Ten most influential books
See: Tyler Cowen, Will Wilkinson, Russell Arben Fox, Bryan Caplan,Matt Yglesias, and more. Haven't we done this on Facebook at some point?
I'm unsurprised by how alien Russell's and Bryan's lists are to me (in almost-opposite directions, of course). By contrast, even where my list doesn't overlap with Will's, for the most part I can recognize and to some degree share his reactions.
But, man, Rand and Nietzsche are showing up a lot, even on lists where I wouldn't expect them to. Neither's ever had a moment of hold on my mind. A friend in grad school thought that there was something odd and revealing about my complete lack of connection to Nietzsche: "You've never had a Nietzschean moment?" he asked-- a moment when I got it. Nope.
Anyway, I'll take the "formative influences" tack: books I first read before I graduated from college. And I'll arbitrarily stick to nonfiction in my general fields of professional inquiry.
1) Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose. An adult friend gave this to me when I was 11 or so (and when it was very new-- the copy of it, which I still have, is in hardcover). So for me, the exposure to libertarianism and to social science/ social analysis and to serious nonfiction that contained ideas that could really give my brain exercise were simultaneous. It's hard to know what the counterfactual looks like-- how differently I would think if I hadn't read this, then. The friend said that he gave it to me because it was already clear that I would appreciate it-- that it reflected rather than (only) shaping my intellectual tastes. In any case, the ideas of regulatory capture and unintended consequences were among the first serious ideas about social analysis I ever encountered-- and the simplified moral-political philosophy of the introduction to the book genuinely inspired me.
2) John Stuart Mill, On Liberty. Read when I had just turned 16, during slow periods and coffee and lunch breaks at my summer supermarket job. (I think this is the moment when lots of smart teenagers encounter Rand or Nietzsche-- when they're looking for something to read to keep their brains going while they're off school, especially if they're in the kinds of summer jobs working/ lower middle class kids get rather than internships and the like.) It wasn't technically my first primary text in political philosophy; by then I had read Thoreau's "Resistance," a couple of the Federalist Papers, and smatterings of Plato, Smith, and Marx in my Great Books collection. But it was "On Liberty" that really fired me up about great works in political philosophy. I agreed with its conclusions, of course, but I already knew enough to know that there were things to worry about/ argue with; I wasn't excited primarily by the agreement. I was excited by the prose, the power of the arguments, and the sense of what it could be to assemble normative arguments about big questions.
3) Bernard Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution. Read about the same time: the first work of scholarship I ever read, and still one of my favorites.
4) Leonard Levy, Original Intent and the Framers' Constitution. The second work of scholarship I ever read. The overarching argument of the book was a little beyond my reach at the time, but the detailed legal-historical analysis of the various constitutional provisions greatly impressed me, and complemented what I had learned about the era from Bailyn.
5) John Rawls, A Theory of Justice. First read it my first semester of college; it aggravated me and annoyed me and in many ways defined the intellectual world I've lived in ever since.
6) Michael Walzer, Spheres of Justice. Spheres annoyed me even more, the first two times I read it, and not in the same "I must engage with and respond to this" way that Rawls did. First two times I read it, I didn't see the point of it; by comparison with Rawls (or Nozick), Walzer never seemed to have any arguments. Eventually, as I followed the path I now understand as leading from political philosophy to political theory, I came to see Spheres of Justice as a wise and profound book, and an important exemplar of how to think normatively but not abstractly. There's still almost no argument in it I find compelling, nothing that I'm brought to agree with by Walzer's reasoning. But I do love to reread from it, when the occasion presents itself.
7) F.A. Hayek, The Constitution of Liberty and Law, Legislation, and Liberty, vol. 1 (Listed together because I really think they belong together-- I think LLL v1 completes the argument of Constitution and makes the earlier book much more satisfying than it is on its own.) First read Hayek in a freshman seminar taught by by university's president on the history of liberalism. (Also my first exposure to Acton and Tocqueville.) More than any of the books listed so far, Hayek shaped how I think about the basic shape of the social world, and also how I think about the connections among normative, explanatory, and empirical social analysis. Though I'm not an economist, and one of the (minor but real) aims of my next book is to reject the intellectual history offered in Constitution, and to the best of my recollection the phrase "spontaneous order" doesn't appear in anything I've ever published, I still comfortably describe myself as a Hayekian in my intellectual outlook.
8) Gordon Wood, The Creation of the American Republic. I read this in Wood's own class on the American Revolution, from then on I not only had my model of what to try to live up to as a classroom teacher, I also had my real understanding of how research at the highest level and teaching at the highest level enriched, complemented, and completed one another, and why the profession of university professor hung together as a single vocation. (It's also, simply, a great book, but its influence on me was not only intellectual.)
9) Will Kymlicka, Liberalism, Community, and Culture. This book gave me my first actual research agenda-- and was written recently enough before I became a graduate student that I felt like I could be a contributor to a live intellectual debate. Incidentally, this was probably the first dissertation-book I read all the way through. (I couldn't make it through Liberalism and the Limits of Justice on my first attempt; at a certain point I said "I get it, already," and put the book down.) I tell doctoral students in political theory that they should have a couple of dissertation-books on their minds and on their shelves that they think are relevant to their work. This may sound cruel: a dissertation-book is not a dissertation, and students shouldn't be made to think that they need to write an Oxford University Press-quality manuscript in order to have a submittable dissertation. But I found it tremendously useful to have a model for size and scope. Good graduate students often want to propose dissertations that are vastly too big and too ambitious, and then get frustrated when they realize that doing what they want would take decades and thousands of pages. A dissertation-book that you admire can reassure you that something important and worthwhile can be accomplished in something about this big-- and that it's okay not to answer every possible question or master the whole of human knowledge. Kymlicka provided that book for me: a reminder of how much could be accomplished in a project of about that size, and also a reminder that a dissertation can be an impressive accomplishment without doing everything. Kymlicka convincingly opened up a space for more research (others' research as well as his own); he didn't wait until he'd done it all himself before scheduling his defense.
10-11) Tocqueville, The Ancien Regime and the Revolution; Isaiah Berlin, The Crooked Timber of Humanity. You'll have noticed a lot of American Revolution/ American founding material on this list, and I was as prone as anyone to a simple Whiggish sense of the connections among freedom, reason, and the 18th-century revolutions. Tocqueville and Berlin, in their different ways, helped to break me of that.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Encyclopedia of Political Theory
According to Amazon, today is the last day to pre-order Sage's new Encyclopedia of Political Theory for the low, low price of $340. I suspect that about half of my blog's readers contributed enough entries to the volume that they're expecting complimentary copies in the mail, so this is primarily a heads-up that the volumes are apparently finally about to get published.
According to Amazon, today is the last day to pre-order Sage's new Encyclopedia of Political Theory for the low, low price of $340. I suspect that about half of my blog's readers contributed enough entries to the volume that they're expecting complimentary copies in the mail, so this is primarily a heads-up that the volumes are apparently finally about to get published.
Fun and games with citation counts
Justin Wolfers at the Freakonomics blog on Hayek's scholarly impact:
He later corrected FH Hayek to FA Hayek and got up to 1745. This seemed odd to me.
So I went to JSTOR to replicate the results.
JSTOR, full text search, no restrictions as to years or discipline or kind of publication.
