During its twenty years of existence, the Caribbean Philosophical Association (CPA) has been shifting the geography of reason. It has done so through cultivating discerning praxes of thought that are committed to ascertaining the conditions through which human freedom and oppression are both sustained and usurped. For our June 2023 gathering, we invite participants to […]
Impostor Syndrome & the False Idol of Intelligence
*I want to thank Meghan Schrader and Neil Levy for commenting on earlier drafts of this post. Neil Levy recently published an interesting take on impostor syndrome, explaining why it’s so common. He says that “pretense is an unavoidable element of coming to occupy a professional role.” So, in a sense, we’re all faking it. I […]
Beautyism as Ableist Eugenics… and the Mystique of “Choice Feminism”
Introduction I recently came across this article on Vice.com asking filmmakers to “stop making hot actors play normal people.” The author indicts filmmakers for casting too few “normal” people. I think that this is a much-needed critique, but it lacks philosophical nuance, which I intend to provide here. My analysis will explore the harms of mainstream beauty […]
Is racism really that different from classism, ableism, etc?
They are all social system of group oppression, and this is no superficial ontological feature. Thus the question can be neither whether they are different or not, nor even how deep these differences go. The question has to be how useful is it to treat these systems together, and when it is good to separate them or treat them in smaller groups
Opposition to Bill C-7 and Too Many Letters of Reference
No, this post isn’t taking on the important work done on The Philosophers’ Cocoon blog by advising philosophy job applicants about the appropriate contents of their dossier. Rather this post draws upon past interventions that I’ve made on BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY and on the earlier Discrimination and Disadvantage blog (here, here, and here) to reiterate that […]
Philosophy, Disability and Social Change, Oxford Online – Only One Week Away! (Updated)*
*As of December 8th, 997 people had registered for this conference. Philosophy, Disability and Social Change, the open access, free, and online conference that Jonathan Wolff and I have organized through the Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford, begins a week today! Close to 800 people have registered for this pathbreaking conference. Have you? […]
Letter to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs of the Government of Canada in Opposition to Bill C-7
This morning, as per Catherine Frazee’s request, I submitted a letter to the Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs of the Canadian Government. The letter articulates my opposition to Bill C-7, which would expand access to medically-assisted suicide (“MAID”) for disabled people. Given the dearth of disabled philosophers (of disability) in Canadian philosophy, […]
Dialogues on Disability: Shelley Tremain With Alison Reiheld
Hello, I’m Shelley Tremain and I’d like to welcome you to the fifth-anniversary installment of Dialogues on Disability, the series of interviews that I’m conducting with disabled philosophers and post to BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY on the third Wednesday of each month. The series is designed to provide a public venue for discussion with disabled philosophers about […]
Happy Trans Day of Visibility!
Today is Trans Day of Visibility, so it seems like the ideal time to remind you that in December of last year, Ray Briggs wrote a fantastic guest post for BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY entitled, “Practical Suggestions for My Cis Colleagues in Philosophy.” You can find Ray’s guest post on BIOPOLITICAL PHILOSOPHY here. On Facebook, Ray linked […]
CFP: Conceptualizing Difference Conference (Jun. 8–9, 2020) and PhD Summer School (Jun. 10-11, 2020), University of Aberdeen (deadline: Feb. 7, 2020)
The idea of ‘difference’ governs today’s political thinking. Struggles for equality and justice are generally concerned with recognizing and protecting differences, not least because varieties of difference, including gender, sexuality, race, religion and language are used to justify political oppression, discrimination and exclusion. Difference has become axiomatic to political debate and therefore requires further reflection […]
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