to present itself as. Philosophy is a way of life, exactly the way the Greeks understood philosophy to be. Philosophy is for the people.

With all that said, the one thing I hope I can do with this blog and with philosophy more generally, is present thoughts, and  ideas not just of my own, but of those within field of philosophy and make them accessible to everyone. Knowledge should be free, and free for everyone to learn.

Recommendations

So I have a few weeks off for mid year break and I’m looking for sme recommendations. I’ve started reading a few articles, though there has been no real direction. I have a pretty extensive library and I’m kind of at the point where i’m thinking, “where do I start?” My interests are wide ranging, literary theory, film theory, politics, relgion, aesthetics, the general Continental stuff. So, that said, does anyone have any recommendations? If you like, you could let me know why I should read your recommendation. I’ll also try and post up any notes I make along the way.