"Friedrich von Hayek"-- 397. Close enough to think I'm conducting the searches the same way Wolfers did.
"Friedrich von Hayek" OR "Friedrich Hayek"-- 1231. The discrepancy grows a little bit, but I'm still in Wolfer's ballpark. So these unrestricted full-text searches are what he was doing.
Next step, to get a ceiling estimate:
full-text search on Hayek . 12088 results. Browsing through these yields very few false positives-- so now I'm suspicious.
I notice a lot of references to "Professor Hayek." This seems to have been the convention in some academic journals at midcentury. "Professor Hayek" by itself yields 582 hits, and a quick browse yielded no false positives.
I also notice that the search engine cares about the difference between "F.A. Hayek" and "F. A. Hayek" (with a space between the first period and the A). This makes a big difference. Simply performing the search as "'F.A. Hayek' OR 'F. A. Hayek'" already yields 2219 results-- more than Wolfers' most complete version of his search.
Adding in F. A. von Hayek and Friedrich Hayek as options gets us to 3342.
Now there are more permutations than JSTOR can readily handle. But stretching out the search to ("Friedrich Hayek") OR ("Friedrich von Hayek") OR ("F.A. Hayek") OR ("F.A. von Hayek") OR ("F. A. Hayek") OR ("F. A. von Hayek") OR ("Friedrich A. Hayek") OR ("Friedrich A. von Hayek") OR ("Professor Hayek") yields 4267.
Proceeding from the other direction: a search just on Hayek restricted to business, economics, finance, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, public policy, and sociology eliminated all the false positives I could find. 9385 . Searching for "milton friedman" in those same disciplines (and as far as I know there's no ambiguity in how to refer to him): 8088.
Now, I don't really think that citation counts are going to do the work Wolfers wants them to do here. But on his terms, Hayek is now out of Larry Summers' company, and into Friedman's.
Update:
See Wolfers' reply, and mine a few below his, in comments at Marginal Revolution. There's just a problem here in comparing names that are difficult to compare. "Hayek" almost always refers to the relevant person in academic searches (unlike, say, at Dan Drezner's blog.) You get very few false positives with just the last name. But the false negatives are extremely sensitive to variations in how you specify his given names. Approximately the same is true of Keynes, though as Wolfers notes Keynes' father was also well-known.
Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx are opposite cases. Last names only will yield a huge number of false positives; the last names are just too common. But there's very little variation in how given names are specified-- I can't think that I've ever seen any of the three referred to by initials or with a middle name. So simply applying "the same" rule to Hayek and Friedman will get incomparable results-- vastly too many false positives or vastly too many false negatives. And so any of these count-comparisons are going to look more precise than they really are. But my strong impression from trying lots of variations: Smith, Marx, and Keynes are in a class by themselves, and Hayek and Friedman are basically comparable.
See also D-squared, who rightly emphasizes that "if something isn't worth doing, it isn't worth doing well".
Further update:
As long as I'm getting so much traffic sent here by Marginal Revolution and other blogs, might as well link to my own most recent engagement with Hayekian themes: Not So Novus an Ordo: Constitutions Without Social Contracts, Political Theory, Vol. 37, No. 2, 191-217 (2009)
Justin Wolfers at the Freakonomics blog on Hayek's scholarly impact:
Taking social science seriously surely means teaching the insights of the most prominent, most important, or most influential economists. This involves teaching important theories—even those you disagree with. There’s no doubt about the influence of Smith, Marx and Keynes; Friedman also belongs. But does Hayek belong on this list?
Let’s use data to inform this debate. I counted the number of references to each economist in the scholarly literature indexed by JSTOR, finding 30,708 articles mentioning “Adam Smith”; 25,626 articles mentioning “Karl Marx”; and 4,945 mentioning “John Maynard Keynes” (the middle name was required to avoid articles by his father, John Neville Keynes). “Milton Friedman” sits easily with this group, and was mentioned in 8,924 articles.
But searching for “Friedrich von Hayek” only yielded 398 articles; adding “(("Friedrich von Hayek") OR ("Friedrich Hayek"))” raised his total to 1242 mentions; also allowing “FH Hayek” raised his count to 1561.
He later corrected FH Hayek to FA Hayek and got up to 1745. This seemed odd to me.
So I went to JSTOR to replicate the results.
JSTOR, full text search, no restrictions as to years or discipline or kind of publication.
"Friedrich von Hayek"-- 397. Close enough to think I'm conducting the searches the same way Wolfers did.
"Friedrich von Hayek" OR "Friedrich Hayek"-- 1231. The discrepancy grows a little bit, but I'm still in Wolfer's ballpark. So these unrestricted full-text searches are what he was doing.
Next step, to get a ceiling estimate:
full-text search on Hayek . 12088 results. Browsing through these yields very few false positives-- so now I'm suspicious.
I notice a lot of references to "Professor Hayek." This seems to have been the convention in some academic journals at midcentury. "Professor Hayek" by itself yields 582 hits, and a quick browse yielded no false positives.
I also notice that the search engine cares about the difference between "F.A. Hayek" and "F. A. Hayek" (with a space between the first period and the A). This makes a big difference. Simply performing the search as "'F.A. Hayek' OR 'F. A. Hayek'" already yields 2219 results-- more than Wolfers' most complete version of his search.
Adding in F. A. von Hayek and Friedrich Hayek as options gets us to 3342.
Now there are more permutations than JSTOR can readily handle. But stretching out the search to ("Friedrich Hayek") OR ("Friedrich von Hayek") OR ("F.A. Hayek") OR ("F.A. von Hayek") OR ("F. A. Hayek") OR ("F. A. von Hayek") OR ("Friedrich A. Hayek") OR ("Friedrich A. von Hayek") OR ("Professor Hayek") yields 4267.
Proceeding from the other direction: a search just on Hayek restricted to business, economics, finance, law, linguistics, philosophy, political science, psychology, public policy, and sociology eliminated all the false positives I could find. 9385 . Searching for "milton friedman" in those same disciplines (and as far as I know there's no ambiguity in how to refer to him): 8088.
Now, I don't really think that citation counts are going to do the work Wolfers wants them to do here. But on his terms, Hayek is now out of Larry Summers' company, and into Friedman's.
Update:
See Wolfers' reply, and mine a few below his, in comments at Marginal Revolution. There's just a problem here in comparing names that are difficult to compare. "Hayek" almost always refers to the relevant person in academic searches (unlike, say, at Dan Drezner's blog.) You get very few false positives with just the last name. But the false negatives are extremely sensitive to variations in how you specify his given names. Approximately the same is true of Keynes, though as Wolfers notes Keynes' father was also well-known.
Milton Friedman, Adam Smith, and Karl Marx are opposite cases. Last names only will yield a huge number of false positives; the last names are just too common. But there's very little variation in how given names are specified-- I can't think that I've ever seen any of the three referred to by initials or with a middle name. So simply applying "the same" rule to Hayek and Friedman will get incomparable results-- vastly too many false positives or vastly too many false negatives. And so any of these count-comparisons are going to look more precise than they really are. But my strong impression from trying lots of variations: Smith, Marx, and Keynes are in a class by themselves, and Hayek and Friedman are basically comparable.
See also D-squared, who rightly emphasizes that "if something isn't worth doing, it isn't worth doing well".
