Friday, May 28, 2010

A Post of Links

First up, as most of you know there is a petition to commit to an academic boycott of Middlesex. Specifically,
We the undersigned therefore commit ourselves to an academic boycott of Middlesex University until it shows evidence of full reinstatement and firm commitment to support its philosophy program. Prior to such reinstatement, we will refuse to act as external examiners or to deliver talks at the school. We will encourage colleagues not to accept job offers. We will refuse to visit campus for any reason other than to protest the decision to close the philosophy program. We will, in short, cease to engage with Middlesex as a legitimate academic institution.
I've signed it, but each of you will have to make this choice for yourself.

This article does a wonderful thing. It both holds Heidegger accountable for his Nazism while at the same time showing Faye for being such a lousy scholar on this issue.

Levi has a good post up on the importance of academic blogging (I am not advocating his attacks on APA and SEP, mostly just because I am fairly removed from both of those annual events). I hope to write more about this post, but I want to note that while blogging has been great intellectually, several of us grad students are a new experiment on the role academic blogging will have for us getting or not getting jobs. Not that blogging is the only (and probably not the most important) factory in that equation, but now is not the time to call triumph on grad student blogging. This experiment is far from settled.

Lastly, Janelle Monae's album The ArchAndroid is the most amazing thing musically to have occurred in a while. I'm going to embed a video from the album, but I also suggest checking out some of the live show videos (the one from letterman is particularly good).