Superb stuff. Really taking it to that fake. You never see it here, for lots of reasons, but everything Farage says is just inviting a counterattack that leaves him mute.

Next week, we welcome @stellasandford.bsky.social ‬(Kingston University) in our ROTO Lecture Series. She will reflect on John Dupré's #PhilBio and talk about "promiscuous realism" and plant individuality. Just register here to participate 👉 rotorub.wordpress.com/roto-lecture... #HPBio #PhilSci

CRMEP research seminar, Rowan Williams (Baron of Oystermouth), ‘Thinking Through Solidarnosc: Josef Tischner and the Philosophy of Solidarity’, Thursday 1 May, 2-4pm. [Simultaneously appropriate and ironic; independent CRMEP launching in the autumn!] www.kingston.ac.uk/about/events...

16 June! Not 6th.

New semester, new lecture series 🎉 Starting next Monday, we welcome amazing scholars to give talks in #HPBio and medicine - always at 4pm CET on zoom. The first talk will be by @msimang.bsky.social and later in the semester we will hear @stellasandford.bsky.social, @elisj.bsky.social and many more 🤩

What’s great about a Kingston uni graduate, according to the new website? They will work for lower wages. WTF.

Minutes of last Office for Students board meeting. 'Risks are escalating across the sector... providers under serious financial pressure'; 'sector finances... towards the most pessimistic end of the scenarios we modelled in May 2024... increas[ing]... risk of sudden market exit of a large provider'.

Radboud University strike today, against huge proposed cuts to national education budget, tremendous turn out and a very lively march through town. Respect to the Dutch unions and students and staff. Also, free coffee and buns.

UK universities are in crisis. Dave Hitchcock (@davehitchcock.bsky.social) on how the sector became 'broken' and why it must be approached as an interdependent system. www.historyworkshop....

Help save lives in Gaza. Please donate anything you can to support @scotnational.bsky.social fundraiser 👇 medpal.donorsupport.co/page/TheNati...

Like a sense of the temperature in UK Higher Education right now? Take a read of this furious open letter from students and researchers at Kingston University, which faces losing its famous (and precious) Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy: www.versobooks.com/en-gb/blogs/...

It seems grimly appropriate that so much of higher ed is leaning into “The future is STEM; the humanities are dead” at a time when the most significant recent advancement in STEM, AI, is raising fundamental questions that are as much philosophical and humanistic as scientific.

Student Competition: Why Does Philosophy Matter? run by The British Philosophical Association, AQA and OCR. Write just 75 words on why you love philosophy. #PhilosophyMatters Deadline: Friday 7th March, 12 PM. Find out more in link on this page: bpa.ac.uk/activities/p...

Every time I hear this nonsense, I think: 1. This person's never taught in HE; 2. They have no faith in young people's own ability to think; 3. They haven't been near uni since graduation; 4. They think they live in the US; 5. They don't get that v little HE is in Arts and Hums; 6. Hahaha, 🤡

3500 scientists, biologists and experts in human sexual development write to the US government saying that sex isn't binary www.evolutionsociety.org/news/display...

Nature is nonbinary 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ your executive orders have no power here 🌿✊🏼 #nonbinary #queerecology #queer #ecology #lgbtq #lgbtqia

Hackney ❤️

Lucky old William Hind Smith

A close encounter on the New River Path

London, 9am

The joy of the Linnean Society library - browsing the shelves. Borrowing rights (20thC+ books) for Fellows too. @linneansociety.bsky.social

Why the many meanings of ‘agency’ is an opportunity, not a problem, in thinking about plants: cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2025/01...

MERMAID DIALECTICS 💦 Article out now on why Simone de Beauvoir is Hegelian – but not in the way you'd think! Tracing a movement from abstract to concrete in The Second Sex that culminates in the contradiction of sex, I argue for a dialectical-critical rather than affirmative conceptual politics …

The Royal Institute of Philosophy essay competition 2025 for students aged 15-18. Closing date 22nd April. The winner will be published in an upcoming issue of Think. More information here: royalinstitutephilosophy.org/news/think-e...