Further update:
As long as I'm getting so much traffic sent here by Marginal Revolution and other blogs, might as well link to my own most recent engagement with Hayekian themes: Not So Novus an Ordo: Constitutions Without Social Contracts, Political Theory, Vol. 37, No. 2, 191-217 (2009)
Monday, March 15, 2010
Two upcoming conferences: "Hegel After Spinoza" and "Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval"
April 9-10, 2010: "Hegel After Spinoza: A Symposium
McGill University, Thomson House
Friday - 4:00 pm
Keynote Address
John McCumber, "Nature vs. Spirit: Hegel’s Reconciliation with Spinoza"
Saturday - 10:00 am
Jason Read, "'Desire is Man’s Very Essence': Spinoza and Hegel as Philosophers of Transindividuality"
Caroline Williams, "Thinking the Subject between Hegel and Spinoza"
2:00 pm
Vittorio Morfino, "Spinoza in the Science of Logic"
Vance Maxwell, "Hegel’s Treatment of Spinoza: Its Scope and Limits"
4:15 pm
Keynote Address
Warren Montag, "Hegel, sive Spinoza: Towards a History of the Problem"
April 15-16, 2010: Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?
McGill University, Faculty Club
April 9-10, 2010: "Hegel After Spinoza: A Symposium
McGill University, Thomson House
Friday - 4:00 pm
Keynote Address
John McCumber, "Nature vs. Spirit: Hegel’s Reconciliation with Spinoza"
Saturday - 10:00 am
Jason Read, "'Desire is Man’s Very Essence': Spinoza and Hegel as Philosophers of Transindividuality"
Caroline Williams, "Thinking the Subject between Hegel and Spinoza"
2:00 pm
Vittorio Morfino, "Spinoza in the Science of Logic"
Vance Maxwell, "Hegel’s Treatment of Spinoza: Its Scope and Limits"
4:15 pm
Keynote Address
Warren Montag, "Hegel, sive Spinoza: Towards a History of the Problem"
April 15-16, 2010: Basic Income at a Time of Economic Upheaval: A Path to Justice and Stability?
McGill University, Faculty Club
9.30: coffee & registration
9.45: welcome: Jurgen De Wispelaere, CRÉUM
10.00 – 11.00: Opening Lecture
Louise Haagh, University of York & BIEN
“Basic Income and Public Finance”
Chair: Almaz Zelleke, The New School & USBIG
11.00 – 12.45: Panel A – Basic Income Models in Canada and the US
Sally Lerner, University of Waterloo
“Education for a Canadian BIG Society”
Jim Mulvale, University of Regina
Rob Rainer, Canada Without Poverty
“Mapping out a Pragmatic Guaranteed Income Architecture for Canada”
Karl Widerquist, Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Qatar
“Exporting the Alaska Model: A Model for Reform Around the World”
Chair: Peter Dietsch, CRÉUM
12.45 – 14.00: lunch
14.00 – 15.45: Panel B – Basic Income at the Margins of Employment
Andrea Vick, University of Toronto
Ernie Lightman, University of Toronto
“Precarious Jobs, Precarious Workers: Income Security for Canadians with Episodic Disabilities”
Matt Stahl, University of Western Ontario
“Copyright, Creative Work and the Basic Income Grant”
William DiFazio, St. John’s University
Stanley Aronowitz, City University of New York
“The Jobless Future and Democracy: Wither Agency?”
Chair: John Rook, National Council for Welfare
15.45 – 16.00: coffee
16.00 – 17.45: Panel C – The Ecological Imperative
Anita Vaillancourt, University of Toronto
“Reconnecting Basic Income in Canada with Indigenous and Ecological Roots”
Michael Howard, University of Maine
“A Cap on Carbon and a Floor on Income: A Defensible Combination in the US?”
Gianne Broughton, Canadian Friends Service Committee
“Outline of an Ecological Argument for BIG”
Chair: Pat Evans, University of Carleton & BIEN Canada
17.45 – 18.45: Keynote
Guy Standing, University of Bath & BIEN
“Basic Income for the Precariat”
Chair: Jim Mulvale, University of Regina & BIEN Canada
FRIDAY 16 APRIL, Hall B 3325
9.00 – 10.45: Panel D – Economic Crisis and Income Security
Chandra Pasma, Citizens for Public Justice
“The Great Recession: What Happened to Economic Security in 2009?”
James Bryant, Manhattanville College
“The Basic Income Guarantee as an Automatic Stabilizer”
Philip Harvey, Rutgers University
“More for Less: The Job Guarantee Strategy”
Chair: Pierre-Yves Néron, CRÉUM
10.45 – 11.00: coffee
11.00 – 12.45: Panel E – Funding a Basic Income
Gary Flomenhoft, University of Vermont
“Progress on Basic Income from Common Assets In Vermont”
André Presse, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
Götz Werner, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
“Stimulating the Economy: Basic Income and the Consumption Tax”
Jeffrey Smith, Forum on Genomics
“Are Geonomies Both Imperturbable and Bountiful”
Chair: David Casassas, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona & BIEN
12.45 – 14.00: lunch
14.00 – 15.45: Political Forum “The Politics of a Universal Basic Income Grant”
Senator Art Eggleton, Chair Standing Committee Social Affairs, Science & Technology
Amélie Chateauneuf, spokesperson FCPASQ
Tony Martin MP
Rob Rainer, Executive Director Canada Without Poverty
Al Sheahen, Committee Member USBIG
Senator Hugh Segal, Deputy Chair of the Subcommittee on Cities
Chair: Sheila Regehr, Director National Council for Welfare
15.45 – 16.30: Closing Lecture
Senator Eduardo Suplicy, São Paulo, Brazil & BIEN
“Steps Towards a Citizen’s Basic Income”
Chair: Steve Shafarman, Income Security for All & USBIG
16.30: Closing & Thanks: Mike Howard, USBIG & Jim Mulvale, BIEN Canada
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Grad school
Those trying to decide among graduate schools should read this Brian Leiter post and follow its advice: talk to current students.
I'd add as secondary advice: beware of thinking that you can avoid the problems in a problematic department. Academia is in many ways a very solitary life, but grad students and faculty alike really are very enmeshed in the worlds made up by their departments and universities. All the problems he lists out there can poison a whole department. Be worried and careful if you find yourself explaining to yourself that the problematic professors/factions aren't in your part of the department and so won't affect your life as a grad student. It ain't necessarily so.
Those trying to decide among graduate schools should read this Brian Leiter post and follow its advice: talk to current students.
I'd add as secondary advice: beware of thinking that you can avoid the problems in a problematic department. Academia is in many ways a very solitary life, but grad students and faculty alike really are very enmeshed in the worlds made up by their departments and universities. All the problems he lists out there can poison a whole department. Be worried and careful if you find yourself explaining to yourself that the problematic professors/factions aren't in your part of the department and so won't affect your life as a grad student. It ain't necessarily so.
