The Open Letter copied below has been circulated by philosophy Ph.D. student Zara Bain and other Ph.D students across the U.K. university system. ____________________________________________________________ An Open Letter Regarding Specific Reasonable Adjustments for Disabled, Chronically Ill and Neurodivergent PhD Students Due to COVID-19 14 May 2020 To: UKRI, UK Research Councils and Research Funding bodies, and […]
The Biopolitics of COVID-19
Learning From The Virus By Paul B. Preciado If Michel Foucault had survived AIDS in 1984 and had stayed alive until the invention of effective antiretroviral therapy, he would be ninety-three years old today. Would he have agreed to confine himself in his apartment on rue de Vaugirard in Paris? The first philosopher of history to […]
Expressions of Solidarity During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Yesterday, Justin Weinberg put a post on Daily Nous that comprises a public statement entitled “COVID-19: A Statement of Academic Solidarity” initiated by Seyla Benhabib, Kimberlé Crenshaw, Judith Butler, Naomi Klein, Harold Varmus, Donna Haraway, and Nell Irvin Painter. The statement, which was the subject of an earlier article in The Chronicle of Higher Education, […]
COVID-19, Nursing Homes, and Public Philosophy
At the beginning of April, I wrote an essay (here) for BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY about COVID -19, nursing homes, and vulnerability, in which I argued that the escalating number of deaths in nursing homes was a consequence of the nature of the institutions themselves rather than due to some inherent vulnerability, that is, some property or […]
COVID-19 and Prisons (Guest Post)
COVID-19 in Our Prisons By Jennifer Lackey [Description of photo below: Jennifer sits at a desk, with hands outstretched, engaged in discussion with William Peeples, a black man with glasses and a greying beard. Cement brick walls surround them. A chalkboard appears on the left of the frame.] When I was last inside Stateville Correctional […]
From Scarcity to Abundance: Reconfiguring The Means of Production During the Pandemic
Disabled activists and philosophers have made a number of interventions on social media, blogs, podcasts, and so on with respect to the pandemic and disabled people. Most of these contributions to critical discourse about the pandemic and disability have been concerned with distribution, disability, and discrimination: who should get medical attention, who should have access […]
Structural Gaslighting, Epistemic Injustice, and Ableism in Philosophy
In the coming days and weeks, readers and listeners can expect additional posts about the pandemic and disability, including posts about nursing homes and institutionalized ableism and ageism (check out my earlier post about nursing homes here), about the ableism that conditions a recent statement on rationing from the Canadian Medical Association, and about how […]
To Mask or Not to Mask, That Is the Question-An Easy Way to Make A Mask
The question of whether the “general public” should wear masks to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 continues to be debated. In Canada, the consensus among medical authorities such as the impressive Dr. Theresa Tam, Chief Public Health Officer of Canada, has been that for a number of reasons only medical professionals should wear masks. Tam […]
COVID-19 and The Naturalization of Vulnerability
Since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and especially since its effects began to be more directly experienced in Canada, I have carefully watched growing discussions about the pandemic, “seniors,” disabled people, “vulnerability,” and nursing homes unfold on social media and in the mainstream popular press. In particular, I am attentive to the ways that […]
Facing the COVID-19 Crisis in Japan With a Disability*
By Mark Bookman and Michael Gillan Peckitt Michael [The Limping Philosopher]: I am an academic living in Kobe and I work at Osaka University. I have cerebral palsy and, while I can get around with the aid of a walking stick, I have very little movement in the left side of my body. My disability also […]
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