Watch out all you shepherds out there (in London…)

“a rich old man [Hermann Weil] dies; disturbed at the poverty in the world, in his will he leaves a large sum to set up an institute which will do research on the source of this poverty, which is, of course, himself.” Brecht on the funder of The Frankfurt School.

My blog on🌿 #thinkingwithplantsandfungi 🍄@harvard.edu on #17th-cent #plantphilo as roots of contemporary science🌳 - I challenge the idea of #histsci #histplants as inadequate to contemporary and future issues. On the contrary, it offers a valuable perspective cswr.hds.harvard.edu/news/2024/12...

Every single person in the university sector knows that The Big Guns have set out to bankrupt everyone else and that they're on the verge of winning that particular zero sum game - and that Ministers are afraid of upsetting that Top Fifteen or so. www.thetimes.com/article/e569...

This is what will happen in the university sector: *Shared services *Mergers *Widespread redundancies *Big cuts to STEM and R&D *Big unis get even bigger *Squeezed cities, angry voters *Huge geographical cold spots www.politicshome.com/news/article...

Man About Town 1954: make your own punch but do remember the waiter should open and pour the champagne at table.

📢 CALL FOR PAPERS 📢 We are delighted to announce that SEP 2025 will be held at King's College London on 7-9 July 2025. Our confirmed plenary speakers are Dr Julia Ng, Prof. Simon Critchley and Prof. Frédéric Worms. Deadline 1st February. societyforeuropeanphilosophy.com/2024/12/06/s...

Unexpected Sarah Lucas sculpture in the edgelands this morning.

This sentence from Peter Bernhardt "The Rose's Kiss" is just too good to not share. #botany #plantbiology

The Beauvoir & Marxism Research Group, organized by Katja Čičigoj and @AnnaCeschi, has a new program for 2024/2025! More online: beauvoir.weebly.com/beauvoir--ma...

Great event Friday at @wshed.bsky.social! Loved seeing students/alumni discuss #WorldPhilosophy. I shared thoughts on metaphorical uses of decolonisation (Tuck/Yang/Ricoeur). Huge thanks to @stellasandford.bsky.social, Adam Loughnane, Tzuchien Tho, and Katrina Mitcheson for chairing! #UWEPhilosophy

European (Continental) Philosophy and World Philosophy - a discussion (a bit early….) for World Philosophy Day. Me, Adam Loughnane, Francesco Tava, Tzuchien Tho: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/european-p...

Plant life, plant horror: Or, Can a Vegetable Be a Monster? Linnean Society, 30 October 6pm members.linnean.org/events/66e0795… @LinneanSociet#plantst#planthorroror

I will look more frightening on the night. www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/halloween-...

Sad to hear that Bob Stern has passed away. Here is an interview: www.whatisitliketobeaphilosopher.com/robert-stern

One leaf today heralds autumn.

A public outing for plant philosophy: aeon.co/essays/what-...

The University of Kent is closing its philosophy department among others. This was a thriving department who did great in the REF and the NSS. The government are not helping universities to thrive and are not helping the humanities. www.kent.ac.uk/news/stateme...

Even if this is happening in obscure journals that no-one reads, it shows just how indifferent the private publishing industry is to quality. If they can't even filter out obvious AI contributions, what purpose do they serve? The negative externality here will be damage to the reputation of science.

Just found this in my copy of Butler’s Gender Trouble. 30 years ago.

Free online seminar with ETIENNE BALIBAR this Saturday! Please share widely: culturepowerpolitics.org/from-marx-to...

Ah, merry Xmas to me

Evelyn Fox Keller has died. It is a great loss. “To know the history of science is to recognize the mortality of any claim to universal truth.” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03819-4 #Histsci #philsci #complexity #hpbio 🧪 #femsky