In 2019, we launched a blog series called #AtHomeWithArendt. This series was intended to share research coming out of From Rootlessness to Belonging: An Arendtian Critique of the Family as a Structure of Refugee Assimilation, a research grant awarded from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Government of Canada). Katy, and her collaborator Dr. Rita A. Gardiner, were thinking about issues of refugee resettlement through the lens of Hannah Arendt’s philosophy. Janet came onto the … [Read more...]
Variations on thinking: Keats and Arendt
"‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,’ that is all / Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know." ---John Keats, from Ode to a Grecian Urn Poetic imagination I've been thinking about the English Romantic poet John Keats for the past month or so as I prepared to moderate a panel on Keat's concept of "negative capability." The panelists included poet Luke Hathaway, visual artist Gwenessa Lam, and Buddhist scholar Jeff Wilson. The event is part of a virtual series entitled Café Philo, organized by … [Read more...]
World-travelling, envy, and the role of emotions in solidarity
Recently, the American Philosophical Association (APA) Newsletter put out a call for papers (CFP). They are asking for reflections on the experiences of philosophers who come from a first-generation and/or low-income background (deadline is Sept 15 if you want to submit). One of the topics listed by the APA was “Code Switching across Academic and Non-Academic (Familial or Home) Life” and it got me thinking... The world of home I am not the first in my family to attend university. In fact, both … [Read more...]
First thoughts on public scholarship
Philosophers want their work to matter. At least I do. This hope partially explains my website tagline, "philosophy in the world." In my first blog post, I wrote, "I seek for my philosophical work to be embedded in the world and in service to maintaining it as a space for speech and action." Philosophy can be helpful for public matters. Philosophers often clarify ambiguous or muddled concepts or phenomena. Or, alternatively, philosophers point out that some concepts are treated too … [Read more...]
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...]