Grading blue books is just as bad as I remembered it being…

A Buddhist philosopher, somewhere in the vicinity of Gandhara, in approximately the 4th Century CE, takes a deep hit from the bong: “Dude, dude, if you think about it, shadows are really freaking weird…”

Hey friends who do Buddhist philosophy, what are your favorite short and clear contemporary articles for teaching. My students aren't feeling like reading books this semester, so I'm changing up the syllabus!

Hey friends who do Buddhist philosophy, what are your favorite short and clear contemporary articles for teaching. My students aren't feeling like reading books this semester, so I'm changing up the syllabus!

This special issue includes a paper by a student whose dissertation I advised. Chris Kochevar is a kickass philosopher, and he's currently doing a postdoc on issues like these at Princeton. Keep your eyes out for further work from Chris! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I'll be sharing this a few times over the next few weeks, but here's your first heads up that the Georgetown philosophy department is hiring philjobs.org/job/show/29710

Today in aesthetics, we are doing Shen-yI Liao’s super interesting paper on nostalgia and food, *Bittersweet food*. I never know exactly what to say about it, because I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced nostalgia. But I know it will be a fun conversation philpapers.org/archive/LIAB...

I'm bumping this job announcement up again, for folks who might have missed it last time!

I’ve been training my whole life for this moment

For the first time in roughly two decades I have to put together a thing that’s sort of like a test for intro to Buddhist philosophy—and I’m wicked glad that there are numerous lists that make that easier

I'll be sharing this a few times over the next few weeks, but here's your first heads up that the Georgetown philosophy department is hiring philjobs.org/job/show/29710

Buddhist philosophy today is the utterly trivial task of explaining the construction of experience according to cycle of dependent origination. I will definitely use the analogy to magic, but I might also talk about pro wrestling...and specifically AEW, because I've been watching a ton of it...

Today in aesthetics, we are discussing this banger of a paper on the aesthetics of perfume. I’m not convinced by all of the claims, but I think it captures something deeply important about the role of change and materiality that often goes missing in discussions in aesthetics doi.org/10.1093/jaac...

For the next two weeks in Buddhist philosophy, we’ll goin to be trying to unpack one of my favorite verses: Form is like a mass of foam And feeling—but an airy bubble. Perception is like a mirage And formations a plantain tree. Consciousness is a magic-show, A juggler’s trick entire.

New from our music team, song making in a group changes paranoia and patterns of language use consistent with lower distress, greater agency, and more positive emotion in people with psychosis: osf.io/preprints/ps... These are the open-label pilot data - full randomized control study wrapping soon!

I’m so excited to announce that I and @cherylann7.bsky.social will be taking over as Co-Chairs of the Feminist Caucus Committee for the American Society for Aesthetics! I’m so honored to be trusted continuing the invaluable work of @lizscar.bsky.social and Sue Spaid.

I am glad that we have held on to hybrid workshops to some extent. But it's still a bummer that there aren't good ways to pull off the informal chats where lots of the most interesting conversations happen (FWIW I often miss those anyway, since I'm sober and have complex dietary constraints)

I haven't read this yet. But I am sort of considering shifting my Intro to buddhist philosophy class to focus on various approaches to karma instead of doing the Joanna Macy book that I currently have assigned. But I'll have to get the students to vote on that! tif.ssrc.org/2025/08/27/t...

This morning I’m listening to the new Sabrina Carpenter album, and thinking about the social role of pop music, and wondering what it takes for pop music to work as satire or social critique…

My new essay for @thetransmitter.bsky.social. Why is understanding emotion so challenging? The debates around what counts as an "emotion" shed insight. These disputes are multidimensional, principled and fascinating. Here, I unpack them. www.thetransmitter.org/the-big-pict...

Is ecological neuroscience a feasible enterprise? After some theoretical work on ecological resonance, we've engaged on experimental research to test some of the hypotheses that follow from it. These are the first results of (hopefully) many more to come! It's open access 👇 doi.org/10.1111/psyp...

