Are we all just calling in Knicks to work this week or what
Alex Plakias
@alexplakias.bsky.social
philosopher at hamilton college. author of 'awkwardness: a theory' (oup) & 'thinking through food' (broadview press) eating, thinking, writing in various orders of priority.
crowd shouting ‘Knicks in 4’ when Cleveland is playing *at home*, just brutal (and accurate)
Update: to clarify, while I am obviously thrilled and could not love this team more, I will not, in fact, be partying like it’s 1999
Alex Plakias@alexplakias.bsky.social · 4mo agoMaybe maybe… www.youtube.com/watch?v=rblt...
slate.com/news-and-pol... It’s @michaelbrownstein.bsky.social & @madva.bsky.social in Slate! & if you’re one of those already thinking about next semester’s syllabi, highly recommend their book ‘somebody should do something’ (w @dryan149.bsky.social)!
We Do a Lot of Sneering at “Virtue Signaling.” It May Be Time to Rethink Our Approach.
Yes, it's good to do good things. It may be even more effective to tell people you're doing them.
slate.com
Proud to announce that after decades as an awkwardness practitioner, I have finally been upgraded to awkwardness researcher! slate.com/life/2025/12...
You’re Not the Only One Who Wants to Crawl Out of Their Skin at Holiday Parties. An Awkwardness Researcher Explains Why.
To be human is to be awkward. But there are some situations where you truly just want to sublimate into dust.
slate.com
If you are looking for a gift that will really get inside someone’s head and subtly undermine their confidence (and who isn’t?!), might I recommend gifting them a copy of ‘awkwardness’ with zero context or explanation? Now on sale for $17, but hurry— only 9 copies left! a.co/d/bw2KIaS
Awkwardness: A Theory
Amazon.com: Awkwardness: A Theory: 9780197683606: Plakias, Alexandra: Books
a.co
Philosophy friends: planning a spring meta ethics seminar. I haven’t kept up much the last 5 years or so— what books did I miss that would be fun to read with advanced undergrads?
And rolling it out at Kann— wonder what the other 3 restaurants will be, v curious to try this!
Michael Grunwald@mikegrunwald.bsky.social · last yr.Whoa - congrats to WildType on FDA approval for its delicious cultivated salmon. No antibiotics, no microplastics, no pesticides, no dead fish. And it’s made in the USA - no need to import salmon from the ends of the earth! ampsinnovation.org/statement-fr...
wrapped up intro to moral theory w/this Aeon piece on annoyance by @dryan149.bsky.social and @evanwestra.bsky.social- big hit, great way to wrap up a semester, by looking to future and thinking concretely about change: aeon.co/essays/why-d...
Why does moral progress feel preachy and annoying? | Aeon Essays
You might feel you can trust your gut to tell right from wrong, but the friction of social change shows that you can’t
aeon.co
Michael Brownstein, Alex Madva and I are thrilled with the cover for our book, Somebody Should Do Something The release date is 9/16, but you can do preorders now mitpress.mit.edu/978026204978... #CoverReveal #Bookstagram @michaelbrownstein.bsky.social tein.bsky.social @mitpress.bsky.social
Great essay by @michaelbrownstein.bsky.social www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...
The threat of Trump is vast. But don’t underestimate incremental change | Michael Brownstein
The work of making change is difficult. Most of it is boring, unsexy and, at best, modestly incremental from day to day
theguardian.com
new (version of an) SEP entry just dropped, maybe time to give the ol' evolution and morality seminar syllabus an overhaul...
Daniel Kelly@dryan149.bsky.social · 2y agoNew stuff on third-party punishment and kinship intensity and nonhuman animals and more
usually keep the blackboard page pretty austere but this semester I needed to cheer myself up...
reposting this because I've seen a few people wondering where to direct resources and this seems like a non-obvious but important one.
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social · 2y agoagain tapping the sign: please support Wikipedia and other quality information sources - especially local news, double especially newsrooms that are worker owned and reader funded
what a great idea for a conference, and the associated pedagogy workshops look great too
Reza Hadisi@rezahadisi.bsky.social · 2y agoCome to our conference on Epistemic achievements and Virtues! We'll have speakers from ten different traditions (Africana, Arabic, Chinese, Early Modern European, Greek, Indigenous Andean, Jewish, Latin American, Medieval Latin, and Sanskrit). (Also, check out the local workshops!) Cool, indeed!
A while ago I suggested this as an approach to addressing the referee crisis and no one liked it (obviously I know funding is a different thing okay)
Hetan Shah@hetanshah.bsky.social · 2y agoI flagged how we are using partial randomisation to allocate our small grants. We check if an application meets a quality threshold (around half of applications might) and then we allocate the funding at random between all those that meet the threshold. www.nature.com/articles/d41...
Philosopher friends/parasocial peeps, look for me at the eastern, I’ll be the one awkwardly squinting at everyone’s name tag like the borderline prosopagnosic I am
going back to the Eastern APA for the first time since 2011 & already having anticipatory anxiety. no I'm not 'presenting' my work on awkwardness per se, more like demonstrating it in informal settings...
hey, if you're looking for something to fill a cold Monday afternoon (or evening), check out this virtual event I'm doing with The Philosopher tomorrow! www.thephilosopher1923.org/events/on-aw...
On Awkwardness
thephilosopher1923.org
a little sweet, but also sour: was 2024 the year of the pickle? Idk, but I did have fun talking to Ted Anthony for this AP article: apnews.com/article/pick...
The dill of a lifetime? In a nation that’s enduring its own sour patch, the pickle dominated 2024
When did we know for sure? Was it April, when Nature Made introduced its pickle-flavored gummy vitamins?
apnews.com
Sorry to report, turns out I’m that person who comes in at the tail end of a 1000 piece puzzle and crows about every piece they place #highlyspecificvices
Charity requires you you interpret ‘gym’ as ‘nap,’ for example when I said I would go to the gym every day this week
9:45am. just put on a pork belly braise while I write down some deep thoughts about pickles. I am going to miss sabbatical, sigh.
"What is lost when victims leave philosophy..." Such an important point. "If only we could redistribute hubris." Maybe we can't, but those of us who teach and mentor can at least try to adjust the balance of confidence and self-doubt. www.thephilosopher1923.org/post/on-canc...
