Having just finished a major project, this semester I’m using my writing time for smaller things. I’m working on expanding my theory on Coates and Augustine into a proper academic article, which I hope to be in a position to submit to a journal by the end of the month. I also have some revisions to do for an article comparing the concept of “canon” in scriptural traditions and in Star Trek.
Later in the semester, I’m going to be participating in a conference at Loyola University Chicago, where I’ll be giving a paper on Agamben and serving as a respondent for Thomas Altizer. For the former, I propose to flesh out a critique of The Kingdom and the Glory that I briefly lay out in The Prince of This World, and my intention is to write that up as a proper article and then condense it down for the conference.
I have also been working with Carlo Salzani on an edited volume centered on Agamben’s relationship to his sources. Over the course of last semester, we solidified our list of contributors, and now the proposal is under review — so I guess I’ll be “working on that” in the sense of “waiting to hear back.” Also Agamben-related: The Use of Bodies comes out in a few weeks, and at some point in April I should be doing a discussion session on it with Northwestern’s Paul of Tarsus Interdisciplinary Working Group. Watch this space for details.
And what, dear readers, are you working on this semester? (Thanks to Melanie Kampen for reminding me to include the discussion prompt.)
An und für sich 
Thank you, Adam – what a relief!
This semester I’m taking three classes: Area Studies and Course Design (in which I get to design a syllabus for an intro course to my specific field of study), Race and Knowledge Production (my favourite class), and a directed reading course on Christianity and Social Justice. I’m also working as an RF for my supervisor.
I just finished co-writing an article for a forthcoming publication a friend is putting together on the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (our article focuses on how this impacts social service organizations).
I’ll be presenting a paper at a conference in Toronto on colonialism and Mennonite political theology in March, and am part of the organizing committee for a grad student conference on Mennonite theology and power taking place in June, at which I will also be presenting.
Mostly being really bummed out and worried about losing my job while simultaneously being overworked.
Oh, my second book also came out last month. And my third is coming out this summer. So right now I’m working on my paper for an event in New York with Alex Dubilet, Daniel Colucciello Barber, and Beatrice Marovich, finished an article on Weil and pessimism, writing an article on Bergson and evil, sketching out a long article on life in 19th century theology. I think some other shit too. But, like, who cares. Just write this stuff for some inexplicable reason.
Since you ask. I’m working on getting a new job and curing myself of a long period of delusional megalomania. Will write some stuff nobody probably cares about, as therapy. Bergson and the good might be a subject. Hopefully I can do it w/o having to declare personal bankruptcy.
Interesting that there are two mentions of Bergson. I’d like to ask Anthony and JoB what it is about Bergson’s thought that appeals to them. My current assumption (admittedly not very informed, and based on hearsay from blogs/friends/etc), is that vitalism is largely considered obsolete, with little to offer constructive philosophical thinking, and superseded historically by more important developments. I’m trying to decide whether to invest some of my own research time in looking at the reception of Husserl and/or Bergson amongst certain antipodean philosophers at the tail end of New Idealism, and I have been hesitating, worried that I would be merely raking over cold coals. That’s why your mention of him perked my interest. Care to say more about your interest, and the angle of your inquiry?
Not to speak for JoB, but I believe that reference was just a joking riff on Anthony’s.
Good/evil. Nice catch. I should read more slowly..
It was, sorry RJL (& thanks Adam).
Still, do read Bergson. I think some are dismissing all that European stuff far too lightly. It may not be fashionable indeed but that doesn’t mean it’s obsolete. In essence my interest (and why I joked) is that this whole string of philosophers (and I’d include Levinas) is displaying much more vitalism (and thus good) than some that are more talked about nowadays. I am particularly interested in anything that ties insights from analytic philosophy and continental philosophy together. I am a big believer that progress is being made in philosophy. This means progress is made in both which in turn means that more progress is to be had if they talk together. That’s the reason I’m reading Cavell now (really not knowing whether he is fashionable or not). In a post somewhere I linked to a paper of M. Shuster linking Levinas, Davidson and Cavell.
By the way, I would be interested to hear what your (reading) projects are if not Bergson et al.
O_o
Does JoB have a particular problem or was he just bored?
Bored.
And Shuster writes on Bergson too!
There’s an article of his in Hypatia from a few years ago and he has a chapter in a forthcoming book on Bergson and race, gender, and colonialism.
Miscellany on sorts, in no particular order:
-teaching 2 sections of Ethics and 1 section of Bioethics.
-curating a roundtable on Thomas Nail’s _The Figure of the Migrant_.
-editing a special issue on Bergson for the _Journal of French and Francophone Philosophy_.
-co-editing a volume on Bergson, race, gender, and colonialism for SUNY.
-editing (early stages) of a Charles Mills Critical Reader.
-coordinating (early stages) a Derrida conference.
-transcribing an interview with ____ about working in SCI ____.
-writing a paper on the genealogy of the idea of race.
-writing a paper on racial profiling.
MWW, yes I found “Humor as an Optics: Bergson and the Ethics of Humor” but it is paywalled afaics. Anyway, good to have a lead for when I finish this Cavell book. Thanks.