FEAST CFP: Deadline approaching… February 10, 2009

So quick, get your submissions in!

FEAST

The Association for Feminist Ethics And Social Theory
invites submissions for the Fall 2009 conference
September 24 – 27, 2009

Clearwater Beach, Florida

Keynote speakers: Ofelia Schutte and Joan Tronto
Submission deadline: February 27, 2009

Submissions, for either paper or panel sessions, should consist of papers no longer than 3,000 words and abstracts of 100-250 words.

Presenters are encouraged to submit revised, expanded versions of their papers for a FEAST special issue of Hypatia that will appear in 2011—submission details to be announced in Spring 2009.

FEAST 2009 will also include two invited panels:

Environmental Feminism, with Chris Cuomo, Trish Glazebrook, and Chaone Mallory

Evolutionary Psychology, with Carla Fehr, Letitia Meynell, and Anya Plutynski

Theoretical papers on all topics within the areas of feminist ethics and social theory are welcome. The program committee aims to create a conference with a diverse group of presenters and a diversity of philosophical topics and styles. Proposals for presentations other than papers (e.g. workshops, discussions, etc.) should include detailed descriptions demonstrating that the ideas are as developed as they would be in a paper.

We especially invite submissions for the “Difficult Conversations” workshop, which is held as a lunchtime event at each FEAST conference. Previous workshops have included a discussion of how racism has affected participants’ lives, a conversation between women with disabilities and women who care for persons with disabilities, and a dialogue about feminist sexualities and identities.

FEAST strongly encourages members of groups that are underrepresented in both the discipline of philosophy and at feminist philosophy conferences to send submissions. The Steering Committee apologizes for the oversight of scheduling the conference to end on the day that begins Yom Kippur (Sept 27th, 2009), and we will do our best to accommodate scheduling requests relating to religious and cultural practices.

Please send your submission, in one document (a Word or pdf file), to lhschwar@msu.edu by February 27, 2009. Your document should include the paper title, abstract, and paper, but no identifying information. The word count (max. 3,000) should appear on the top of the first page of your paper. Panel organizers, please send the panel title and all three abstracts and papers in one document, along with the word counts (3,000 for each paper). In the body of the e-mail message, please include: your paper or panel title, name, institutional affiliation, e-mail address, surface mail address, and phone number. All submissions will be anonymously reviewed.

For more information on FEAST or to see the programs from past conferences, go to: .

Questions may be directed to Lisa Schwartzman: lhschwar@msu.edu

CFP Political Philosophy February 9, 2009

Michael Oakeshott Association Conference
November 12-14, 2009
Baylor University
Waco, Texas

2009 marks the fifth meeting of the Michael Oakeshott Association, a group founded in 2001 to encourage the study of one of the 20th century’s most important political philosophers. 
Previous conferences have taken place at the London School of Economics, Colorado College, and the University of Jena in Germany. 

This year, Baylor University will host the conference, broadening its scope to include the thought of Leo Strauss and Eric Voegelin.  Because Oakeshott, Strauss and Voegelin overlapped so extensively in their interests and yet differed sharply on certain points of method and teaching, comparisons among them often prove fruitful and enlightening.  This is why readers of one thinker often become serious readers of the others.  And yet we rarely if ever have an occasion to come together as a group and to benefit directly from each other’s insights.    

We thus especially invite papers on topics that all three thinkers address, such as the
function and place of liberal education, the fruitful tensions between reason and revelation, the relationship of religion and politics, the meaning of political philosophy, the crisis of modernity, and the role that studying the ancients may play in better understanding our modern situation.  This list is not exhaustive, but we strongly encourage potential presenters to engage such comparative topics.   

Abstracts, no more than 500 words, should be sent by April 30, 2009 to
Elizabeth_Corey@baylor.edu.  Abstracts should also include: title of paper, full name(s),
affiliation, current position, and an email address.

The conference will take place at the Armstrong Browning Library at Baylor University in
Waco, Texas.

UK set for blizzard conditions!?! And bushfires in Australia! February 9, 2009

So says the Guardian.  And there’s no moaning and groaning from all the UK citizens on this blog!  Are you all just enjoying days off and playing in the snow?  What’s happening?  It’s hard to believe it continues to be fun, unless you are under 16.