Friday, March 05, 2010
The Plural States of Recognition
Now available: Michel Seymour, ed., The Plural States of Recognition
Table of contents
Introduction--M.Seymour
Aristotle and Hegel on Recognition and Friendship--R.R.Williams
Hegel, Taylor and the Phenomenology of Broken Spirits--R.Bhargava
Respect as Recognition: Some Political Implications--A.E.Galeotti
Esteem for Contributions to the Common Good: The Role of Personifying Attitudes and Instrumental Value--H.Ikheimo &--A.Laitinen
Models of Democracy and the Politics of Recognition: Respect for Reasonable Cultural Diversity as a Principle of Political Morality--S.Thompson
Difference, Multi and Equality--J.Maclure
Political Liberalism and the Recognition of Peoples--T.Modood
Multicultural Manners--J.T.Levy
The Public Assessment of Indigenous Identity-- Avigail Eisenberg
Conclusion--M.Seymour
Now available: Michel Seymour, ed., The Plural States of Recognition
Table of contents
Introduction--M.Seymour
Aristotle and Hegel on Recognition and Friendship--R.R.Williams
Hegel, Taylor and the Phenomenology of Broken Spirits--R.Bhargava
Respect as Recognition: Some Political Implications--A.E.Galeotti
Esteem for Contributions to the Common Good: The Role of Personifying Attitudes and Instrumental Value--H.Ikheimo &--A.Laitinen
Models of Democracy and the Politics of Recognition: Respect for Reasonable Cultural Diversity as a Principle of Political Morality--S.Thompson
Difference, Multi and Equality--J.Maclure
Political Liberalism and the Recognition of Peoples--T.Modood
Multicultural Manners--J.T.Levy
The Public Assessment of Indigenous Identity-- Avigail Eisenberg
Conclusion--M.Seymour
Wednesday, March 03, 2010
I'm going to live forever, part 1,754: Elixir of Olympians
I was sent this delightful piece by Canadian Olympian Clara Hughes about the real home field advantage: access to one's own espresso machine the morning of a race.
I was sent this delightful piece by Canadian Olympian Clara Hughes about the real home field advantage: access to one's own espresso machine the morning of a race.
Monday, March 01, 2010
CPSA and NEPSA schedules released
Two theory-heavy political science conferences released their schedules today: the Canadian Political Science Association , June 1-3, Montreal (with the theory section organized by Jennifer Rubenstein and myself, and including a dedicated workhop on "Non-ideal and institutional theory") and the New England Political Science Association (theory panels organized by Sharon Krause).
For those who just want to see the theory listings for CPSA instead of browsing through the unwieldy 86-page pdf, I've separated them out here.
Two theory-heavy political science conferences released their schedules today: the Canadian Political Science Association , June 1-3, Montreal (with the theory section organized by Jennifer Rubenstein and myself, and including a dedicated workhop on "Non-ideal and institutional theory") and the New England Political Science Association (theory panels organized by Sharon Krause).
For those who just want to see the theory listings for CPSA instead of browsing through the unwieldy 86-page pdf, I've separated them out here.
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Ah, France
Fast-food chain Quick triggers an uproar and is accused of acting "contrary to the principles and spirit of the republic" when it makes the business decision to serve only halal beef at some restaurants. (Mind you, it's not as though this means only serving Muslim customers-- Christians and non-believers can eat halal beef without getting cooties.)
Compare, of course, the Quebec sugar shack case.
Fast-food chain Quick triggers an uproar and is accused of acting "contrary to the principles and spirit of the republic" when it makes the business decision to serve only halal beef at some restaurants. (Mind you, it's not as though this means only serving Muslim customers-- Christians and non-believers can eat halal beef without getting cooties.)
Compare, of course, the Quebec sugar shack case.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Contra Fuller
See Eugene Volokh on a proposed Arizona abolition of freedom of contract and choice of law.
See Eugene Volokh on a proposed Arizona abolition of freedom of contract and choice of law.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Conference: "Le multiculturalisme a-t-il un avenir ?"
Le multiculturalisme a-t-il un avenir ?
26-27 FÉVRIER 2010 : COLLOQUE (UNIVERSITÉ PARIS I - PANTHÉON-SORBONNE)
vendredi 26 février
Salle 1 (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Patrick Savidan (Université de Poitiers)
8h45-9h00 : Catherine Larrère (Université Sorbonne-Paris 1) Mot de bienvenue
9h00-9h40 : Will Kymlicka (Université Queen’s) The Essentialist Critique of Multiculturalism
9h40-10h20 : Cécile Laborde (University College London) Pour un républicanisme critique
10h20-10h50 : Questions
10h50-11h10 : Pause café
11h10-11h50 : Michel Wieviorka (EHESS) Le multiculturalisme : un concept à reconstruire ?
11h50-12h10 : Répondante : Catherine Audard (London School of Economics)
12h10-12h30 : Questions
Après-midi : Deux ateliers en sessions parallèles
Atelier 1 : L’institutionnalisation du multiculturalisme : enjeux juridiques, éthiques et identitaires
Salle 1 (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Vincent Geisser (CNRS)
14h30-14h50 : Serge Guimond (Université Blaise Pascal) Les normes nationales d’intégration au Canada anglais, en France, en Angleterre, en Allemagne et aux USA
14h50-15h10 : Daniel Kofman (Université d’Ottawa) Multiculturalism as a demarcation between rights of majorities and minorities
15h10-15h40 : Questions
15h40-16h00 : Pause café
16h00-16h20 : Pieter Dronkers (Université d’Utrecht) Loyal to the tricolor
16h20-16h40 : Elke Winter (Université d’Ottawa) Nous, les autres et eux : la constitution discursive des identités collectives multiculturelles 16h40-17h00 : Dimitrios Karmis (Université d’Ottawa) Quelle hospitalité pour le multiculturalisme de demain ?
17h00-17h45 : Questions
Atelier 2 : Revisiter le modèle de la tolérance religieuse
Salle 216 (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Christophe Bertossi (IFRI)
14h30-14h50 : François Boucher (Université Queen’s) Le fondement égalitariste des pratiques d’accommodement de la diversité religieuse
14h50-15h10 : Paul May (EHESS et UQAM) La laïcité selon Charles Taylor : une perspective critique
15h10-15h40 : Questions
15h40-16h00 : Pause café
16h00-16h20 : Roberto Merrill (CEHUM, Université de Minho) Minorités illibérales, droits de sortie et neutralité de l’Etat : entre tolérance et autonomie
16h20-16h40 : Laurent de Briey (Université de Namur) Le foulard de la parlementaire. Construction d’une interculturalité ou régression démocratique ?
16h40-17h00 : Denise Helly (INRS, Université de Montréal) Les juges de droit familial et les causes « musulmanes » au Québec et en Ontario
17h00-17h45 : Questions
20h30 : Dîner
Samedi 27 février
Matinée : Deux ateliers en sessions parallèles
Atelier 3 : Le modèle multiculturaliste : réappropriations et résistances
Salle 419B (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Pap Ndiaye (EHESS)
9h00-9h20 : Patrick Imbert (Université d’Ottawa) Une lecture de Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka et du multiculturalisme canadien par Daniel Bonilla Maldonado en fonction de la Colombie et de La constitucíon multicultural
9h20-9h40 : Magali Bessone (Université de Rennes 1) Multiculturalisme et construction nationale : le cas de la Bosnie-Herzégovine
9h40-10h10 : Questions
10h10-10h30 : Pause café
10h30-10h50 : Jessica Franklin et Karen Bird (Université de McMaster) From colour-blindness to recognition : Political paths to new identity practices in Brazil and France
10h50-11h10 : Milena Doytcheva (Université de Lille 3) Lutte contre les discriminations et “promotion de la diversité” : la difficile émergence d’une question minoritaire en France
11h10-11h30 : Sophie Guérard de Latour (Université de Bordeaux 3) La France perd-elle la mémoire ? Républicanisme, histoire nationale et reconnaissance des minorités
11h30-12h15 : Questions
Atelier 4 : Jeunesse et éducation dans les sociétés multiculturelles
Salle 420B (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Présidente de séance : Gabrielle Radica (Université de Picardie)
9h00-9h20 : Tine Brouckaert et Karima Guezzou (Universités de Ghent et de Saint-Etienne) Comment négocier que les enfants de sans papiers, deviennent de futurs citoyens acceptés tout en laissant une place à leurs droits à la différence ?Entre valeurs et construction d’identités à l’école, une comparaison des modèles entre la France et la Belgique.
