This whole book looks really interesting for thinking about political agency

A group of 24 expert philosophers has submitted an amicus curiae brief to the US Supreme Court affirming the authority of mind and matter as the only two natural kinds

I talked to an Africana philosophy reading group today about Audre Lorde’s erotic. It was pretty awesome. We talked about how the energy needed to fight for survival and liberation is a key hidden ingredient necessary for agency, which philosophers so often overlook. 🧄

Some cheerleading philosophers need to read this today

I've also deleted my academia-dot-edu account. Find all my papers as free PDFs (and apparently a zoomed in picture of my mug) at www.calebward.xyz Please spread the word to your colleagues about the academia scam, also those who are not as online as we are.

As far as we can tell, this also means they can generate fake articles under your name and then use them to promote their "Academia Letters" journal?

Just when you think antisemitic stereotypes might fade, fucking profiteers like Smotrich come along and drag all our names through the mud 🫣

Look, a new collection of Pat Parker's most crucial poems is coming out next month, selected by the fantastic scholar SaraEllen Strongman (@strongman.bsky.social) 👀 Please go pre-order it.

Look, a new collection of Pat Parker's most crucial poems is coming out next month, selected by the fantastic scholar SaraEllen Strongman (@strongman.bsky.social) 👀 Please go pre-order it.

Here's a pet peeve about how ppl talk about Audre Lorde. I can't count how many times people write "as Audre Lorde reminds us..." and then drop a nugget of Lorde wisdom. And I'm like, Audre Lorde didn't REMIND us. We didn't KNOW that yet. She came up with that shit, so let's give some credit!

I just bought a couple incredible old books from feminist history. I’ll reveal more later, but basically all the time I’ve been spending in the archive has made me go crazy over little notes between the OG radical feminists

The desk rejection I was sure was coming has taken long enough by now that I think it’ll turn out to be a reviewer rejection instead. It’s like in 5th grade saying “I’ll think about it” when someone asks you out, and then you send your friend to say “no” for you later #philsky

Great example of enhancing one’s power to make a difference by recognizing and using the leverage points that become available. This photojournalist was accused of overstating the horrors in Gaza, and now he’s using the German courts to make those horrors even more inescapable for the public

There’s a zine section also at the local library in Ashfield, MA, my rural hometown of 1500 people! Why are librarians so freaking cool? They also have narcan available and coupons for free ice cream from the hardware store across the street. Community care 💕

I'm gonna get away from posting about current events, but a political assassination shooter engraves on one of the casings "if you read this, you are gay, lmao"??? ...we are truly living in world-historically stupid times

Look, you can actually just go to www.reuters.com and read the news, not some version of events already partially digested by the NYT to fit into their editorial narrative. Cut out the middle man. You should do that and also follow @reuters.com

American corporations exporting predictive policing to make China *more* of a police state. Which stage of capitalism is this?

Having a real-time debate over here whether “practicing politics the right way” is essentially about form (Klein) or about content (everyone left of him). Klein’s problem is that his valuing of current open debate welcomes demagoguery that destroys the possibility of future open debate.

Reuters remains a strong source for actual coverage of news around the world. They're not perfect, but I appreciate here that they are talking *with* protesters in Nepal instead of only *about* them. They've brought down the government in rejection of being ruled by a super-wealthy elite. 👀

Enjoy this unhinged collage my amazing host Ju Ly Ban made after the event 🫶

Wow, these guys have been doing WORK. This looks amazing. Ludwig and El-Hani: "The humbling experience of doing philosophy in fishing communities far away from the philosophical armchair puts a spotlight on many limitations of academic philosophy. ...

In interviews, Audre Lorde often quoted Nyerere on political structures' inherent conservatism. She said: "the minute you set up a structure to enforce rules, you suppress change. The most you can do is make change possible, but you can't build in change yourself. It's the same in any movement."

It turns out that several years before philosophers famously asked, "What is it like to be a bat?", the poets were already asking this question and inventing ways of answering it. I just read Randall Jarrell's wonderful tiny 1964 storybook The Bat-Poet, and you should too.

There's no substitute for actually taking action.

What's some good philosophy papers on protest?

On the face of it, this looks like a bid to jack their acceptance rate even lower than other “elite“ journals, thereby looking “super-elite.” But everyone loses… excellent scholars trying to get published, peer reviewers, early career ppl who can’t waste time, etc.