Do we have readers in Victoria?  The google map of the bush fires in Australia is frightening.  Are the  fires affecting readers?

“The Obama effect” February 8, 2009

 Here’s an interesting bit of data,  cited by a very distinguished psychologist :

… the “Obama effect” on the test performance of African-Americans. Adult subjects in a study (still unpublished) answered comprehension questions from the verbal sections of the Graduate Record Examinations before and just after the presidential election. The black participants who were tested before the vote performed worse than whites; those tested immediately afterward scored almost as well as whites.

This article is about how small measures can have large educational effects, and it is certainly worth reading.  But it also has some relevance  for concerns about women in philosophy, in addition to its important message about standardized testing for “outsider” groups.

What do you think?

a year in the life of a dog February 8, 2009

We heard you, doggie people!

 

BTW, despite my fears from the opening graphics, this is not about a dog’s last year.

A new fallacy? “Limbaugh’s problem” February 8, 2009

So you are driving across a sad little island yesterday, which has been devastated by a major hurricane, with a car sick cat. What would you do? Turn on the radio? If you do, and you’d like some distracting talk, then you just might listen to Rush Limbaugh for a very few minutes. And you might learn something, such as the existence of a fallacy you hadn’t known of before.

I couldn’t find a transcript, so this is an inexact version, but the basic problem is the same. And the problem is the fallacy of the specious contradiction. Here are the two (approximately) statements by Obama that Rush was taking to be contradictory:

1. At the start, only the government can reverse the  failure of the economy.
2. In the end, only business and the workers can sustain the economy.

Though my versions are inexact, the temporal qualifications were explicit.  And they’re why there is no contradiction.

There’s a familiar and similar problem with identity:  How can the adult you be the same person as the 15 lb infant seen in a picture of you as an infant?  And one can  get some students to argue that you can’t be the person in the picture.  It’s just that  now this sort of poor reasoning has a major role in US politics.

Should it be called “Limbaugh’s problem”?  That is, why doesn’t “P at t” contradict “not-P at t+n.” 

O dear, I hope I haven’t made this look interesting.  It’s really a pathetic bit of poor reasoning Limbaugh, quite possibly motivated by genuine hatred, was trying to pass off.

The Sunday Cat answers the call February 8, 2009

Many thanks to KW.

 

PLMSTube February 7, 2009

PLMSTube is a product of Harvard’s Project on Law and the Mind Sciences.  You should be able to get to it here.  There are a number of video-lectures that should be of interest to readers of this blog.  Jennifer Eberhardt’s set of videos is being discussed over at What Sorts of People; it’s on race and implicit bias and attitudes.  Since the talks look at how such factors actually play out in the justice system, they are pretty horrifying.   We ought to know about this research. 

Another three are about System Justification theory, and cover a lot of topics relevant to this blog’s interests.  Here’s the description:

System justification theory addresses the holding of attitudes that are often contrary to one’s own self-interest and therefore contrary to what one would expect on the basis of theories of self-enhancement or rational self-interest. Thus, our research focuses on counter-intuitive outcomes, such as the internalization of unfavorable stereotypes about one’s own group, nonconscious biases that perpetuate inequality, attitudinal ambivalence directed at fellow ingroup members who challenge the system, opposition to equality among members of disadvantaged groups, rationalization of anticipated social and political outcomes, and tendencies among members of powerless groups to subjectively enhance the legitimacy of their powerlessness and, in some cases, to show greater support for the system than do members of powerful groups

“Visions for Change” February 7, 2009

“Visions for Change” is section of the latest Ms, but it is also an online feature.  Further, you can contribute your ideas about change.  From the publisher of Ms:

Now is our time to think big. We cannot settle for less…too many women’s lives, too many people’s lives, depend on it.

In this spirit, the Editors of Ms. magazine have asked our readers and feminist leaders, experts, and activists to share their visions of what must be done to move forward at this extraordinary time.

Merkel Barbie February 6, 2009

Hmm, what to make of this.

