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Monthly Archives: August 2009

New Blog: The Inhumanities

Friday, August 28, 2009

I suspect most readers already know at this point, but myself, Greg of Animal Obscura and Scu of Critical Animal have organized a collective “critical animal studies” themed blog entitled The Inhumanities. Being new, content is quite limited to a picture of a unicorn in a cage, a group statement, and an announcement of our [...]

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In Good Company

Saturday, August 15, 2009

From the “Acknowledgments” to Phillip Thurtle’s The Emergence of Genetic Rationality: Space, Time and Information in American Biological Science, 1870-1920 (University of Washington Press, 2008):

Phillip supervised my M.A. thesis. I hadn’t gotten around to looking at his book until now.

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Unsurprising (Leiter on Vegan, Again)

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Brian Leiter has posted a response to discussion of his “poll,” which can be read here. Suffice to say, his response is unsurprising. His argument against being vegan is not an argument against being vegan at all. For instance, he takes up Singer’s utilitarianism which does not lead to vegan position — Singer himself argues [...]

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Regarding Sokal

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Frankly, it isn’t a topic that interests me a whole lot — I rarely read Social Text, I have no commitment to “post-modernism,” and while some of my work draws upon concepts developed in the context of “science studies,” I don’t study science myself. All the same, that didn’t stop me from making comments on [...]

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“Vegetarian Mafia” Moves Into Law

Sunday, August 9, 2009

Brian Leiter’s inability to contain his desire to rank everything in existence has found a new front: attitudes of law professors towards veganism! As with all his polls, I strongly advise not participating as it lends legitimacy to his silly enterprise. Worth looking at, however. What is interesting about this particular “poll” is that with [...]

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Nearing the End

Thursday, August 6, 2009

I am slowly nearing the end of my dissertation. I need to complete one last substantive chapter (on Mandeville) and then work on the general framing of the dissertation — I should also come up with a suitable title at some point. In the absence of some sort of framing, the dissertation, as it stands, [...]

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Campus Watch

Monday, August 3, 2009

In a first for me, my last post was picked up by the notorious Campus Watch. (And, by “picked up,” I mean copy-and-pasted on their site – not sure how I feel about that.) Given that the post was not about “Middle Eastern Studies” in any way, I’m not sure why they did so. Fortunately, [...]

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Final Comment on the Diab Affair

Sunday, August 2, 2009

There has been much confusion surrounding the hiring and subsequent firing of Hassan Diab, a contract instructor (a “sessional” in the language of the university) in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, who was hired as an emergency replacement to teach half of SOCI 1002 Introduction to Sociology II.
No one seems to [...]

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Faculty Response to Diab Firing

Saturday, August 1, 2009

The following is a letter from the faculty members of the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University regarding the firing of Hassan Diab, a contract instructor teaching introduction to sociology, by senior administration due to what appears to be pressure from B’nai Brith.
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The firing of Dr. Hassan Diab from his teaching post at [...]

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