Theoria

Because everyone else is doing it! What I’d like to accomplish this summer.

I. Writing

(1) Finish the damn dissertation. DissertationMaster.mellel is at 187 completed, formatted and mostly copy-edited pages. Two substantive chapters left (on Mandeville and Ferguson, roughly thirty pages formatted each), polish the introduction (mostly done except for the chapter summaries), and the short conclusion.

(2) Finish the paper on the meaning of “order” in seventeenth century English apiarist texts.

(3) Start and finish a “state of the field” paper on “animal studies.”

(4) Start and finish a paper on why vulgar, secular, materialist atheists who want to talk about political theology should take the concept of [Durkheimian] concept of the sacred seriously.

II. Course Preparation

(1) Figure out what I’m going to do with the new special topics first year course on animals and the law.

(2) Figure out how I’m going to teach novels and films in my first year course on violence and the law (which I’ve never done before).

III. Leisure Reading

(1) No such thing! Although catching up on realist epistemology (Bhaskar, speculative realism, etc) and, perhaps, some theology, might be nice.