Wednesday, May 11, 2011

A Post of Links

I get married a month from today, craziness.

Sometimes I give thought to what order to post these links, but today I will simply be doing it in order of the tabs I have up (so no order at all).

Here are some interesting thoughts on the idea of the education 'bubble'. I highly suggest reading it. I continue to feel that the use of the word bubble is provocative, but ultimately inaccurate. Bubbles need to be fueled by speculative capital, which isn't the case with much of the educational system in the US. However, higher ed is both increasingly a major web of the economy, while at the same time is financially unstable over the mid- to long-term.

Speculations II is out. Obviously awesome, both on the inside and the outside. Go and look.

Maybe you don't know, but the blog about What It Is Like To Be A Woman In Philosophy has a sister blog, What We Are Doing About What It Is Like. Go look, and hopefully contribute. If you are interested in making comments about how to improve the blog experience, go contribute over here.

Researchers discover 66 communicative gestures that chimps use in the wild. (h/t MLA)

Here is Mark Bittman on the 'ag-gag' laws. For those of you not keeping up, several state legislators are considering making undercover videos of cruelty to animals in slaughterhouses and factory farms illegal. Thankfully Florida's measure has failed, but several more states are still considering their bills.

JCAS has a new issue, this one focused on Continental philosophy and critical animal studies. The collection seems excellent, and I highly suggest taking a look.

Speaking of CAS, here is the cfp for the second annual European Conference for Critical Animal Studies.

I heard about this when I was at the conference, but I didn't have all the details. However, it seems that PhiloSophia is now a journal, as well!

This is very cool, a list of works of Paolo Virno in English!

Levi has been interviewed over at the New APPS, as always these are wonderful and smart interviews.

The American Values project has its own website. Go take a look, and maybe contribute!

I can't remember if I linked to this beautiful and powerful look at Diamond Ring's "It's Not My Party", and more generally on queer trauma. Go read, and take a look at the official music video. I, however, prefer the song in acoustic mode, so here is Diamond Rings playing "It's Not My Party,"

Sunday, May 8, 2011

PhiloSophia Conference wrap up

I think it was a splendid conference, and I think all the conference organizers should be proud of a job well done. I saw a lot of great papers, sat on an excellent Judith Butler panel, and many wonderful conversations. I am also firmly of the belief that more conferences need to end in margaritas, veggie tacos, and a dance party. I treated the conference like a secret animal conference, and I think it says a lot about changes in the field that I can go to a conference not on animals and still manage to see about a paper a panel on animals. Though a lot of that, no doubt, is do to the influence of Kelly Oliver, whom I wished I had a chance to speak to. And all the Vanderbilt students I meet were considerably friendly and I think a lot of smart things are going on with those students. I did get to meet Dr. J, though sadly briefly. Though I just heard about potential flooding in Memphis, so I hope everything is all right. Lastly, I did get to meet Cindy Willett, who is remarkably nice person and doing very interesting work. Indeed, all the Emory students I meet and talked with generous and intelligent.

I know that because of change in geography the make up of the conference will be different next year, if I can find the funds to go, I will certainly plan to try and attend next year's PhiloSophia.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Will I see you at PhiloSophia?

I will be at PhiloSophia hosted this year at Vanderbilt all day on Friday and Saturday. I am really looking forward to it. If any of you are going to be there, let me know. I will also be presenting on Judith Butler and non-anthropocentric ethics.

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Isabelle Stengers' books

Following up on my last post, MLA let me know of more Stengers' books coming out in English translation. I have been really excited by what I see as Stengers new popularity in the Anglophone world. Along with Latour, she is a brilliant and eclectic philosopher who has too long been regulated to exclusively the STS world, and seems to only recently discovered as a thinker in her own right.

Volume two of Cosmopolitics is coming out. This is great to see this series fully translated, even if Stengers is moving a bit beyond it in her more recent work.

Also, her book Thinking with Whitehead will be out shortly. I haven't read it, and am very excited to do so.


In this discussion, I told MLA that I wanted her co-authored book on capitalism and sorcery. Then, I looked and it is already in translation! It is also very expensive (so if anyone wants someone to review it for them for a copy of the book, let me know!). Nevertheless, her book on Capitalist Sorcery is already out!

Holy pre-ordering, Batman!

Well, three major books are finally coming out in English translation, all now available for pre-ordering off of Amazon.

The second volume of Derrida's lectures on The Beast and the Sovereign are set to come out. Excitement.

Agamben's The Kingdom and the Glory is up for pre-order. I get a lot of emails and search hits of people looking for news on the English translation, so here you go.

And lastly, Foucault's The Courage of Truth. I haven't been able to pick up a French version of this yet, so when I get the book will be my first time reading these lectures in any language.

In the case of Derrida and Foucault, these are the last lectures of their life.