Katy Fulfer

Philosophy in the world

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A self-assessment of my land acknowledgments

I live on the traditional lands of the Neutral, Anishinaabeg and Haudenosaunee peoples. I think it's a little pathetic that I can't spell, from memory, the names of the Indigenous nations that live(d) in this region. I'm working on that. In early June I attended the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, an annual meeting of various disciplinary academic associations. Although I attend Congress regularly, I have rarely have attended sessions hosted by non-philosophy associations … [Read more...]

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Poets for the animals

I've been thinking about story-telling and relationships with particular animals. Consider the following two snippets: Peter Singer doesn’t love animals In the preface to the 1975 edition of Animal Liberation, Peter Singer shares a story about a time he was invited to tea. He'd begun working on Animal Liberation. Much to the surprise of his host, Singer admitted that he isn't an animal lover (p. 9). Singer came to his theory of animal liberation through rational argument, not a relationship … [Read more...]

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Charting new territory for the jumpsuit

When I was browsing the May 2019 issue of Fashion at the dentist office last week I was surprised to see an article devoted to luxury workwear. I was surprised because I'm used to thinking of workwear, particularly the jumpsuit, as a-fashionable. Jumpsuit love I'm incredibly drawn to the idea of jumpsuits as regular wear. Regular readers of this blog may be able to guess what originally inspired this interest. The Royal Dress Society and the Jumpsuit Project But, this interest took on … [Read more...]

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Arendt and outer space

In the span of a month I'll have been to Washington DC, Guelph, Atlanta, and Edmonton. I'm half-way through what I'm jokingly referring to as my "Spring Speaking Tour." Both my rats and my students might forget what I look like. This post is less of a blog and more about what-I've-been-up-to. Mostly I've been thinking about Arendt and science fiction, both separately and together. I wrote about these two together in the first entry to this blog, focusing on the task of philosophy as Arendt … [Read more...]

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What’s private about the Private Sponsorship of Refugees program?

In the next series of posts, I want think through Canada's Private Sponsorship of Refugees (PSR) program. This series is part of my broader project on Hannah Arendt's conception of the rootlessness of refugees, the condition in which refugees are uprooted from their geographic, cultural, and political homes. In this post, I want to ask a few questions about the conceptual work "the private" is doing in PSR using Arendt's view of the public/private distinction. In later posts, I want to … [Read more...]