Month: March 2008

Working Through Political Change

Happy Easter, a good pagan and Christian holiday signifying rebirth, something I take very metaphorically. Barack Obama’s speech last Tuesday on race could be read in this light as calling for a renewal of the American ideal — a renewal that will require very uncomfortable work: “working through” as a nation the trauma of racism.… Continue reading Working Through Political Change

Five Years

Enough is enough. We are so over Bush. I hear his voice on the radio, his speech on this fifth anniversary of our war in Iraq, saying he doesn’t regret it even though 70% of the American people do. Enough. This is an all-too-familiar sensation. Most of my teenage and adult life I have had… Continue reading Five Years

Barack’s Mother

What an impressive woman Barack Obama’s mother — Stanley Ann Dunham Soetoro — was, much more than just “the white woman from Kansas.”  From today’s New York Times: Kansas was merely a way station in her childhood, wheeling westward in the slipstream of her furniture-salesman father. In Hawaii, she married an African student at age… Continue reading Barack’s Mother

Beyond the Academy Conference June 9-10

Check out the call for abstracts for an upcoming conference that I am helping organize, Beyond the Academy: Engaging Public Life Call for Abstracts June 9-10, 2008 George Mason University Arlington CampusMeeting just outside the nation’s capital in the midst of a presidential campaign year, public scholars from across the country will discuss the ways… Continue reading Beyond the Academy Conference June 9-10

Val Plumwood

The feminist philosophy community is mourning the loss of Val Plumwood. I wish I’d known her. The Canberra Times reports, A renowned ecofeminist who survived a harrowing crocodile attack in the mid-1980s has been found dead at her property near Braidwood, possibly falling victim to a snake bite. Val Plumwood’s body was found on Saturday… Continue reading Val Plumwood