The city of Cambridge, ON Cambridge, ON is a small city. I have mistakenly referred to it as a town, only to be reprimanded by those who were born and raised here (I have only lived in Cambridge a few years). In fact, the city of Cambridge is Waterloo Region’s second largest community and home to just under 130,000 people. Despite the unanimous belief that Cambridge is indeed a city and not a town, however, Cambridge is internally quite divided. There are three distinct neighbourhoods: … [Read more...]
Home & Belonging: The Authors of “At Home with Arendt”
What does home mean? Is it related to a sense of belonging? What, if any, is the connection between the two? And who are we? Whose thoughts are you reading? This blog is written by 4 different scholars: Dr. Rita A. Gardiner, Dr. Katy Fulfer, Harshita Jaiprakash, and Janet Jones. We are a diverse group of scholars. Some of us are interested in bioethics, some in feminist theories, some in education, and some in drug addiction. But we are all intrigued by Hannah Arendt. During the past … [Read more...]
Introducing “At Home with Arendt,” a new blog series
Welcome to “At Home with Arendt,” a special series that explores questions of home and belonging. I welcome my collaborators in sharing this digital space: Dr. Rita A. Gardiner, an Assistant Professor in Critical Policy, Equity, and Leadership Studies (CPELS) in the Faculty of Education at Western University Harshita Jaiprakash, a PhD student in CPELS at Western Janet Jones, a PhD student in Applied Philosophy at the University of Waterloo Together, the four of us will … [Read more...]
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...]
Human rights and the family
When people describe their workplace or community group as if they're "like family," my neck hair rises. I am suspicious, and immediately skeptical about the stability of the organization being described. If I were a Kelpien, my threat ganglia would extend whenever someone made this kind of reference. Let me be clear: I am not anti-family. I love families! Yay families! I'm just skeptical that family structures are good models for social or political groups to adopt. Arendt's critique of … [Read more...]