Grad Students and Publishing

There is an interesting post over at PEA Soup, discussing whether grad students should be encouraged not to publish. While the comments aren’t resembling any sort of agreement to the argument, the idea is that publishing while a grad student could hurt their job prospects. What do you all think?

Anarchy

I’m taking a course in contemporary applied Sociology over summer to ‘fill the time’ and for some extra credit.  The course is titled Graffiti, Kitsch and Trash: Crime of Style and is proving quite interesting.  One of the central themes of the course is the concept of anarchy.  I have a lot of sympathy for social systems and theory inspired by anarchy and I’m hoping that we could have a little discussion in the comments below about our perspectives of anarchy.  I’ll start off with a short quotation.

Germaine Greer on Aboriginal Rage

I remember seeing Germaine Greer on ABC1’s Q&A program a few months back talking briefly about this topic. Here is the keynote speech Greer gave on Aboriginal rage for the Melbourne Writers Festival. Here book, On Rage, is published through Melbourne University Publishers.

CFP: Stance: An International Undergraduate Philosophy Journal

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TOPIC: CFP: Stance: An International Undergraduate Philosophy Journal
http://groups.google.com/group/philosophy-updates/t/9ae9b14efea595b9?hl=en
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Date: Tues, Nov 18 2008 5:23 pm
From:

Call for Papers: Stance: An International Undergraduate Philosophy Journal. Stance is a peer-reviewed, peer-produced, academic journal that publishes papers by current undergraduate students. Stance welcomes papers concerning any philosophical topic. Current undergraduates may submit papers between 1500 and 3500 words in length. The deadline for submissions is Friday, December 19, 2008, initial review is completed in early February, and publication is in April.

Authors of published papers will receive a free print version of the journal and their article will be indexed in major internet indexes as well as in the Philosopher’s Index. Stance has a full digital presence: http://stance.iweb.bsu.edu. Information about the kind of submissions Stance seeks and about manuscript preparation can be found at the website. Submissions should be sent to stance@bsu.edu. Further, via the website, you can reach past issues in an open source format.

Juli Eflin
Professor and Chair
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47304-0500
jeflin2@bsu.edu

A Book Meme

We’ve been memed!

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open it to page 56.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the cool book, or the intellectual one: pick the CLOSEST.

Thought it may be interesting to see what we’re reading at the moment.  If you don’t want to post on your own blog just post in the comment section below.  Here’s what I got:

“Consciousness is a process in the Brain” in my view is neither self-contradictory nor self-evident; it is a reasonable scientific hypothesis, in the way that the statement “Lightning is a motion of electric charges” is a reasonable scientific hypothesis.

Place, U.T. 1956, ‘Is Consciousness a Brain Process’, in Chalmers, David J. (ed.) 2002, Philosophy of Mind: Classical and Contemporary Readings, Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 55 – 60.

The Secret and an Extra Variable on Descartes’ Proposition

I was having a debate with a friend recently about the merits (or I should perhas say lack of merit) of that extremely popular book/film/TV show ‘The Secret’.  I’m not sure why people are so willing to just jump in and believe this stuff, particularly after watching the film!

Macquarie Academics on ABC’s Good Game

This week two Macquarie academics, Dr. Cynthia Townley and Dr. Mitch Parsell from the department of Philosophy, were featured on the ABC program ‘Good Game’.  The story was titled ‘A Moral Choice’ and explored the relationship between Ethics, Morality and the playing of video games.  It’s only a short story, as you’d expect in a half hour program, but some interesting points are conveyed.  I do have to say, however, that Father Bob was a little disapointing.  The video can be found here -> http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/stories/s2409028.htm

Ethics at the BBC

I was just having a browse of the BBC’s iView content via Totem and was surprised to see that they classify their Ethics section together with Religion.  The particular heading reads “Religion and Ethics”.  I wonder how many people in secular countries still equate ethics (or morality) with religion.