Hypatia Symposium: Comments open until July 20th

The discussion isn’t showing any signs of slowing down at the Hypatia Symposium, so we’re extending the comment period for another week, until July 20th. Perhaps even longer if there are still fruitful discussions to be had.

Below, we’ve cherry picked one or two comments ‘overheard’ in the discussion threads of the symposium pieces to give you a quick flavour of discussion taking place. Your voice is welcome.

Recently ‘overheard’ at the symposium…

• “…But surely animals are not the only objects we fear and cannot neatly define…” http://bit.ly/MqG0g4 
•  “…I wonder at Steiner’s comment about feminist theory not being “useful” and hope to see an elaboration in future” http://bit.ly/NmiDGf 
•  “…what would it mean to rethink ethics such that we imagine that we have obligations to those who are not like us?” http://bit.ly/NuRjUL 
•  “…caring about animal suffering means caring less about the suffering of human women…” http://bit.ly/OCCfWg 
•  “…Derrida’s writings on animals have opened up Continental philosophy to animal welfare issues…” http://bit.ly/P4uEn5

 

New Feminist Philosophy Section for Philosophy Compass

We are delighted to announce that we have launched a new Feminist Philosophy section of Philosophy Compass. This new section will be headed up by Alia Al-Saji (bio below), who is currently commissioning articles to be published in 2013.  In the meantime, the section homepage will feature previously-published Philosophy Compass articles that touch on aspects of feminist philosophy. Welcome aboard, Alia!

Section Editor Bio: Alia Al-Saji

Alia Al-Saji is Associate Professor of Philosophy at McGill University.  Her research brings together and critically engages 20th century phenomenology and French philosophy, on the one hand, and contemporary critical race and feminist theories, on the other.  She has published articles and chapters in such venues as Continental Philosophy Review, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Research in Phenomenology, Southern Journal of Philosophy, and the Journal of the British Society for Phenomenology, as well as in anthologies in German, French and English.  Alia is currently a co-editor of the Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy, and she is completing a term as member-at-large on the executive committee of the Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy.

Feminist Philosophy section homepage

Alia’s faculty profile

50th Anniversary of the Southern Journal of Philosophy

The Southern Journal of Philosophy is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2012! To commemorate this milestone and to honor all of those who have sustained this distinctive forum for the past half-century, each of the issues in this year’s volume has been specially commissioned, guest-edited, and dedicated to a timely topic from one of the areas in which the SJP regularly publishes (analytic philosophy, continental philosophy, and history of philosophy):

•  50.1: “Epistemic Coherentism,” ed. Ted Poston
• 50.2: “Continental Philosophy: What and Where Will It Be?” ed. Ted Toadvine
• 50.3: “Newton and Newtonianism,” ed. Mary Domski
• 50.4: “Relativism about Value,” eds. Max Kölbel and Dan Zeman

Together, these issues will offer a “state of the discipline” look at key debates in contemporary philosophy.To be alerted when new issues publish, visit the SJP homepage and click “Get New Content Alerts” from the top left Journal Tools menu.

New Philosophy Compass Issue, Sept 2011

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The latest issue of Philosophy Compass is available on Wiley Online Library

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Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art

Aesthetics of Opera (pages 575–584)
Paul Thom

Continental

Schelling’s Contemporary Resurgence: The Dawn after the Night When All Cows Were Black (pages 585–598)
Jason Wirth

Legal & Political

Emotions and the Criminal Law (pages 599–610)
Mihaela Mihai

Logic & Language

Generalized Quantifiers and Number Sense (pages 611–621)
Robin Clark

Negation, Denial, and Rejection (pages 622–629)
David Ripley

Naturalistic Philosophy

Empirical Arguments for Group Minds: A Critical Appraisal (pages 630–639)
Robert D. Rupert

Philosophy of Science

Introduction to the Philosophy of Statistical Mechanics: Can Probability Explain the Arrow of Time in the Second Law of Thermodynamics? (pages 640–651)
Orly Shenker and Meir Hemmo

Potassium Iodide and Nuclear Weather

As the BBC reports, a nuclear survival online retailer nukepills.com, received 3,800 orders for potassium iodide (mostly from American citizens) in just 18 hours following the Fukushima disaster. The interest, however, is not limited to ordinary folk– even state governors have contacted the supplier. The idea that one might survive exposure to radiation thanks to a pill– a ‘nuke pill’– is a powerful one, far more powerful than potassium iodide’s actual capacity to stave off the negative effects of radiation.

The search for potassium iodide in countries where there is zero threat of contamination from Fukushima is telling: for people are stockpiling the pills as they would stockpile rations in anticipation of a natural disaster. Nuclear disasters are today viewed as

Happiness: If You’re Not Feeling it You’re Committing a Crime Against Yourself

In these secular days most of us accept we haven’t got an afterlife to look forward too, and most of us don’t hold the belief that we are going to come back in another form. In short this is the only chance we have to be happy, and since this is the only shot we’ve got we owe it to ourselves to make sure we are happy, and so we feel that any time spent suffering is time we have failed to utilise. This is the conclusion the French philosopher Pascal Bruckner came to in his book Perpetual Euphoria: On the Duty to be Happy in 2001 (although it has been in the news recently as it has just been made accessible to the English speaking world thanks to a new translation of the work by Steven Rendall).

Middlesex closes its Philosophy department

Nina Power writes over at The Guardian on the closing of Middlesex’s Philosophy department. Middlesex has an excellent Philosophy department that far exceeds its modest reputation as a university, and was particularly important for its specialisation in continental philosophy, which brought some much-needed pluralism into British academic philosophy.