Philosophy Archives - Page 11 of 23

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The Mystical Expatriates

The invention of Californian spirituality

June 24, 2018 • by Jules Evans

Back in October I went on a 10-day ayahuasca retreat in the Peruvian jungle. While there, I picked up a little novel by Christopher Isherwood called A Single Man. I don’t know why I picked up that particular book. Perhaps because it was slim, so I could finish it while at the ...

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Science Fake and Real

On Enlightenment scientists and the forgotten role of imagination

June 23, 2018 • by Tita Chico

Headlines today pop with accusations that traditional sources of knowledge and even experts are biased, ideological, and unreliable. Accusations of “fake science” have become particularly commonplace. The Heritage Foundation think tank reports on the pervasiveness of fake science, laying the blame on scientists themselves. In their view, climate change isn’t caused by ...

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The African Decolonial Thought of Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí

Black Issues in Philosophy

June 20, 2018 • by Lewis Gordon

Recently, the Nigerian sociologist Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí has earned her place among many of the living in conversation with this stellar community of ancestors by virtue of her contributions to contemporary African philosophy. Readers who haven’t heard of her should take this opportunity to familiarize themselves with her work. Oyĕwùmí specializes in ...

The African Decolonial Thought of Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí

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The ‘Fear Index’

The autonomization of the social imaginary of finance

June 19, 2018 • by Carla Ibled

The ‘fear index’, also known as the VIX, is a financial instrument created to measure and speculate on market volatility. While financiers of old may have sought to minimize risk, the widespread use of the VIX in today’s financial landscape indicates a shift towards the competitive leveraging of volatility, with ...

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Allegories of America

American “Indians” and the British Imperial Imaginary

June 19, 2018 • by Robbie Richardson

I would like to discuss a statue in London which, like many things in London, is visible and yet generally unread, monument to a hazy or forgotten history: prominently placed in front of Christopher Wren’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, completed in 1711, is an 1886 replica of a statue of Queen ...

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The City and the City

A Post-Financial Counter-Imaginary for London

June 18, 2018 • by Steven Taylor

London’s status as a world financial centre is central to the current imaginary of the city as projected by PR firms, web sites such as visitlondon.com or ‘official’ promoters of tourism like London & Partners. In this representation of London, the capitalized City - the financial district or ‘Square Mile’ ...

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A Conversation on The Black Panther

Black Issues in Philosophy

June 17, 2018 • by Lewis Gordon and Gregory Doukas

Prior to the release of The Black Panther, some well-intentioned whites on social media recommended whites to wait a week before going to see the movie so black audiences could “have their moment” without white intrusion. Greg Doukas felt this stance was senseless, and contacted Lewis Gordon to hear his thoughts. Gordon ...

Race

There’s Blood on Your Binary

The social and corporeal costs of gender dualism

June 13, 2018 • by Ceilidh Webster

“We are only ever better when we are many and varied.” Anna Julia Cooper A Voice from the South, 1898. More than a hundred years after they were written, Anna Julia Cooper’s words are both timeless and timely -- and yet the message has still not been received. Our world is one where we ...

Education

Wolf, Sanders, and the Scandal of “Safe Spaces”

Satire and the Abuse of Anti-Bullying Rhetoric

May 24, 2018 • by Michael Weinman

The White House Correspondents Dinner at the end of last month sent social media and the commentariat alight once again, reporting a scandal where the only scandal is how easy it is for persons across the political spectrum to be scandalized by what is, in fact, the healthy efflorescence of ...

Wolf, Sanders, and the Scandal of “Safe Spaces”

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Creaturely Love

Symposium on Love

May 14, 2018 • by Dominic Pettman

Today I would like to briefly talk about some of the ways I think that love makes us both more and less than human. But first a nutshell version of my understanding of love. Love is a technology (as I have argued in a book called Love and Other Technologies). Indeed, it is ...

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The Mirage of Universalism Behind European Localism

An Excerpt from The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy

May 11, 2018 • by Walter Mignolo

It should be clear by now that Eurocentrism is not limited to the “bad,” but it encompasses also the “good” and the “ugly.” That means that Eurocentric critiques of Eurocentrism are indeed part of the image of totality that Eurocentrism projects. The question is to delink from it and to ...

The Mirage of Universalism Behind European Localism

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Translating Isaac Bashevis Singer’s Work

An interview with David Stromberg

April 30, 2018 • by David Stromberg

You can read the translated essay "Socrates and His Teaching" here on Public Seminar. Q & A with David Stromberg 1. How did you come to be a reader and translator of Isaac Bashevis Singer’s work? How did you find Singer, or how did Singer find you? I don’t know when I ...