Journals hardly ever ask me to review books because I've only done a few (and none for 20 years now). If they did, I would probably still say no. But I'm all the more resolved that if I said yes, I would say so only if I were guaranteed a print copy. Life's too short for this.
2nd CfA: Risk and Uncertainty in Ethics!
A cool workshop at University of Leeds, 20-21 May 2026.
Keynotes: Hilary Greaves, Claire Field, Weng Kin San.
Submit an abstract (max 500 words) to Nick Makins (n.d.makins@leeds.ac.uk) by 20 March. More info at philevents.org/event/show/1...
#philosophy
“Helsinki hasn’t registered a single traffic-related fatality in the past year…Citing data that shows the risk of pedestrian fatality is cut in half by reducing a car’s speed from 40 to 30km/hr, city officials imposed the lower limit in most of Helsinki’s residential areas and city center in 2021.”
The migration doom loop at work: does anyone in government seriously think that a strategy designed to keep out skilled workers and students makes either economic or political sense?
://www.ft.com/content/7408ad00-e4eb-41c7-8849-36061bc0eac1
PM: You get those migration numbers down?
Home Sec: Sure did boss, real fuckin damaging to public services and increasing the one voters hate most, just like you asked
PM: what
Arrr-guing about Concepts.
The question may not be "why are British students taking so many useless degrees?" so much as "why can't the British economy generate enough graduate vacancies?"
Basically yes to Bijan's blog post. If you've doubts about maximalist demands and maximalist recommendations for action as UCU strategies at this time in UK HE, please realize NEC elections are really important to this and please vote for the @ucucommons.org slate and the candidates they endorse.
Well this was a wild ride. In turns, tender, witty, profane, bitchy, graphically vulgar, laugh-out-loud hilarious, heartbreakingly sad (esp. #101). So full of life. Inclined to seek a fuller edition and compare translations.
You can't... repeal... a scientific finding. At that point it's just called lying about it.
Let's also hope there are no interaction effects. Would be awful if the beneficial effects of caffeine on dementia risk and of reading and writing on dementia risk turned out to screen each other off.
We (@leedsprhs.bsky.social) are super-excited that Megan Hyska (currently at Northwestern) will be joining University of Leeds as associate professor of philosophy in August. Her research focuses especially on questions about political communication.
dailynous.com/2026/02/06/h...
#philosophy
Strong Jonah Ryan energy there.
I expect to spend today staring at this: ‘we’ve gone from government suggesting that the state would subsidise undergraduate student loans by about 45p in the pound, to making a profit on them for that cohort’.
A *profit* on student loans: everyone should read this. 🤯
wonkhe.com/blogs/gradua...
UK HR personnel tend in my experience not to understand universities or at least not to treat them as in any way different. I don't see that they approach their job differently than if they were insurance company HR. Appointment blueprint is pretty generic across all manner of jobs at a university.
Oh I know. Multiply by n applicants, and for each post--the collective time sink is enormous. The inefficiencies of the grant funding system are well known, this somehow flies under the radar. And HR just don't really want to hear it, they work from the same blueprint as for support staff jobs.
Very many UK university HRs require application forms with boxes that correspond to essential and desirable criteria. If that's what you're faced with, I can only apologize on behalf of UK philosophy departments. It's frustrating. But a strong application should somehow address the criteria.
A timely clarification of UKRI plans from its chief exec.
1/ This pause is obviously concerning to researchers & universities & I’d like to specifically register the point that if the reason of ‘aligning with national priorities’ means more policy-driven & less free ideas-driven research then this move is of even more concern.
www.msn.com/en-in/politi...
Right. I'd have guessed the latter. The former is also a fair point. I'm now minded to gently inquire with my native Brit colleagues how this strikes them!
Sorry to hear that! Your experience is interesting to me. I haven't seen anything like that in my own School. Perhaps I'm not called those things for not deferring to class because I'm a straight-spoken Finn. We also are a quite international academic community. That might be another factor.
My guess (it's nothing more) would be that the largest US concentration of the Somali diaspora is in Minnesota and they're the second largest immigrant group in Minnesota (after Mexican immigrants). I doubt Rufo knows that Sweden and Norway also host substantial Somali communities.
Just a normal Friday night in Finland. That's our president reading one of Tove Jansson's Moomin books live on public broadcasting TV. He's reading it in Swedish; the next book in the Moomin reading marathon will be read in Finnish.
Rufo is only talking about Scandinavians but yes, Nordic people (Scandi or not) can proudly stand together on this.
Recent-ish for the audience you describe:
Sally Rooney: Intermezzo
Ocean Vuong: Emperor of Gladness
Hanako Footman: Mongrel
Marina Kemp: The Unwilding
Also like Aidan's Hamnet suggestion. Personally I loved it.
📣JOB ALERT📣
Lectureship in Liberal Arts and Philosophy/Religion at University of Leeds.
We are looking for an academic at Philosophy/Religion interface to run our Liberal Arts BA programme. Closing date: 01 February 2026. More info at: jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...
#Philosophy #PhilosophyJobs
Credit @sophiep25397.bsky.social on Twitter
Farage lied when he said he was too ill to appear for the BBC interview on Sunday.
The Heartland Institute, whose party he attended instead, doesn't believe in tobacco harms, climate change and seeks the dismantling of the NHS.
Be warned. If you care
Kash Patel going to a big meeting of the intelligence chiefs in England and asking if they can go jet skiing instead of having a normal meeting is really doing a number on my ability to focus
Finally, a flag worth fighting for.
As long as I've been doing journal editing, a strong default among my fellow editors has been not to ask the central target(s) of a paper to referee it. The rationale has always included the possibility of harshness AND the incentives to get one's work discussed. I thought this was widely known!
