#Theacademy

Years after defending his dissertation, perhaps unable to adapt or evolve, he appeared stuck in an eternal limbo that would give any student the night sweats. On the other hand, John seemed an extreme version of a kind of intellectual ideal.…

What was I trying to figure out? Beginnings, I think—what a beginning is, what one must do in order to start.

Anyone who has ever emerged from a multiday academic conference will recognize this truth: as the sun sets on the jetsam of crumpled programs and the custodians vacuum the carpet, you set out for the bus station or the airport and wonder what, and whom,…

So if you ask me about the signature strength of the department where I work, I will tell you. It is world-caliber field-defining research, wedded to a fantastically dynamic practice of instruction, accomplished at nothing less than the scale of the…

As Sheehi recently argued, “It will be the university that enacts the violence of fascism. The fascist just sends off a letter.” To this story we can add the psychoanalyst, who also seems all too willing to post.…

George Floyd’s murder made being black at the university significantly worse. When I try to understand how, I can’t help but look back on the chancellor’s words, ostensibly full of hope that the “national crisis” could “catalyze powerful change” — and how…

What does it mean to live in an era whose only good feelings come from coining names for the era (and its feelings)? On one hand, perhaps our surfeit of coinages, many inspired by various resurgent Marxian traditions, suggests an intellectual ecosystem in…

As with any object under scientific investigation, theorizing philosophy scientifically requires locating its borders, which can only be accomplished by recognizing what is beyond and outside it—that is, what is non-philosophy.