The more untenable a position is, the more difficult it is to get out of it. —R.D. Laing

Privacy is a sense, the sense that something is not fit to appear to the many. In an opposite sense, so is publicness.

Almost is never enough. Enough is never enough.

Imaginary revenge? As if there were any other kind.

It's a mistake to think that all "administration of things" is bullshit work (my preferred term to "bullshit jobs," as "non-bullshit jobs" are bullshitified and people in "bullshit jobs" do non-bullshit work).

Theory isn't all attitude, but attitude is no small part.

The old -Running Man- was set in a dystopian future. The new -Running Man- is set in the present.

Our remembrances of Kirstie McClure, political theorist www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf...

It looks like I'm shadowbanned on X. Probably for the best LOL.

This absolutely tracks with what journal article submissions now look like. Tons from scholars at East Asian institutions, fewer and fewer from the US.

The "American Academic Dream" is dead. The dream was roughly that your professional legacy is "professional accomplishments": hyper-productivity, placing graduate students, winning fellowships/funding, citation games, and maybe even becoming a minor celebrity.

Wendy Brown's comments at a memorial for Kirstie McClure, organized by Davide Panagia back in 2024, are now available. #poltheory www.pdcnet.org/pga/content/...

Matthew Crow's contribution to our symposium on Kirstie McClure, "Historical Writing, Material Text, and Political Theory," is now available from Philosophy & Public Affairs. #poltheory www.pdcnet.org/pga/content/...

There are no academic jobs. The jobs there are will go to the hyper crendentialed and/or play it safe types. The real work of the institution, the work the university only purports to do, will be done outside of it.

Why you have to read the footnotes 2. The role of man is very artificial. How it may be with the dwellers on other planets and their nature we do not know. (Kant, Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View)

The first piece of our symposium in honor of Kirstie McClure is available from Philosophy and Global Affairs. Thank you to Patchen Markell for his lovely essay and to Jane Anna Gordon for shepherding it through the publication process. #poltheory

It is a waste of time ethically appealing to someone who structurally dominates you. Let us, in reality, meet as equals; then we can talk.

Every history of philosophy presupposes a philosophy of history.

This piece is interesting because the author knows he's more mediocre than meritorious. Except, as one can tell from the whiny tone of the entire article, he doesn't BELIEVE it. It's a classic case of "disavowal." www.compactmag.com/article/the-...

Reading an advisee's dissertation and thinking to myself, "Damn, I really am a 'traditional intellectual.'" In respect of "organic intellectualism," I am quite pleased to be surpassed.

From here on out, I'm just going to stop replying to these after the final grade has been submitted "is there anything you can do to raise my grade" requests. It's getting ridiculous.

I'm far closer to a Gramscian than an Afropessimist, but Frank Wilderson's "Gramsci’s Black Marx: Whither the Slave in Civil Society?" is one of the most original polemics I've read.

UConn professors union calls for stronger protections for academic freedom. Why they are worried. www.courant.com/2025/10/23/u...

Union organizer job in Las Vegas NV www.unionjobs.com/listing.php?... Feel free to contact Siyu HUANG [email protected] for more information

Fear of non-recognition for those without recognition; status anxiety for those with status. Fear and anxiety as "world making."

There's no significant difference between doing tourist activities 50 vs 5000 miles away. Just passing through.

In _The Dispossessed_, Shevek says that Urras is hell compared to Anarres and Keng replies that it is heaven compared to Earth. It's a great follow up on the perspectivism theme, as posed by the earlier question of "which is planet and which is satellite"?

My superpower is reading books that academics only pretend to read

All actions have consequences; some actions are meaningful; none of them occur as intended. All, some, none.

Atro was the foremost living physicist on Urras. There was about him not only the dignity of age but also the blunt self-assurance of one accustomed to respect. This was nothing new to Shevek. Atro had precisely the one kind of authority that Shevek recognized. —Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed

“It’s just a phase” isn’t an insult. It’s all just a phase. Some phases are just a lot longer than others.

Not that it is the worst. Still, the feeling that this society is the best we can do is some mixture of arrogance and misanthropy.

Teaching that _confidence_ is more important than _competence_ (or more complexly that the only real competence is in the art/craft of confidence) is the premise of all con-games, public relations, and corporate marketing.

There is not too much art being made. There is too little time to appreciate it.

In January's #ClassicsRevisited, we asked seven authors to reflect on the enduring significance of Iris Marion Young’s “Justice and the Politics of Difference”, first published in 1990. You can read all seven reflections & an introduction by Alyson Cole here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/pol/curr...

I was born in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. It has not recently come to my attention that I have been living in a foreign country my entire life.

“Equality,” I spoke the word As if a wedding vow Ah, but I was so much older then I’m younger than that now -Bob Dylan

This is a remarkable change: since Covid, an additional 5 million Americans report having a disability. (Gift link) www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Everything is connected to everything. But it is not as if there were one string running through them all. The threads are invisible and infinite.

The proliferation of post-apocalyptic fiction expresses both the “progressive” desire to see the end of this world and the “conservative” fear it will be even worse than this one.

An unintentional positive outcome of Japanese imperialism ("the Great East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere") is it destroyed the ludicrous ideal of "Asian unity" (which, e.g., Sun Yat-sen also flirted with).

Kaori Muraji - 村治佳織 - Merry Christmas,Mr Lawrence youtu.be/ZA-NjYpRn34?...

That We May Live Speculative Chinese Fiction www.catranslation.org/shop/book/th...