Today in Buddhist philosophy: selflessness, the four truts, and the eight fold path. It's funny how easy it is to present these ideas, and how difficult it is to really make sense of them

Sad day for peope who still believe brain areas are the primary organizational units of function in the brain. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

I would love to read a materialist history of transitions in aesthetic orientations. I know stuff on the 18th century, and on recent individualizing forces. But I want more

A new paper by Jed Forman on forgetting and personhood in Tsongkhapa. I haven’t read it yet, but Jed is a kickass philosopher and I expect it to be wicked interesting. Forgetting Oneself: Tsongkhapa and Severance philpapers.org/archive/FORF...

New glasses. They’re my first pair with progressive lenses

For the first time in quite a while, I’m teaching philosophy of cognitive science in the spring. What are y’all’s favorite recent books for a seminar like that?

For the first time in quite a while, I’m teaching philosophy of cognitive science in the spring. What are y’all’s favorite recent books for a seminar like that?

Post a meme made by you

It's kind of amazing to me that I've been doing a high-level buddhist philosophy reading group for roughly 10 years! We meet for a couple of hours most weeks, and it's been a truly incredible experience!

Listening to Lana Del Rabies, drinking delicious coffee, and feeling nervous about the first day of school (I think it’s my 43rd first day and I still always get nervous)…how are y’all doing

This is a thing that exists

Academic friends who are returning to in class writing. Do you make students bring blue books? Or do you supply them. I think I used to do the latter, but I honestly can’t remember

Alright academic friends: What skills do students want or need to learn as we return to classes for the 2025 school year? I’m legit baffled about how to teach for the first time in decades

There’s all sorts of pop schlock on the fast pace of modern life, and its impact on experience. Does anyone know of any good empirical work on this?

We are excited to announce the 4th Annual Penn-Georgetown Digital Ethics Workshop, organized by Brian Berkey and myself. The conference will take place April 3-4, 2026, at Penn. If you work on digital technology ethics, broadly construed, please consider submitting an abstract.

I’m mystified by the AI Subsidiary Aggregation addendum that Cambridge UP is asking me to sign. It’s not obvious to me that declining will prevent them from allowing my work to be used to train AIs, so I’m wondering what the point of this exercise is supposed to be

Gestures toward an Intro to Buddhist Philosophy reading list for Fall 2025, thoughts and recommendations welcome!

Gestures toward an Intro to Buddhist Philosophy reading list for Fall 2025, thoughts and recommendations welcome!

What are my philosophy friends doing for assessments in Fall 2025? I did a lot if in class writing with tons of feedback from me last year, and I know that some students were still using LLMs. So I’m not willing to do that again; but hand written stuff is unfair to them, so I’m unsure what to do

Hey aesthetics friends, what is your favorite recent stuff on the philosophy of music? I'm rebooting a class that was taught at GU for a long time, and I want to bring in a bunch of cool new stuff!

Hey aesthetics friends, what is your favorite recent stuff on the philosophy of music? I'm rebooting a class that was taught at GU for a long time, and I want to bring in a bunch of cool new stuff!

It would be super cool to live in a world where you could have reliable access to the medication you need without having to spend ridiculous amounts of time on the phone to keep thing’s moderately on track. Chronic illness is a trip, y’all

Hey y'all, this newly published symposium includes a thing that I wrote about the use of meditative practices in building better ways of living and acting in the world. Some of y'all might be interested... scholarworks.iu.edu/iupjournals/...

This looks like a cool paper on the goals we should have in developing AI, and I hope I have access when I get back to the office! www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf...

Do any of my ecopsych or other vision friends have a take on why the rapid optic flow of images that you experience on a train is so relaxing?

This is an @emmiemalone.bsky.social appreciation post. She organized a seriously kickass conferences, and I’m already thinking about what to submit for the 2026 Rocky Mountain ASA! I’m heading out now, but feeling super energized & excited about philosophy in a way I haven’t for a while!

I’m at the Rocky Mountain ASA, and this is your reminder that aesthetics people are really the best philosophy people!

Well, I’m not making it to Santa Fe tonight. I missed a non-refundable shuttle, and I will be paying for a hotel in Santa Fe (on the assumption that they don’t cancel my reservation). This has been a nightmare of a journey. I think we’ll hit a 10 hour delay by the time I arrive in Albuquerque