Logic and its philosophy (male edition)

BCAP 2014 – Bucharest Colloquium in Analytic Philosophy 2014  – Logic and its philosophy
Organized by:
Romanian Society for Analytic Philosophy
Center for Logic, History and Philosophy of Science
Department of Theoretical Philosophy
University of Bucharest
Bucharest, 3-4 September 2014
Confirmed keynote speakers:
Kit Fine (New York)
Øystein Linnebo (Birbeck)
David McCarty (Indiana)
Gabriel Sandu (Helsinki)

We are looking for high-quality contributions on logic and philosophy of logic.
Presentations will be 30 minutes, followed by 15 minutes for discussion. Please send a 500-word abstract, prepared for blind review, to bcap2014@gmail.com
Deadline for submission is April 25th, 2014.
Notification of acceptance is expected by May25th, 2014.
For more information, please contact:
Sorin Costreie
or visit http://www.srfa.ro/bcap-2014

This post is part of the Gendered Conference Campaign. 

Comics, Film, and Race

There’s a been a bit of a dust-up on the interwebz over the announcement that Michael B. Jordan will be playing Johnny Storm (aka Human Torch) in the Fantastic Four reboot film. There’s a really nice article at IGN responding to the controversy. Here’s just a snippet summary:

The complaints about the Jordan casting seem to boil down to these core arguments:

1. Johnny Storm has always been portrayed as a white character.
2. Hollywood shouldn’t try to change a character’s race just for the sake of political correctness or money.
3. Audiences will be confused if the race of this iconic superhero character is suddenly changed.
4. Having a black Johnny and a white Sue means the characters aren’t brother and sister anymore.

To which I offer these rebuttals:

1. Yes, and so were Kingpin, Heimdall, Perry White, and Nick Fury at one point.
2. Unless you’ve read the script and sat in on the production meetings, it’s a little presumptuous to claim you understand the motivations behind this decision.
3. Just like that time everyone’s brain melted when WB replaced Billy Dee Williams’ Harvey Dent with Tommy Lee Jones’ Two-Face?
4. A mixed-race family? That’s unpossible!

Wait Watchers – Photography

Haley Morris-Cafiero published a series of photographs at Salon, which was then picked up by Sociological Images.

I recommend you go to Morris-Cafiero’s site first and just look through the two series “Wait Watchers” and “Something to Weigh.”

Something To Weigh: One Foot In Water Haley Morris-Cafiero

SIUE Philosopher on the feminist selfie

If recent online conversations about selfie photos got past you, philosopher Alison Reiheld posts a really lovely overview and philosophical analysis of it here, “Unamused by My Erasure: Feminist Selfies and the Politics of Representation.” (Worth reading if only for that awesome caption, “Discipline schmiscipline.” I hope she writes her own captions.) The whole blog is worth checking out, but you have to keep scrolling down for posts, so take a look around!

George Takei on Arizona’s pro-bigotry law

Congratulations. You are now the first state actually to pass a bill permitting businesses–even those open to the public–to refuse to provide service to LGBT people based on an individual’s “sincerely held religious belief.” This “turn away the gay” bill enshrines discrimination into the law. Your taxi drivers can refuse to carry us. Your hotels can refuse to house us. And your restaurants can refuse to serve us.

Kansas tried to pass a similar law, but had the good sense to not let it come up for a vote. The quashing came only after the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and other traditional conservative groups came out strongly against the bill.

For more, go here.