9h20-9h40 : Laury Bacro (Universités de Montréal et de Poitiers) Quid du multiculturalisme en France ? Le cas des troisièmes générations en France et leur difficulté à formuler leurs demandes de reconnaissance dans le cadre de l’idéologie républicaine
9h40-10h10 : Questions
10h10-10h30 : Pause café
10h30-10h50 : Janie Pélabay (Université du Luxembourg) L’Europe des « valeurs communes » et le recul du multiculturalisme : la diversité supplantée par l’unité ? 10h50-11h10 : Marcello Ostinelli (SUPSI, Locarno) L’éducation à la citoyenneté démocratique entre libéralisme politique et républicanisme critique
11h10-11h30 : Gunther Dietz (Universidad Veracruzana) Multiculturalism and Interculturality in Mexican Public Policy : the discourse and praxis of indigenous rights in a intercultural university
11h30-12h15 : Questions
Après-midi : séance plénière
Amphithéâtre Bachelard (17 rue de la Sorbonne 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Emmanuel Picavet (Université de Franche-Comté)
14h30-15h10 : Catherine Larrère (Université Sorbonne-Paris 1) Multiculturalisme et protection de la nature
15h10-15h50 : Daniel Weinstock (CREUM, Université de Montréal) Est-ce que le multiculturalisme canadien est en crise ? 15h50-16h20 : Questions
16h20-16h40 : Pause café
16h40-17h20 : João Cardoso Rosas (Université de Minho) From Human Rights to Multiculturalism and Back
17h20-17h40 : Répondante : Justine Lacroix (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
17h40-18h00 : Questions
Le multiculturalisme a-t-il un avenir ?
26-27 FÉVRIER 2010 : COLLOQUE (UNIVERSITÉ PARIS I - PANTHÉON-SORBONNE)
vendredi 26 février
Salle 1 (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Patrick Savidan (Université de Poitiers)
8h45-9h00 : Catherine Larrère (Université Sorbonne-Paris 1) Mot de bienvenue
9h00-9h40 : Will Kymlicka (Université Queen’s) The Essentialist Critique of Multiculturalism
9h40-10h20 : Cécile Laborde (University College London) Pour un républicanisme critique
10h20-10h50 : Questions
10h50-11h10 : Pause café
11h10-11h50 : Michel Wieviorka (EHESS) Le multiculturalisme : un concept à reconstruire ?
11h50-12h10 : Répondante : Catherine Audard (London School of Economics)
12h10-12h30 : Questions
Après-midi : Deux ateliers en sessions parallèles
Atelier 1 : L’institutionnalisation du multiculturalisme : enjeux juridiques, éthiques et identitaires
Salle 1 (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Vincent Geisser (CNRS)
14h30-14h50 : Serge Guimond (Université Blaise Pascal) Les normes nationales d’intégration au Canada anglais, en France, en Angleterre, en Allemagne et aux USA
14h50-15h10 : Daniel Kofman (Université d’Ottawa) Multiculturalism as a demarcation between rights of majorities and minorities
15h10-15h40 : Questions
15h40-16h00 : Pause café
16h00-16h20 : Pieter Dronkers (Université d’Utrecht) Loyal to the tricolor
16h20-16h40 : Elke Winter (Université d’Ottawa) Nous, les autres et eux : la constitution discursive des identités collectives multiculturelles 16h40-17h00 : Dimitrios Karmis (Université d’Ottawa) Quelle hospitalité pour le multiculturalisme de demain ?
17h00-17h45 : Questions
Atelier 2 : Revisiter le modèle de la tolérance religieuse
Salle 216 (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Christophe Bertossi (IFRI)
14h30-14h50 : François Boucher (Université Queen’s) Le fondement égalitariste des pratiques d’accommodement de la diversité religieuse
14h50-15h10 : Paul May (EHESS et UQAM) La laïcité selon Charles Taylor : une perspective critique
15h10-15h40 : Questions
15h40-16h00 : Pause café
16h00-16h20 : Roberto Merrill (CEHUM, Université de Minho) Minorités illibérales, droits de sortie et neutralité de l’Etat : entre tolérance et autonomie
16h20-16h40 : Laurent de Briey (Université de Namur) Le foulard de la parlementaire. Construction d’une interculturalité ou régression démocratique ?
16h40-17h00 : Denise Helly (INRS, Université de Montréal) Les juges de droit familial et les causes « musulmanes » au Québec et en Ontario
17h00-17h45 : Questions
20h30 : Dîner
Samedi 27 février
Matinée : Deux ateliers en sessions parallèles
Atelier 3 : Le modèle multiculturaliste : réappropriations et résistances
Salle 419B (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Pap Ndiaye (EHESS)
9h00-9h20 : Patrick Imbert (Université d’Ottawa) Une lecture de Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka et du multiculturalisme canadien par Daniel Bonilla Maldonado en fonction de la Colombie et de La constitucíon multicultural
9h20-9h40 : Magali Bessone (Université de Rennes 1) Multiculturalisme et construction nationale : le cas de la Bosnie-Herzégovine
9h40-10h10 : Questions
10h10-10h30 : Pause café
10h30-10h50 : Jessica Franklin et Karen Bird (Université de McMaster) From colour-blindness to recognition : Political paths to new identity practices in Brazil and France
10h50-11h10 : Milena Doytcheva (Université de Lille 3) Lutte contre les discriminations et “promotion de la diversité” : la difficile émergence d’une question minoritaire en France
11h10-11h30 : Sophie Guérard de Latour (Université de Bordeaux 3) La France perd-elle la mémoire ? Républicanisme, histoire nationale et reconnaissance des minorités
11h30-12h15 : Questions
Atelier 4 : Jeunesse et éducation dans les sociétés multiculturelles
Salle 420B (Centre Panthéon, 12, place du Panthéon 75005 Paris)
Présidente de séance : Gabrielle Radica (Université de Picardie)
9h00-9h20 : Tine Brouckaert et Karima Guezzou (Universités de Ghent et de Saint-Etienne) Comment négocier que les enfants de sans papiers, deviennent de futurs citoyens acceptés tout en laissant une place à leurs droits à la différence ?Entre valeurs et construction d’identités à l’école, une comparaison des modèles entre la France et la Belgique.
