There’s plenty to think about.
It’s easy to get the feeling that the world is falling apart. Pakistan’s “fractious coalition” is falling apart, Russia is happy to sever ties with NATO, Australia is rejecting a request to take East Timor guest workers, and…well, you get the picture. Is there some good news worth point out?
There’s a very major national election coming up. Are you watching the convention or clips from it?
We’ve had some discussion recently of implicit association: I gather Biden has said that he didn’t press Anita Hill’s charges against Thomas because he thought she was lying. That sounds like a case where implicit associations may well be working. The woman says P, the man says not-P. Someone is lying. Slam dunk, right? I don’t think so.
Have the ideas that charges of sexual harassment are not incredible and that women are not generally very fond of bringing them gotten through to the public consciousness yet?
I was taking a break from a paper I am writing (two papers and two evaluations due Sept. 1!!) to check email. And I find from the NY Review of Books, which has already made some preferences too clear, the following:
This month, we are publishing two books that highlight man’s connection to the forces of nature: Richard Hughes’ In Hazard, a spellbinding tale of a ship caught in a vicious hurricane; and Tim Robinson’s Stones of Aran: Pilgrimage, an innovative and intimate study of the Aran Islands. Both offer adventure and startling insight into the natural world and humanity’s place in it. Each title is available at a limited-time 25% discount.
Wondering whether I should ask them to stop sending me email, I scrolled down the message to see lots of names of very distinguished women. “I have misjudged them,” I thought. And then looked more closely. All the women were writing Intros to guys’ books. Why does that seem so familiar?
Are you starting a fall semester? Are there good things about it to look forward to? Are you scrambling to meet end of summer deadlines?
What are you thinking?
Feminist Philosophers 