On the one hand – great, all those barbie fans have aspirational role models beyond ‘surf barbie’, ‘mermaid barbie’, princess barbie’. Now we have ’Chancellor Angela Merkel Barbie’!

On the other hand – it seems no one is safe from such plasticky objectification. Also - note that if you are a state leader and you do want to be made into a doll, it appears you’ll have to undergo the doll equivalent of air-brushing. Your natural figure will not survive the plasticising process.

(You gotta keep those young aspirations in check, right? Aim to be PM, but aim to be wasp-waisted large breasted PM)

Is it complicated? You bet! February 6, 2009

That’s marriage and children. The “A Good Childhood” report – which we have discussed here  and here – tells us that divorce, along with the results of single parenting or having a step parent, is a really bad thing for children.  So parents need to be married, think less about themselves, spend more time and energy on their children, and then children will be happier and the state will be better and…

Well, who knows where it could end. But maybe it is all much more complicated. We cited one article that pointed to research into the correlations between the economics of some single parenting and childhood stress. Now Stephanie Coontz, a highly-regarded historian of marriage, has an article in the NY Times that supports the following theses:

1. Married parents  today are spending more time with their children than they did some decades ago.**
2. Children are not necessarily all that keen on spending hours and hours hanging out with parents.
3. Married parents who devote a lot of time and attention to their children may neglect their marriages, thus inviting divorce, etc.

I have to say that I like the idea that this line of reasoning leads to the PARADOX OF MARRIAGE AND CHILDREN, or perhaps the antinomy of traditional families.  You have to neglect one or the other and either way, misery results.  But since the conclusion is false, and misery is not an inevitable result, perhaps we should revisit the idea that simple directives can guide complicated social arrangement to an optimal state. 

Or, to put it another way, Coontz’ line of reasearch does not actually lead to a paradox or antinomy.  Rather, it is the simplistic reasoning of “A Good Childhood” that would leave us with the idea that  vague  injunctions should shape one’s life. 

Some virtue ethicists, such as Philippa Foot, have emphasize that virtue ethics should not be seen as giving us easily applied  rules for life.  One conclusion we might draw from our discussion of the report is that such general decrees about modern life fail importantly to connect with the moral needs of individuals.

**Though the article is about marriage, it may of course be that the parents generally are spending more time with their children.  Certainly, the reasons and pressures hardly apply just to married parents.

The Glass Ceiling Metaphor February 4, 2009

It just hit me today what a really terrible metaphor this is. Think about what happens when one person manages to put a break in a plane of glass. The whole thing falls apart, and there is no more glass ceiling. So if e.g. there was formerly a glass ceiling for African Americans in politics, that barrier is GONE now. We need a metaphor which can recognise singular achievements as the important things they are, while still making it clear that barriers remain. Any suggestions?

How many women? What per cent? Addition February 4, 2009

So what should we say when a conference has 90% male philosophers as speakers?  Better one or two women, rather than none? 

Maybe it is enough to emphasize that participating in what is in effect an exclusion of women from public arenas in philosophy is damaging to the profession, to women in the profession, and to students.  It damages the profession in that, if nothing else, it brings it about that many, many talented women do not participate.  A further result, I would argue, is a kind of ossification of views.  The damage to women in the profession is clear:  they remain marginal, excluded from the insider’s discourse.  And students?  Like their few female professors, women students suffer the epistemic injustice Miranda Fricker has described, implicitly positioned as having a voice  of lesser value.

Notices of conferences like the one below cross my mailbox everyday:

From the APA:

The University of Texas at San Antonio Department of Philosophy welcomes Dr. Robert Audi (Notre Dame) as the ’08-’09 Brackenridge Philosopher in Residence for the Brackenridge Philosophy Symposium…

The theme of this year’s Symposium focuses on ethical and epistemic implications of Audi’s intuitionism.  Confirmed participants for this year’s Symposium are: Roger Crisp (Oxford), Ernest Sosa (Rutgers), Mark Timmons (Arizona), David Sosa (Texas-Austin), Carla Bagnoli (Wisconsin-Milwaukee), Hugh McCann (Texas A&M), Peter Graham (Cal-Riverside), Christopher Kulp (Santa Clara), and Ralph Kennedy (Wake Forest).