9h20-9h40 : Laury Bacro (Universités de Montréal et de Poitiers) Quid du multiculturalisme en France ? Le cas des troisièmes générations en France et leur difficulté à formuler leurs demandes de reconnaissance dans le cadre de l’idéologie républicaine
9h40-10h10 : Questions
10h10-10h30 : Pause café
10h30-10h50 : Janie Pélabay (Université du Luxembourg) L’Europe des « valeurs communes » et le recul du multiculturalisme : la diversité supplantée par l’unité ? 10h50-11h10 : Marcello Ostinelli (SUPSI, Locarno) L’éducation à la citoyenneté démocratique entre libéralisme politique et républicanisme critique
11h10-11h30 : Gunther Dietz (Universidad Veracruzana) Multiculturalism and Interculturality in Mexican Public Policy : the discourse and praxis of indigenous rights in a intercultural university
11h30-12h15 : Questions
Après-midi : séance plénière
Amphithéâtre Bachelard (17 rue de la Sorbonne 75005 Paris)
Président de séance : Emmanuel Picavet (Université de Franche-Comté)
14h30-15h10 : Catherine Larrère (Université Sorbonne-Paris 1) Multiculturalisme et protection de la nature
15h10-15h50 : Daniel Weinstock (CREUM, Université de Montréal) Est-ce que le multiculturalisme canadien est en crise ? 15h50-16h20 : Questions
16h20-16h40 : Pause café
16h40-17h20 : João Cardoso Rosas (Université de Minho) From Human Rights to Multiculturalism and Back
17h20-17h40 : Répondante : Justine Lacroix (Université Libre de Bruxelles)
17h40-18h00 : Questions
Monday, February 15, 2010
Institute for Liberal Studies seminar at McGill
On facebook and on the ILS website:
On facebook and on the ILS website:
Politics & Society Seminar
(co-hosted with the Montreal Economic Institute and the McGill International Student Network)
March 6, 2010 | 10am - 4pm
McGill University, Location TBA
Join us on Saturday, March 6 at McGill University to hear from leading thinkers about the ideas that shape our society.
Students and faculty from all disciplines are encouraged to attend. Click here to register.
The seminar will begin at 10:00am and conclude at 4:00pm. Each talk will be followed by time for questions and discussion by the participants. The seminar is free for students and faculty, general admission is $20. Lunch will be provided.
The agenda for this seminar is as follows:
10:00am – Registration
10:30am – Welcome
10:45am – Tom Palmer (Atlas Economic Research Foundation) - A Brief, 4,500 Year History of Liberty
12:00pm – Lunch
1:00pm – Jacob Levy (McGill University) - Freedom, Culture and Multiculturalism
2:15pm - Break
2:30pm – Jason Brennan (Brown University) - Civic Virtue Without Politics
3:45pm - Wrap-up and adjournment
Christina Tarnopolsky, Prudes, Perverts, and Tyrants:
Plato's Gorgias and the Politics of Shame
Forthcoming soon from Princeton University Press:
Plato's Gorgias and the Politics of Shame
Forthcoming soon from Princeton University Press:
In recent years, most political theorists have agreed that shame shouldn't play any role in democratic politics because it threatens the mutual respect necessary for participation and deliberation. But Christina Tarnopolsky argues that not every kind of shame hurts democracy. In fact, she makes a powerful case that there is a form of shame essential to any critical, moderate, and self-reflexive democratic practice.
Through a careful study of Plato's Gorgias, Tarnopolsky shows that contemporary conceptions of shame are far too narrow. For Plato, three kinds of shame and shaming practices were possible in democracies, and only one of these is similar to the form condemned by contemporary thinkers. Following Plato, Tarnopolsky develops an account of a different kind of shame, which she calls "respectful shame." This practice involves the painful but beneficial shaming of one's fellow citizens as part of the ongoing process of collective deliberation. And, as Tarnopolsky argues, this type of shame is just as important to contemporary democracy as it was to its ancient form.
Tarnopolsky also challenges the view that the Gorgias inaugurates the problematic oppositions between emotion and reason, and rhetoric and philosophy. Instead, she shows that, for Plato, rationality and emotion belong together, and she argues that political science and democratic theory are impoverished when they relegate the study of emotions such as shame to other disciplines.
Monday, February 08, 2010
An open letter to students
Some space on campus, like your dorm, can be safely assumed to be student-only. Other space, like the library, cannot. The old guy next to you in line at the library cafe just might be, say, a professor. Might even be the professor of the friend whose fraudulent excuse for skipping a scheduled exam you were describing in detail (though in this case wasn't that particular professor); in any case, might be a professor, who won't be entertained by such stories, or by the tales of your own past similar fraudulent feats of derring-do.
Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. (That's an in-joke aimed at other old people; don't worry about it.)
Some space on campus, like your dorm, can be safely assumed to be student-only. Other space, like the library, cannot. The old guy next to you in line at the library cafe just might be, say, a professor. Might even be the professor of the friend whose fraudulent excuse for skipping a scheduled exam you were describing in detail (though in this case wasn't that particular professor); in any case, might be a professor, who won't be entertained by such stories, or by the tales of your own past similar fraudulent feats of derring-do.
Now you know. And knowing is half the battle. (That's an in-joke aimed at other old people; don't worry about it.)
Fair and balanced blogging
I really don't think funny comics with such a pernicious and false message should be allowed. I may form one of those groups like the one that defends hamburgers against Oprah's slander or that tries to get X- ratings on movies that have cigarettes in them.
But since I routinely give the other side of the story, here's the entertaining latest installment of "Multiplex"'s odd anti-caffeine story arc.
I really don't think funny comics with such a pernicious and false message should be allowed. I may form one of those groups like the one that defends hamburgers against Oprah's slander or that tries to get X- ratings on movies that have cigarettes in them.
But since I routinely give the other side of the story, here's the entertaining latest installment of "Multiplex"'s odd anti-caffeine story arc.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Lostblogging
A few thoughts, to be expanded upon as time permits. Spoilers.
I was nervous about the premiere beforehand and very enthusiastic afterward. I don't know why I didn't see the alternate timelines coming-- it's very Abrams, and we've always had parallel narrative tracks on the show. But I didn't, and it perfectly solves the problem I was most nervous about--that neither post-Jughead option could be satisfying.
I was really, really right to think that this season theology would take center stage, crowding out political theory, philosophy of time, free will and causality, and so on. (For that reason, I didn't reprise my "Lost and political theory" talk last night; I have little to say about the theology.) And that's OK. But still...
There were a lot of Jesuses-- Jessuses? Jesi?-- running around last night.
-Sayid, who came out of the baptismal pool in a groan-inducingly-Godspell-like crucification pose, telegraphing the final moment of the episode (which was further telegraphed by Miles' listening to Sayid a few minutes later)
-Christian (ahem) Shepherd (ahem), whose body went missing sometime before theyrolled the stone away opened the cargo bay doors.
-Jack Shepherd, who hasn't really done much Christ-standing-in to justify his name up until now, but now seems set to make the crippled walk
-and Jacob, already an established healer, whose power raises Sayid from the dead, who is sacrificed by someone who knew not what he did, who appears to one follower after his death, and whose body (again) disappears.
This isn't really a complaint, but it's a new worry, since all of these seem to be in for long-term Jesussy plotlines. Part of what was so interesting about the political theory and time/ causality references was that different characters and different viewpoints and different symbols were in play for each. I hope they figure out a way to do something similar for this season's theology.
A few thoughts, to be expanded upon as time permits. Spoilers.
