Media

Lewis Gordon: History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps

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Listen to Professor and Department Head Lewis Gordon as he discusses Frantz Fanon on "History of Philosophy without any gaps." In this podcast Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at the LMU in Munich and at King's College London, takes listeners through the history of philosophy, "without any gaps." The series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of the major philosophers as well as the lesser-known figures of the tradition.

Lewis Gordon: Eminent Scholar Roundtable

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Congratulations to Professor and Department Head Lewis Gordon, honoree of the Global Development Studies Eminent Scholar Roundtable 2021-2022 organized by the International Studies Association.

The Global Development Section draws together scholars broadly concerned with development and global justice working across a number of fields, for example, postcolonial studies, development studies, critical political economy, critical security studies, social and political theory, history, sociology, gender studies, and public policy. The Section approaches the phenomenon of development in its broadest sense as the study of change, rather than in its narrow hegemonic conceptualization as technical interventions in social worlds. GDS is further concerned with investigating alternative understandings, especially those that excavate the intimate links between development, colonialism, and global capitalism. In this respect, the Section seeks to cultivate an intellectual space or provocation, supporting many ways of seeing and being in the world. And for this purpose, the Section is committed to facilitating diverse modes of inquiry, establishing research networks, and supporting early-career scholars in their professional endeavors.

Ayanna De’Vante Spencer: Believing Black Girl Survivors?

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Check out Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Ayanna De'Vante Spencer, in The Review's recent articled titled "Believing Black Girl Survivors?" Spencer addresses unjust treatment of Black female survivors, incorporating the justice system and criminalizing survivors over supporting them. 

Tracy Llanera: “Yes, You Do Deserve a Little Treat”

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Check out Assistant Professor Tracy Llanera's recent article in The New York Times, "Yes, You Do Deserve a Little Treat"

*Excerpt*

Tracy Llanera, 35, a philosophy professor at the University of Connecticut who studies nihilism, said that this treat-forward approach is one way people are reclaiming some of the freedom and stability that has been lost since early 2020.

“In the Covid pandemic, the thing that confirms that you’re suffering from existential nihilism is the lack of control,” Ms. Llanera said.

Amid these feelings of ongoing helplessness and grief, she said, people try to find consistent and reliable pleasures.

“Something about treat culture is that you’re always regularly going to get the treat,” she added. “You can depend on that, at least. There’s a guarantee that this small little ritual that you have every week will at least satiate something in you.”

Tracy Llanera: “I Am An American Philosopher”

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Check out Assistant Professor Tracy Llanera's recent interview with the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy (SAAP), "I Am An American Philosopher."

*Excerpt*

The pragmatist tradition has no problem about being level-headed and getting muddy. There’s no bizarre or elitist hang-up in using (and re-forging) concepts from philosophy or other disciplines to make sense of contemporary issues or to promote social amelioration. As an approach, I’ve found pragmatism to be useful and liberating, whether I’m thinking about existential despair, or the words we use, or how hate festers in people.

Lewis Gordon: Philosophy and Global Affairs, Vol. 1 Issue 2

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Check out the second issue of Philosophy and Global Affairs, co-edited by Lewis Gordon and Jane Anna Gordon. You can also read their contributed articles, linked below.

 

"A Forum on Creolizing Social and Political Theory" by Lewis Gordon

The author discusses Jane Anna Gordon’s proposal, in the 2006 international meeting of the Caribbean Philosophical Association, of creolizing theory. He summarizes the research it generated, including Gordon’s monograph on creolizing political theory, and the set of articles in this forum on creolizing social and political identities and theory.

 

"Creolizing as a Method, Creolizing as a Politics, and the Relationship" by Jane Anna Gordon

Using Juliet Hooker’s explicit criticisms as a frame, this essay first explores creolizing as a method and then creolizing as a politics, drawing on the contributions of Bernal, Bose, Lindsay, and Valdez to address questions including whether creolizing offers any advances for non-European and non-canonical figures whose worlds and thought are already understood and embraced as creolized; whether creolizing methods are of any use in the project of epistemic decolonization; and whether we can assume a prori that political or philosophical projects defined by an open orientation to mixture are necessarily normatively superior to others. It concludes by considering how Monika Brodnicka and T.D. Harper-Shipman’s essays focused on Africa put the methodological and political questions into productive relationship with one another.

 

Lewis Gordon: The Crime Without a Name

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Can new language reshape our understanding of the past and expand the possibilities of the future? Barrett Holmes Pitner seeks better words to reframe discussions about race and culture and to change the way we understand our diverse and rapidly evolving political climate. In his new book, he examines ethnocide in America, the systematic erasure of a people's ancestral culture, and its particular impacts on Black Americans, who have endured that erasure for generations. A compelling analysis of our nation's ethnocidal foundation, The Crime Without a Name posits that activating this concept within our discourse, as we continue to reckon with our wrongs, can help sustain the richness of our diverse cultures in perpetuity.

Holmes speaks with Lewis R. Gordon about the historical origins of ethnocide in the U.S., and examines the personal lived consequences of existing within an ongoing erasure—and how to combat it.

Tracy Llanera: Women, the Alt-right and the Liberal Centre

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Why do women join white nationalist and other far-right movements? Misogyny is rampant on the alt-right, along with the notion that women's primary role is to be wives and child-bearers. But the liberal centre can be an ambivalent place for women too. Feminism was founded on the ideal of equality, and on the belief that women should be treated as individuals rather than undifferentiated members of a subordinate class. But have these liberal humanist ideals of of equality and individual autonomy outgrown their usefulness?

Dr. Tracy Llanera [UConn and University of Notre Dame Australia]  and Dr. Louise Richardson-Self [University of Tasmania] are featured in this episode titled "Women, the alt-right and the liberal centre" on The Philosopher's Zone. The radio broadcast in Australia [ABC Radio National] was Sunday August 1 at 5.30 pm on ABC RN, repeated the following Sunday August 8 at 5.30 am.

This interview features philosophical work that will be discussed in this free public panel on Resentment, Guilt, and Shame under Patriarchy on Aug 9, 2021 (Mon).