The conference web site also  lists 9 moderators, one of whom is a woman.   Counting Audi, this gives us 19  participants, with two women.  That’s 10.5% women. 

The conference itself is about the “Ethical and Epistemic Dimensions of Robert Audi’s Intuitionism.”  Could we please not say “O, there are no women working in that sort of area”?  Let’s not be silly.

Addition:
Over the last year or so, we’ve taken some notice of some conferences with a problematic representation of women. This link should get you most of them, along with some irrelevant bits.

Single parenting from a different point of view February 3, 2009

This post could have been a  comment to  the important earlier post about “A Good Childhood,” the recent report issued in Britain, which takes individualistic striving for success to underlie a suppose link between single parenting and unhappy children.   However, the topic of choices in parenting is so important, and I didn’t want this opposing point of view, from the NY Times, to get lost.  The Times article  looks at  a kind of choice made by middle-class women to be single parents, and documents some of the ways in which they have coped. 

What is also adds is some knowledge of the economic dimensions behind the figures being reported in Britain; for example:

There are indications that in choosing platonic intimacy with female friends over the romantic version with male ones, Fran in New Jersey and Eileen in Atlanta may be making the better bet for their children. Sara McLanahan, a sociologist at Princeton, has been studying the effects of divorce and single parenting on kids since the 1980s. Fundamentally, her work reveals the risks of instability. The biggest reason that children born to unmarried mothers tend to have problems — they’re more likely to drop out of school and commit crimes — is that they tend to grow up poor. Children of divorce may also experience a drop in income, and their mothers are at a heightened risk for depression, which in turn raises the risk of mental-health troubles for the kids.

A number of researchers are quoted, and their conclusions do not seem to match those of “A Good Childhood.”  This discrepancy should be pursued.  It certainly supports the idea implied in the earlier post that the initial report is motivated by more than disinterested  research.

(The NYTimes article is by Emily Bazelon, a senior editor at Slate.)

A Church of England fifth column in the BBC? February 2, 2009

A guest post by LPG.

It’s not what one looks for in an ‘impartial’ news organization: the uncritical passing on, in item after item after item, of the ‘finding’ that ‘selfish’ and ‘independent’ [read: in paid employment and/or single] mothers are responsible for the ‘poor conceptual development’ and ‘behavioural problems’ in our nations youth. The report rolls out over the coming week, so expect to see more of this double-standards blah blah. The BBC has been developing a taste for it. Look at the question asked in this BBC vox pop from last year, once again in connection with a dubious study. Now fantasize about them asking whether fathers (as opposed to mothers) should return to their jobs after having children.

Is the latest onslaught just sloppy journalism? Perhaps not. The ‘largest survey into childhood ever to be conducted in the UK’ is being presented as ‘independent’. Few of the broadcasted reports I’ve seen so far mention that the Church of England commissioned the report (through the Children’s Society or The Church of England’s Children Society as it refers to itself). Even a BBC journalist should know that this information really needs to be foregrounded, if only so that viewers can relax and go and make themselves a cup of tea. Some of the online pieces mention the Anglican connection but insist on the independence of this ‘evidence-based’ report, including the recommendation that we institute ‘civil birth ceremonies’. (Not baptisms, oh no.) The BBC even participated in the survey by providing children to talk to – one Established institution scratching another Established institution’s back, or a covert Anglican vanguard? Maybe an independent, evidence-based study of the BBC’s back catalogue would show up more indicators of its disguised but creeping influence. (Thanks to cmdshiftesc.)

Why I won’t be working at the Bank of England February 1, 2009

“Look professional, not fashionable; be careful with perfume; always wear a heel of some sort — maximum 2 inches; always wear some sort of makeup — even if it’s just lipstick.” Shoes and skirt must be the same color. No-no’s include ankle chains — “professional, but not the one you want to be associated with;” white high heels; overstuffed handbags; an overload of rings, and double-pierced ears.

It would just be too hard to find shoes to go with my pinstripe suit. (Though the some makeup, any makeup rule might be fun to follow.)

Seriously…wtf?

Thanks, Jender-Parents. For more, go here.

The Sunday cats do engineering. February 1, 2009