Wednesday, October 6, 2010

A Post of Links

First up, university administrators are targeting whole programs for elimination. Howard University is targeting its philosophy department, and SUNY-Albany is targeting its languages, classics, and theater. Click the links to get information, and some suggestions of things to do to help those programs.

My review of Jean Kazez's Animalkind in Between the Species has come out (no subscription required!). Here you can find Kazez's comments on my review. It also includes a link to her talk deepening her views about respect without equality. I haven't had a chance to read it yet, but I might have some more comments when I do. This discussion, between equality and respect, reminds me a bit of Cora Diamond's promotion of justice over rights her "Injustice and Animals" found in Slow Cures and Bad Philosophers (ed. Carl Elliott). In that piece Diamond, echoing Simone Weil criticisms of rights, advocates a notion of justice rather than rights. She does so partially because of her own feelings that equality is a problematic framework in which to address other animals. No real point there, just thinking outloud.

Prodigies & Monsters has a smart and moving post on the bullying of queer individuals. I cannot agree with them more:
Frankly, though, here at P+M we are sick and tired of having to memorialize our folks, endlessly; of having to place at the center of our political imaginations the question of the livable life (as in “what are the existential conditions necessary for someone like Clementi to not head to the George Washington Bridge”) because we deeply want to see the suiciding and the other-annhiliation stop.


Jonathan Safran Foer debates Anthony Bourdain over eating animals here. JSF continues to impress me in all of his media appearances. If you haven't read Eating Animals, I highly suggest it. (h/t Vegan.com).

Devin Z. Shaw has a great review of Loïc Wacquant's Prisons of Poverty. This book's work is continued in Wacquant's Punishing the Poor. Both have been on my list to read for a while now, and I can only say that after reading Devin's review, they have jumped to the top of the list. Read his review, and then read the books.

JJ Cohen will has a handout of a lecture he will be giving in Buffalo. Can we collectively pressure to get a copy of the talk after it is given?


This week is Mark Ronson's "Bang Bang Bang", featuring Q-Tip and MNDR. It's just a wonderful jam.