Hi Bluesky, The English translation of my book on the Pelicot trial is coming out in a month! You know (or maybe you don't) how it is: preorders are crucial for the life of a book, so don't hesitate to preorder right now. a.co/d/a0qeZeh I hope the fantastic blurbs will convince you if you're not:

Why would a philosopher be interested in sports, you ask?

This paper by Hannah Winckler-Olick looks cool. We need more Beauvoirean existentialism in contemporary moral philosophy. (DM me your email address if you need a copy) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

Listen up! Submit your abstract for the 2026 Beauvoir Society conference on "Beauvoir & Reproduction: Politics, Labour, Biology, Lived Experience"🔥 Proposal abstracts are due **September 22, 2025** Conference is May 2026 in Klagenfurt, Austria Keynotes: Sylvie Chaperon & Stella Sandford

I’ve long valued talking to Ceros about Lorde and reading her Lordean-Foucauldian examinations of borderline personality experience from the inside. Read if you’re interested in madness and critiquing regimes of emotional regulation

I've had a paper under review for a couple months at a journal far too fancy for my pedigree, and I'm bracing myself for the almost inevitable reviewer 2 report: "Wow, looks like maybe this car's first demolition derby."

Found some good writing advice in an old journal: Figure out what the tropes are in your thinking, and then mercilessly scrutinize them whenever they come out in your writing. They might just be a default move rather than a genuine insight into what you’re trying to say.

4yo with anger issues hit the theodicy jackpot with his anxiety about going back to daycare. He asked me, “if fighting is bad, why did God make fighting?” As an agnostic, I felt like i had a cheat code to answer it

Caro Flores: Hermeneutical injustice is not just about what concepts we have, but about how they are used. We cannot reach the ideal set of resources and rest. Addressing hermeneutical injustice is about addressing the balance of power in a society and who controls the narrative.

“But can’t we use the master’s tools just this once, as a treat??” Here’s my talk about Lorde’s master’s tools, which got such a heartening reception in New York. Thanks to everyone who turned out—professors, students, poets, activists 🌱

This rules not least because it historicises Lorde's words, it does so in a way that's about the fuller context of her ideas. (also I feel justified now for my years-long practice of asking people quoting those lines what they think they actually mean)

“But can’t we use the master’s tools just this once, as a treat??” Here’s my talk about Lorde’s master’s tools, which got such a heartening reception in New York. Thanks to everyone who turned out—professors, students, poets, activists 🌱

Reading the selected writings of LGBTQ+ activist Urvashi Vaid, Dream of a Common Movement, & I'm struck by how prescient her term "virtual equality" ("conditional equality based on the appearance of acceptance") is proving to be in the aggressively regressive authoritarianism of the present moment.

Gwen is on point in this thread. Audre Lorde saw poetry as the place we develop this power of imagining toward freedom: "Poetry coins the language to express and charter this revolutionary demand, the implementation of that freedom." The sunflower turns toward the sun!!! 🌻

I went to a demolition derby in the US and the guy on the loudspeaker hyping up the crowd announced one car by saying "wow, looks like maybe this car's first demolition derby." Best backhanded compliment ever. I'm gonna use it all the time from now on.

Another update on the Lorde manuscript: the second reviewer report is IN, the reviewer called the book "excellent" and, more modestly, "definitely publishable" (🕺) ...and I'm officially on to final revisions, writing an intro, and finishing this beloved book over the next two months 🌻

Call for abstracts for a very nice and feminist-friendly social philosophy conference in Canada next summer! The theme is "Joy, Care, and Resistance" Good lookin out @nassp.bsky.social 💜

Just got back from a few weeks in the US and there was so much good. Saw lots of small town protests, bridge protesters over the highway. Ppl making themselves visible Also got to wake up to the sound of birds in the woods for a few weeks 🪺

I’m off to the Lesbian Herstory Archive today to dive into Lorde’s poetry teaching binder and look at some of her early drafts. Looking forward to feeling that archive magic ✨ I’ll try to share what I find!

Really magical time yesterday at CUNY talking about Lorde and feelings and the need for a whole new form of power to turn this ship around. Recording will be posted at some point

I arrived in NYC to give a talk and connect with some folks yesterday, and my first stop was a budget used book store, where I scooped up this Toi Derricotte book off the shelf for $5, only to find that is signed by the poet!

What a great lineup! Interested to read the piece on Dunayevskaya... she was a major influence on both Adrienne Rich and Audre Lorde in the 1980s