I was nervous about the premiere beforehand and very enthusiastic afterward. I don't know why I didn't see the alternate timelines coming-- it's very Abrams, and we've always had parallel narrative tracks on the show. But I didn't, and it perfectly solves the problem I was most nervous about--that neither post-Jughead option could be satisfying.
I was really, really right to think that this season theology would take center stage, crowding out political theory, philosophy of time, free will and causality, and so on. (For that reason, I didn't reprise my "Lost and political theory" talk last night; I have little to say about the theology.) And that's OK. But still...
There were a lot of Jesuses-- Jessuses? Jesi?-- running around last night.
-Sayid, who came out of the baptismal pool in a groan-inducingly-Godspell-like crucification pose, telegraphing the final moment of the episode (which was further telegraphed by Miles' listening to Sayid a few minutes later)
-Christian (ahem) Shepherd (ahem), whose body went missing sometime before they
-Jack Shepherd, who hasn't really done much Christ-standing-in to justify his name up until now, but now seems set to make the crippled walk
-and Jacob, already an established healer, whose power raises Sayid from the dead, who is sacrificed by someone who knew not what he did, who appears to one follower after his death, and whose body (again) disappears.
This isn't really a complaint, but it's a new worry, since all of these seem to be in for long-term Jesussy plotlines. Part of what was so interesting about the political theory and time/ causality references was that different characters and different viewpoints and different symbols were in play for each. I hope they figure out a way to do something similar for this season's theology.
Tuesday, February 02, 2010
Study at Quebec universities to offer fast-track to Canadian citizenship
The lead story in the Chronicle this afternoon:
The lead story in the Chronicle this afternoon:
Quebec Offers Fast-Tracked Canadian Citizenship to Foreign Students
By Karen Birchard
Quebec is playing the citizenship card in a bid to recruit to Canada foreign students who might otherwise be tempted to study in Australia, Britain, or the United States.
The province's premier, Jean Charest, who is leading a delegation of university heads on a visit to India, told a packed meeting at the University of Mumbai on Monday that, starting on February 14, foreign students who graduated from universities in Quebec would get "a certificate of selection" that would put them on a fast track to Canadian citizenship.
"Any student who secures a bachelor's, master's, or doctoral degree from any university in Quebec will obtain a certificate of selection to become a citizen of Canada ," said Mr. Charest, according to The Times of India. "We have the right to select our own citizens. We are doing this because we have a shortage of skilled labor."
Mr. Charest said that once foreign students had the certificate, the federal government would then carry out security and health checks before awarding citizenship.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
CREUM - 2010-2011 Postdoctoral fellowship program
The University of Montreal’s Centre de recherche en éthique (CREUM) is inviting applications of postdoctoral researchers in ethics, for residential fellowships which can vary in length according to individual circumstances (maximum 27 000 $ CAN). Applicants are expected to have at least a working knowledge of French.
The CREUM will offer to its fellows: a postdoctoral grant of 3 000$ per month, an individual workstation, access to the services of the University of Montreal (libraries, sports center, etc.), and assistance for material organisation of the stay. In return, the fellows are expected to pursue the research project submitted in their application, to participate in the Center's activities (conferences, seminars, lectures), and to present their work in progress in the context of Center's seminars and workshops. Application deadline: April 30th, 2010. For more information, please visit www.creum.umontreal.ca
The University of Montreal’s Centre de recherche en éthique (CREUM) is inviting applications of postdoctoral researchers in ethics, for residential fellowships which can vary in length according to individual circumstances (maximum 27 000 $ CAN). Applicants are expected to have at least a working knowledge of French.
The CREUM will offer to its fellows: a postdoctoral grant of 3 000$ per month, an individual workstation, access to the services of the University of Montreal (libraries, sports center, etc.), and assistance for material organisation of the stay. In return, the fellows are expected to pursue the research project submitted in their application, to participate in the Center's activities (conferences, seminars, lectures), and to present their work in progress in the context of Center's seminars and workshops. Application deadline: April 30th, 2010. For more information, please visit www.creum.umontreal.ca
Monday, January 18, 2010
Graduate Conference in Political Theory - Submission deadline extended to January 18th
Princeton University
9-10 April 2010
The Committee for the Graduate Conference in Political Theory at Princeton University welcomes papers concerning any period, methodological approach or topic in political theory, political philosophy, or the history of political thought. Approximately eight papers will be accepted.
Each session, led by a discussant from Princeton, will be focused exclusively on one paper and will feature an extensive question and answer period with Princeton faculty and students. Papers will be pre-circulated amongst conference participants.
The keynote address will be given by Professor Sharon Krause, Professor of Political Science at Brown University.
Submissions are due via email to polthry@princeton.edu by Monday, January 18th 2010. Please limit your paper submission to 7500 words and format it for blind review (the text should include your paper's title but be free from other personal and institutional information). Papers will be refereed by current graduate students in the Department of Politics at Princeton. Acceptance notices will be sent in February.
Assistance for invited participants' transportation, lodging, and meal expenses is available from the committee, which acknowledges the generous support of the Department of Politics, the University Center for Human Values, and the Graduate School of Princeton University.
All papers should be submitted by email. Submissions by snail mail will not be accepted.
For more information, please visit the conference website at https://politicaltheory.princeton.edu/
Questions and comments can be directed to: polthry@princeton.edu .
Last year’s program is available here: https://politicaltheory.princeton.edu/program.php .
Princeton University
9-10 April 2010
The Committee for the Graduate Conference in Political Theory at Princeton University welcomes papers concerning any period, methodological approach or topic in political theory, political philosophy, or the history of political thought. Approximately eight papers will be accepted.
Each session, led by a discussant from Princeton, will be focused exclusively on one paper and will feature an extensive question and answer period with Princeton faculty and students. Papers will be pre-circulated amongst conference participants.
The keynote address will be given by Professor Sharon Krause, Professor of Political Science at Brown University.
Submissions are due via email to polthry@princeton.edu
Assistance for invited participants' transportation, lodging, and meal expenses is available from the committee, which acknowledges the generous support of the Department of Politics, the University Center for Human Values, and the Graduate School of Princeton University.
All papers should be submitted by email. Submissions by snail mail will not be accepted.
For more information, please visit the conference website at https://politicaltheory.princeton.edu/
Questions and comments can be directed to: polthry@princeton.edu .
Last year’s program is available here: https://politicaltheory.princeton.edu/program.php .
Monday, January 11, 2010
Thoughts on prorogation, of various levels of seriousness
1) "Plus de 100 intellectuels dénoncent la prorogation". Daniel Weinstock's letter charging Stephen Harper with betraying democratic principles and constitutional norms gains widespread support among legal scholars, philosophers, and political scientists.
2) The silver lining: via the Gazette, a list (scroll to the bottom of the page) of the bills that were in progress during the 2009 session of Parliament that are now scuttled. Prorogation wipes the pending legislation from the last year out, undoing or at least delaying a substantial portion of the government's legislative agenda.
Among the 'losses' are, most importantly, new mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses (C-15), but also a bunch of expansions of police powers (C-19, C-31, C-34, C-46, C-47, C-55) and a bunch of the kind of "cracks down on" and "close criminal loopholes" legislation that I consider guilty until proven innocent (C-27, C-35, C-36, C-42, C-43, C-45, C-52, C-53, C-54, C-58). Anything that sabotages Canada's march toward American-style narcotics policies can't be all bad.
