SWIP UK Conference: Philosophy and Other Voices

**​*​REGISTRATION NOW OPEN***

‘Philosophy and Other Voices’

SWIP UK Annual Conference

University of Essex, 27-28 March 2015

Registration is now open for the 2015 SWIP UK conference. This year the conference will be held at the University of Essex. The theme of this years conference is ‘Philosophy and Other Voices’.
To register for the conference, please go to: http://www.essex.ac.uk/online_shop/philosophy/swip/conference.aspx

PROGRAMME OF SPEAKERS

Keynote speakers

Dr Meena Dhanda, University of Wolverhampton

Professor Pamela Sue Anderson, University of Oxford

Selected titles and speakers

How ‘Objectivity’ Fails Philosophy; Why Philosophy Needs Diversity

Devora Shapiro, Southern Oregon University

Autism and Philosophy: Can Wittgenstein Help Us Understand Autistic Conceptual Problems?

Robert Chapman, University of Essex

Pluralism All the Way Down – Social Objectivity and Scientific Consensus

Jessica Laimann, University of Oxford

Quinoa qua Kwinoah: Philosophy and the Working Class

Karl Dando, independent scholar

Community in Fragments: Reading Relation in the Fragments of Heraclitus

Carrie Giunta, Central St Martins

On Being a Queer Reader of Augustine

Benjamin Brewer, University of Oregon

Athena Swan Lake: The Sororicidal Ballet of Academic Feminism

Lorna Finlayson, University of Cambridge

Reversibility and Chiasm: False Equivalents? An Alternative Approach to Understanding Difference in Merleau-Ponty’s Late Philosophy

Fiona Hughes, University of Essex

More information on the conference, and visitor information for the University of Essex, can be found here:http://www.essex.ac.uk/philosophy/news_and_seminars/swip-uk-conference.aspx

For queries please email Rosie Worsdale: rworsd@essex.ac.uk

Dean Adam Scales tackles sexist student evaluations

beautifully.

The school in question is Rutgers Law – Camden, and Vice Dean Adam F. Scales is the man who took his students to task for their chauvinist commentary. He begins his email by mentioning that throughout his years of teaching, his look ranged from “Impoverished Graduate Student” to “British Diplomat,” but noted that no one would ever have known that just by reading his student evaluations for one reason, and one reason only — he’s a man. Scales then gallantly continues his onslaught against sexism:

It has come to my attention that a student submitted an evaluation that explored, in some detail, the fashion stylings of one of your professors. It will surprise no one possessing the slightest familiarity with student evaluations that this professor is a woman. Women are frequently targets of evaluative commentary that, in addition to being wildly inappropriate and adolescent, is almost never directed at men. Believe me, I am about the last person on this faculty for whom the “sexism” label falls readily to hand, but after a lifetime of hearing these stories, I know it when I see it. Anyone who doubts this would find it instructive to stop by and ask any one of our female professors about this and similar dynamics.

Ghostbusters

You might have heard that the Ghostbusters re-boot will feature four female leads. If you’re like me, you might have thought the casting choices were excellent. If you did, then you might have been disappointed (though perhaps unsurprised) by many of the reactions to the news on twitter, reddit, and other online fora. Jezebel provides some comic relief (language warning for the full piece in the link, in case swearing offends you):

Four female Ghostbusters simply aren’t realistic. Only men are uniquely equipped to wield proton packs and analyze ectoplasm, a substance emitted by ghosts, WHICH ARE REAL. Women’s hands are much TOO SMALL to hold a proton pack. GHOSTBUSTERS is supposed to be a COMEDY and WOMEN AREN’T FUNNY. And good luck getting audiences to believe that FOUR WOMEN could possibly do SCIENCE, much less in the same room without GETTING THEIR PERIODS ALL AT ONCE or snatching each other’s weaves in a fight over a man. I watch television AND READ THE INTERNET. I know how women are.

. . .

Also: SEXISM!!! THE SEXISM!!! Imagine how angry feminists would be if Hollywood decided to make an all-male Sex and the City, or an all-male Joy Luck Club, or an all-male… OTHER MOVIE ABOUT WOMEN. Ladies, you ALREADY direct 17% of all major studio movies, and even sometimes are allowed to talk onscreen. WHAT MORE COULD YOU WANT?!!?