Staff cuts at King's

Philosophy Departments in Jeopardy

King’s College London has recently announced dramatic cuts to its philosophy department.  You can find some information about it here:

 http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2010/01/budget-crisis-at-kings-college-london-kcl-firing-senior-faculty-in-philosophy-including-full-profess.html. 

I have conflicting thoughts about the closure of philosophy departments.  On the one hand, philosophy is vital to culture.  I know it seems that the two can be at opposite poles - that philosophers are so far removed from our everyday that the two never meet - but that’s not really the case.  Philosophy gives us the language to talk about how and why we think.  It’s like a little laboratory that throws light on our consciousness. Without the work of philosophers, we couldn’t place these processes into a historical context nor could we reflect on the everydayness of our lives.  Philosophy provides the discourse of our lives. In this respect, it is vital to continuing our creative, explorative development in both our cultural and individual lives.

On the other hand, philosophy as a discipline is antiquated.  Take the departments at King’s for instance.  This is a department made up of 22 permanent academic staff of which 3 are women.  There are no non-white faces on the staff. Racial theory, gender theory or feminist theory are not in the list of research interest. 

Many of the philosophy departments across the UK tell this same story.  They are firmly committed to the analytic tradition, which doesn’t attract the racial and gender diversity one would hope for.  As a result, the work of feminist philosophy, gender philosophy and race-based philosophy is being done and has been being done in other departments.  English and Modern Language departments take over most of this work in the UK with little funding to do so.

Since these emerging philosophies seem to have a closer connection to our cultural lives in that they give us a way of thinking difference - race, gender, age, sexual - it is no wonder that philosophy departments like that at King’s is suffering cuts. 

Graduate Summer Schools

I love Graduate Summer School programs!  I think the prospect of spending a week thinking and talking about a philosopher whilst in a city in which you don't live is fantastic.  I did the Irigaray summer seminar last year and it was intense, intellectually challenging and seriously good fun (fun in the way that thinking is fun, not so much in the way that drinking is fun).  Advertisements for summer schools are starting to appear.  Some of interest (beside the Irigaray summer school notice posted earlier this week):

Deleuze summer school with added kafka! : http://www.cinestatic.com/infinitethought/

EGS offers summer residencies: http://www.egs.edu/media-communication/summer-residences/ (The program at EGS can be pretty confusing, but last I checked, you could attend specific residences without undertaking the entire degree)

The European Summer School: http://www.europeum.org/ess2010/index.php

Simon Critchley is taking centre stage at the Tilburg summer school this year: http://www.discoursenotebook.com/Tilburg/

Also see, summer school on ethics and economics in the Netherlands: http://www.ozse.nl/

There are also some great conferences scheduled for this summer and next fall

The North American Levinas Society is hosting a July conference in Paris: http://www.levinas-society.org/home.html

The National Women's Association currently has a CFP out: http://www.nwsa.org/conference//

Also, SWIP-UK runs a a session during the Aristotelian Society annual conference: http://www.aristoteliansociety.org.uk/pdf/CFP%20JS%202010.pdf

[She] took the bait.

You know that commercial from Pepsi?  The one featuring the 3 guys who stage an octopus attack in order to attract the attention of a girl? In case you don't, it's here:

This add ran in the UK for the later part of 2009.  I was shocked that Pepsi (and Channel 4) had endorsed an add in which a woman was referred to as prey that 'took the bait'.  

I suspected there might have been some complaints to Ofcom (through ASA). According to the ASA list of complaints for that time period, however, Pepsi is not mentioned.  Digging a bit deeper, I find that the ASA does not handle complaints dealing with discrimination based on race, gender or sexual orientation.  The website directs me to the Equality and Human Rights Commission for those types of complaints.  This seems fair enough until I get there and discover that locating information about what to do when advertising is blatantly sexually discriminative is difficult. The website is aimed at individuals who have experienced direct sexual discrimination, rather than the discrimination portrayed in advertising.  Now that I've run out of time, I will simply have to investigate further if I see the advert again. 

CFP: Irigaray Summer Seminar Invitation

Invitation to the Seminar of Luce Irigaray, Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, June 14-19, 2010.

Since 2003, Luce Irigaray has held an annual seminar for researchers doing their PhD on her work. The seminar offer the opportunity to receive personal teaching from Luce Irigaray and to exchange ideas, methods and experiences with other participants. The seminar was hosted by the University of Nottingham during the first three years (see Luce Irigaray: Teaching edited by Luce Irigaray with Mary Green, and published by Continuum, London & New York, 2008), by the University of Liverpool the fourth year, by Queen Mary, University of London, the fifth year and by the Goodenough College of London the sixth year. In 2010, it will be hosted by Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick, in Ireland.

The framework of the seminar is this: a group of fifteen researchers doing their PhD on the work of Luce Irigaray stay one week on the university campus. The schedule includes: a presentation by each researcher of the aspect of their PhD which most focuses on the work of Irigaray, the discussion of this presentation by the group, comments from Luce Irigaray herself and her answers to questions raised by each participant. Also included are sessions devoted to the explanation of key-words or key-thoughts chosen by the participants. Personal meetings with Luce Irigaray are organised on the last day. The participants pay for their travel, but receive hospitality from the university. The seminar is conducted in English.