Looks to me like the only serious losses on the list are the FTA with Jordan and the end of Canada Post's monopoly on international first-class mail. On net, a win. After all, "no man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session" (attr to Mark Twain, but apparently predating him.)
3) Some thoughts from the revolutionary tradition that was rejected by the Loyalist ancestors of many of today's anglophone Canadians.
John Locke:
Thomas Jefferson:
1) "Plus de 100 intellectuels dénoncent la prorogation". Daniel Weinstock's letter charging Stephen Harper with betraying democratic principles and constitutional norms gains widespread support among legal scholars, philosophers, and political scientists.
2) The silver lining: via the Gazette, a list (scroll to the bottom of the page) of the bills that were in progress during the 2009 session of Parliament that are now scuttled. Prorogation wipes the pending legislation from the last year out, undoing or at least delaying a substantial portion of the government's legislative agenda.
Among the 'losses' are, most importantly, new mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses (C-15), but also a bunch of expansions of police powers (C-19, C-31, C-34, C-46, C-47, C-55) and a bunch of the kind of "cracks down on" and "close criminal loopholes" legislation that I consider guilty until proven innocent (C-27, C-35, C-36, C-42, C-43, C-45, C-52, C-53, C-54, C-58). Anything that sabotages Canada's march toward American-style narcotics policies can't be all bad.
Looks to me like the only serious losses on the list are the FTA with Jordan and the end of Canada Post's monopoly on international first-class mail. On net, a win. After all, "no man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the Legislature is in session" (attr to Mark Twain, but apparently predating him.)
3) Some thoughts from the revolutionary tradition that was rejected by the Loyalist ancestors of many of today's anglophone Canadians.
John Locke:
Sec. 155. It may be demanded here, What if the executive power, being possessed of the force of the common-wealth, shall make use of that force to hinder the meeting and acting of the legislative, when the original constitution, or the public exigencies require it? I say, using force upon the people without authority, and contrary to the trust put in him that does so, is a state of war with the people, who have a right to reinstate their legislative in the exercise of their power: for having erected a legislative, with an intent they should exercise the power of making laws, either at certain set times, or when there is need of it, when they are hindered by any force from what is so necessary to the society, and wherein the safety and preservation of the people consists, the people have a right to remove it by force. In all states and conditions, the true remedy of force without authority, is to oppose force to it. The use of force without authority, always puts him that uses it into a state of war, as the aggressor, and renders him liable to be treated accordingly.
Thomas Jefferson:
[among King George III's long train of abuses justifying revolution are that] "He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
"He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within."
Sunday, January 10, 2010
The next two weeks in Montreal political theory
Thursday, January 14:
Charles Larmore (Brown)
"Reflection and Morality"
2 pm, Local 422, 2910 boul. Édouard-Montpetit
Universuty of Montreal
Friday, January 15:
conference on "Persuasion, Politics, Law"
Arts 160, McGill University
Coffee, pastries 8:30 – 9:00 am
9:00 am - 10:30 am: Robert Howse, NYU Law School, "On Leo Strauss's Philosophy and Law"
10:45 am - 12:15 pm: Jill Frank, University of South Carolina, "The Power of Persuasion in Plato"
Lunch Break
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: Nina Valiquette MOREAU, "Musical Persuasion: Rousseau's Platonic Democracy"
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm: Douglas Hanes, "The Problem with One Self: Freedom, Persuasion, and Changing Desires
(Please note: The Afternoon session is also the first GRIPP graduate student workhop of the semester.) Papers will be available in advance. Please contact christina.tarnopolsky@mcgill.ca
Friday, January 22
Nancy Rosenblum, Harvard University
"Partisanship and Independence: The Moral Distinctiveness of 'Party ID'”.
2-4 pm, Arts 160, McGill University
Thursday, January 14:
Charles Larmore (Brown)
"Reflection and Morality"
2 pm, Local 422, 2910 boul. Édouard-Montpetit
Universuty of Montreal
Friday, January 15:
conference on "Persuasion, Politics, Law"
Arts 160, McGill University
Coffee, pastries 8:30 – 9:00 am
9:00 am - 10:30 am: Robert Howse, NYU Law School, "On Leo Strauss's Philosophy and Law"
10:45 am - 12:15 pm: Jill Frank, University of South Carolina, "The Power of Persuasion in Plato"
Lunch Break
2:00 pm - 3:00 pm: Nina Valiquette MOREAU, "Musical Persuasion: Rousseau's Platonic Democracy"
3:00 pm - 4:00 pm: Douglas Hanes, "The Problem with One Self: Freedom, Persuasion, and Changing Desires
(Please note: The Afternoon session is also the first GRIPP graduate student workhop of the semester.) Papers will be available in advance. Please contact christina.tarnopolsky@mcgill.ca
Friday, January 22
Nancy Rosenblum, Harvard University
"Partisanship and Independence: The Moral Distinctiveness of 'Party ID'”.
2-4 pm, Arts 160, McGill University
Monday, January 04, 2010
Reposting: ASPLP: "Getting to the rule of law"
Annual Meeting of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy
New Orleans, January 6, 2010
Hilton New Orleans Riverside, 2 Poydras Street, Belle Chasse room, Third Floor.
I. Getting to the Concept of the Rule of Law: 10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Principal paper (philosophy): Jeremy Waldron, New York University
Commentator (law): Robin West, Georgetown University
Commentator (political science): Corey Brettschneider, Brown University
II. Maintaining or Restoring the Rule of Law after September 11, 2001: 1:30 p.m.-3:15 p.m.
Principal paper (political science): Benjamin Kleinerman, Michigan State University
Commentator (law): Curtis Bradley, Duke University
Commentator (philosophy): Lionel McPherson, Tufts University
III. Building the Rule of Law after Military Interventions: 3:30 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.
Principal paper (law): Jane Stromseth, Georgetown University
Commentator (political science): Tom Ginsburg, University of Chicago
Commentator (philosophy): Larry May, Vanderbilt University
Reception: 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
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In order to join the ASPLP and receive the eventual volume of Nomos on "Getting to the Rule of Law," please e-mail me.
Annual Meeting of the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy
New Orleans, January 6, 2010
Hilton New Orleans Riverside, 2 Poydras Street, Belle Chasse room, Third Floor.
I. Getting to the Concept of the Rule of Law: 10:30 a.m.-12:15 p.m.
Principal paper (philosophy): Jeremy Waldron, New York University
Commentator (law): Robin West, Georgetown University
Commentator (political science): Corey Brettschneider, Brown University
II. Maintaining or Restoring the Rule of Law after September 11, 2001: 1:30 p.m.-3:15 p.m.
Principal paper (political science): Benjamin Kleinerman, Michigan State University
Commentator (law): Curtis Bradley, Duke University
Commentator (philosophy): Lionel McPherson, Tufts University
III. Building the Rule of Law after Military Interventions: 3:30 p.m. - 5:15 p.m.
Principal paper (law): Jane Stromseth, Georgetown University
Commentator (political science): Tom Ginsburg, University of Chicago
Commentator (philosophy): Larry May, Vanderbilt University
Reception: 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
--------
In order to join the ASPLP and receive the eventual volume of Nomos on "Getting to the Rule of Law," please e-mail me.
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