First up, a few interesting conferences.
There is a conference on Zoosemiotics and Animal Representation, with submission of abstract deadline for Sept. 15th. I wish I could go, but I have no budget for travel.
Also, there is this really interesting conference entitled Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral. Abstracts are due by Oct. 15th. Btw, I don't spend enough time promoting In the Middle and particularly Karl Steel. I should, and I encourage everyone to check out the blog and look particularly into the work that Karl Steel does on animals.
Lastly, Vanderbilt is hosting an interesting looking conference on Continental Feminist Theory. Abstracts due the first of December.
Last time I made one of these, I talked about Marc Hauser's academic troubles. The NY Times article I link wasn't very clear about what he was accused of. This CHE article goes into more depth of the accusations. The article's tone makes it seem as if Hauser is already guilty, and while he may be, I would like to keep a bit more of an open mind. (h/t Feminist Philosophers). [update: Don't I look foolish now, it seems that that the CHE article had an update written after I read it, confirming from Harvard that Hauser was found guilty of academic misconduct. Thanks to Marce Goodman in comments for pointing this out to me. --Scu]
I missed this last time around, but Speculative Heresy and others are engaged in call for short submissions on the question of science and metaphysics. I won't be submitting anything personally, but I always want to see these succeed, and look forward to seeing what gets put together.
Prodigies & Monsters have an interesting and beautiful post on the question of identity and queer in-coherence, especially as dealt with in Hardt and Negri's Commonwealth. Of particular interest because my review of Commonwealth dealt mostly with their understanding of identity politics.
If you haven't heard or seen Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeroes, well, you are missing out. Check out these songs performed for NPR's Tiny Desk Concert (though the number of people in the band certainly pushes the limit of the tiny desk space). Fun and amazing.