Latest Posts


  • We need to understand that disaster is slow

    Defining a disaster as an “event” has a history extending to the 1960s, when federal funds were spent to model the social impact of a nuclear attack. To do this, Civil Defense officials commissioned studies of proxies of an attack,… Continue reading

  • This Changes Everything | Vanity Fair

    Hollywood’s most powerful women appear in the Geena Davis-produced documentary This Changes Everything, which draws a direct line between the president and the industry’s sea change. — Read on www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/09/this-changes-everything-toronto-film-festival-documentary-weinstein-trump-me-too “Hours after This Changes Everything concluded to a standing ovation,… Continue reading

  • Toxic masculinity endures on

    Serving up bloody violence as a $10 pay-per-view on YouTube and charging as much as $200 for floor seats in the arena, this was an affirmation of the enduring bankability of toxic masculinity. In executing their contrived feud, the two… Continue reading

  • Militarized policing not so popular

    Study also finds that images of cops in military gear diminish support for increasing funding to police agencies. — Read on www.washingtonpost.com/news/opinions/wp/2018/08/22/militarized-policing-doesnt-reduce-crime-and-disproportionately-hits-black-communities/ The high militarization treatment also caused support for police funding in the United States to fall by roughly… Continue reading

  • Variation in the hominid rhizome

    New report out on a hybrid hominin from 90000 years ago whose mother was Neanderthal and whose father was Denisovan. apple.news/AgSsUivGbS5yWPq54mnX_-Q Continue reading

  • The neuroscience of nostalgia | Al Jazeera America

    The term “nostalgia” was coined in the late 17th century by a Swiss physician named Johannes Hofer. He used the roots of two Greek words, “nostos” and “algos” — meaning “suffering” and “origins” — to describe what he thought was… Continue reading

  • What is Philosophy?

    As always, most excellent thinkering from a most excellent person. I recommend engaging this to get some touchstones for the importance of beginnings. As Meister Eckhart encourages us all, “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” For me,… Continue reading

    What is Philosophy?
  • Greek Natural Philosophy

    The first edition of the text on Presocratic philosophy which I co-authored with J. Baird Callicott and John van Buren is now available for adoption from Cognella. Greek Natural Philosophy presents the primary sources on the Presocratics in a straightforward… Continue reading

  • Max Liboiron at #AnthropocenePHL

    The opening keynote at the Anthropocene Campus Philadelphia was Prof. Max Liboiron: How We Do Science on Permanent Plastic Pollution. Max Liboiron is a feminist environmental scientist, science and technology studies (STS) scholar, and activist. As an Assistant Professor in Geography… Continue reading

  • Socrates in the Anthropocene

    I want to thank Scott Knowles for encouraging me to leave my little town of Denton, Texas, and come up here for the Anthropocene Campus Philadelphia at Drexel University. A word of warning as I follow up my colleagues on the roving… Continue reading

    Socrates in the Anthropocene