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    Category: Ed Kazarian

    • Macedonian Universities in Crisis

      I have been asked to pass along the following appeal—first circulated privately and signed by representatives of a student organization and several faculty, including noted philosopher Katerina Kolozova—concerning the situation of universities in Macedonia. The Macedonian government is moving to institute a set of external, government administered examinations that would become the condition for granting of any university-level…

    • U Oregon and the Academic Labor System

      Over at DailyNous, we read that the University of Oregon has sent a letter to international graduate students warning them that they would face deportation if they were to join a strike being undertaken against the university by the Graduate Teaching Fellows Federation (GTFF).  Several things should be said about this. 1) The threat appears…

    • While we’re talking about rankings…

      We're talking about rankings this week. (Do we talk about anything else, any more?)  While we're doing so, I'd like to encourage everyone to read and meditate on this extraordinary post by Kate Bowles, which takes off from the heartbreaking story of Professor Stefan Grimm, "a senior UK academic who has died after being put on performance…

    • In Support of Cheryl Abbate

      by Ed Kazarian By now, many readers will be aware of the events which have unfolded around Cheryl Abbate, a Ph.D. student and instructor in Philosophy at Marquette University. Those who are not up to speed should read this excellent post by Justin Weinberg at Daily Nous. Briefly, Ms. Abbate has been the subject of public,…

    • How to Stop Policing the Borders of Philosophy

      by Ed Kazarian I've written before about the question of boundary policing in philosophy, occasioned at the time by a remarkable essay of Nathaniel Adam Tobias Coleman's. It's a question, and a habitual tendency within the discipline, that certainly continues to deserve our attention. In the same spirit, I want to call readers' attention to…

    • Support, Indemnification, and Addressing Retaliation

      by Ed Kazarian There are two important posts up today elsewhere in the philosophical blogopshere that deserve your attention—both of which raise the question of how those of us in the profession at large can support those members who, because of activism or simply their social position, are vulnerable to various official and non-official forms…

    • Universities Should Indemnify Student Complainants

      by Ed Kazarian   There’s an important piece up at Inside Higher Ed today about a developing debate concerning whether universities should offer blanket indemnity to students who file internal harassment and assault complaints, as they regularly do for faculty and other employees. While the IHE piece is a news story, and so doesn’t take a  position…

    • The Collège International de Philosophie is in Danger of Being Closed

      Many readers of this blog will be aware of the remarkable institution known as the Collège International de Philosophie, based in Paris and supported by the French government since 1983.  During its more than 30-year existence, the Collège has offered an extraordinary range of very high-quality free and public programs in France and around the world. It…

    • Maybe the Best Rankings Are No Rankings At All

      by Ed Kazarian   In the course of a discussion on Facebook begun by a colleague’s thoughtful and nuanced reflection on the kind of rankings we might want to have in the discipline, I was moved to offer an objection to the idea of ranking departments at all. I think it stands outside that particular discussion,…

    • Normalizing Civility, Policing Critique, Enforcing Silence and Misunderstanding Collegiality

      By Leigh M. Johnson How we ought to understand the terms "civility" and "collegiality" and to what extent they can be enforced as professional norms are dominating discussions in academic journalism and the academic blogosphere right now.  (So much so, in fact, that it's practically impossible for me to select among the literally hundreds of…