The participants in the seminar come from different regions of the world; they belong to different cultures, traditions and fields of research – Philosophy, Gender Studies, Religious Studies, Literature, Arts, Critical and Cultural Studies, etc. The themes of their research include, for example: the treatment of personal or cultural traumatic experience; the resources that various arts can offer for dwelling in oneself and with the other(s); the maternal order and feminine genealogy; the interpretation and embodiment of the divine today; the contribution of sexuate difference to personal and social development; new perspectives in philosophy etc. In each of these fields, diverse domains, approaches and methods are represented. To date, participants have come from Australia, Vietnam, Korea, India, Sri Lanka, South Africa, New Zealand, Canada, Latvia, Spain, Italy, Ireland and from different regions and universities of the U.S.A. and of the U.K. Beyond the multicultural teaching which results from such a gathering, the participants learn to live together and to share in difference during the time devoted to the work, and also during meals, walks, personal meetings etc. The atmosphere of the seminar is intense but friendly and joyful, and its outcome highly successful for both the research and the life of each participant.

If you are interested and would like to participate in such a seminar please send, as soon as possible, a CV, a PhD abstract (1 page) and a presentation of the issues and arguments of your PhD that most focus on the work of Luce Irigaray (5-6 pages) to Luce Irigaray (by mail: 15, rue Lakanal, 75015 Paris, France). After receiving this material, Luce Irigaray will tell you if you can participate in the seminar of 2010. You will be contacted for further practical information by Marita Ryan at Mary Immaculate College, University of Limerick after the selection of the candidates.

IGRS Grad Forum - February 2010 - CFP

CALL FOR PAPERS & MEETING:

IGRS Graduate Forum

The IGRS Graduate Forum hosts informal monthly seminars run by and for graduate students

working on all aspects of Germanic and Romance cultures.

For our first meeting of 2010, we invite papers and panels of 15 - 20 minutes on any topic.

All postgraduate students are welcome to attend, either to give a paper, participate in the discussion or simply listen. Please also be aware that you are free to join us at any point during the evening. The structure of the meetings is informal.

Deadline for submissions:  2 February 2010

Send all submission to: forum.igrs@sas.ac.uk

Meeting to be held:

9 February 2010 , 5:00 p.m. - 6:30 p.m., Institute of Germanic and Romance Studies.

The delicate formation of sexuality

So last night, I woke at 3 am and couldn't go back to sleep.  I lay very quietly for a long time so as to let A. sleep.  As I was laying quietly, I attempted, as I often do, to make up a short story in my head.  This attempt, like all others, prompted a stream-of-conscious exploration of my past and present.  In these moments, I often come across memories long since forgotten. 

So last night, I recalled my mother giving me this book at about the age of 6.

The book says that there are over a million copies sold, so my bet is that some of you too had this book given to you.  Now, there is nothing wrong with this book per se.  The information is accurate and the content is kid-specific.  However, the presentation of the information might have had something to do with the future sexual choices made by my adult self. Let’s take a look at our copulating couple:

Um, ewww! One of the first things that I remembered about them in my insomniac musings was that they were fat.  Now that I look at them, I see that actually they aren’t that fat, but to a kid shaped like a bean pole, they seemed extraordinarily fat at the time. The second thing that I remembered was that there were middle-aged.  And  yes, looking at them today at the ripe old age of 36, they really do look middle-aged.  

Knowing what I know now about 1970 feminism, these characters make good sense.  They look like parents and, without doubt, the sight of them copulating most likely made most of us think twice about it.  For me, however, the image of the two of them going at it was so haunting it made me never, ever want to have sex with an overweight, middle-aged bald man or a man that would ever turn into an overweight, middle-aged bald man.  

Freud argued that sexuality was formed in our childhood by our relationships with our parents.  No doubt, this is the case, but I don't think our parents had exclusive rights over that formation.  Foucault was definitely onto something in thinking that our sexuality is culturally mandated.  Hosts of images and experiences that have no logic in adult reason make up childhood sexuality.  

This is all to say that this book probably made me gay.

Monday morning

Good morning, blogland.  Hope you had a nice weekend.  It's warmer here in England - yesterday it got up to 8 degrees!  Felt almost sultry.

So the draft is done.  Let me just repeat that - the draft is done.  Chapters 1, 2, and 3 are all now in draft form.  I have 5 months to turn them from draft to thesis.  I'm looking forward to the challenge.  Re-writing is much more fun than writing.

I'm hoping for a slow and productive week.  I've got one project to wrap up and another big, exciting project to brainstorm.  There are three books on the reading list for the week: Nina Power One Dimensional Woman (which is so far fantastic), Irigaray's East and West and Kristeva's Powers of Horror.

Also, thank you Vienna for the BJ interlude.