Sid Simpson

The entire business model of American R1 universities is not viable without restoration of federal funding, & every individual institution pretending it can solve this problem alone is also not viable. University presidents need to be speaking out, collectively & loudly about this, in DC, right now.

Is Birthright Citizenship Constitutionally Guaranteed?

“A first read of the opening line of the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution may sound as if it endorses universal birthright citizenship, until we read the limiting clause and consider what it means,” Marietta explains.

Bari Weiss's fake university comes out against the plain reading of the text of the constitution
uatx.substack.com/p/is-birthri...

We're hiring a Fellow in Political Theory! @lsegovernment.bsky.social : jobs.lse.ac.uk/Vacancies/W/...

Lecturer in Political Theory

We are hiring TWO political theorists as well as a PPE position which is open to theorists (focus on history of economic thought) - please apply and circulate!

www.kcl.ac.uk/jobs/108445-...

The deadline for APT proposals is coming up this Friday! #poltheory

Elon Musk’s mass government cuts could make private companies millions Defense and tech firms – including Musk’s own – await potential contracts as Doge decimates US agencies

As. If. This. Weren't. The. Plan. All. Along.

Started to rely on sissy squats whenever I didn’t have time to squat, and my knees are def more crunchy now. Cutting down almost entirely on them and getting back to heavy squats. I think they just really magnify even the smallest imbalances or weaknesses

The law of nations in international political thought This review considers what role scholarship on the early modern law of nations (ius gentium) plays in the history of international political thought, which over the last decade has expanded far bey...

I wrote about some recent trends in the law of nations literature and international political thought for History of Euro Ideas, check it out here >> doi.org/10.1080/0191... (msg me for a copy)

Congrats! This looks awesome - looking forward to reading

Miyazaki telling it how it is about ‘AI’

Me getting that email from the Chronicle this morning about a useless tool that nobody wants

Interesting time for universities like mine to proudly declare their political neutrality.

As the saying goes, you can pretend not to care about politics, but politics certainly cares about you.

Now more than ever, universities need backbone—and leaders willing to stand up for them.

Comes out this Tuesday! Check it out!

global.oup.com/academic/pro...

I'd love to know the answer.

www.thenation.com/article/soci...

this is severe, untreatable, terminal lawyer brain. so many legal academics act like the constitution is not a vessel intended to secure actual human rights and dignity, but a mere matter of intellectual curiosity, meant to be batted around like a cat with a toy

A version of this happens on the academic job market where everyone - even people with wildly impressive publication records - has a hard time. DEI isn't keeping you from getting a tenure track job; a lack of jobs is keeping you from getting a tenure track job.

A reminder that the Association for Political Theory conference will be held at Loyola in Chicago this year. Encouraging Chicago-curious theorists to apply! Applications due February 21. associationforpoliticaltheory.org

Hours after Musk said 'only the AfD can save Germany', one of their supporters carried out a terrorist attack www.ft.com/content/5e2f...

A journal article abstract that reads: Only recently has Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality begun to be read as a genealogy rather than a variation on the social contract tradition. This article argues that reading Rousseau as a genealogist not only clarifies his analysis of amour-propre’s inflammation, but also illuminates a conception of freedom achieved through the continuous political practice of shaping of amour-propre. In the first section of this article, I situate this conception of freedom against two separate but relevant bodies of Rousseau scholarship: those who read him as a genealogist, and those who emphasize the ambiguities of amour-propre. Next, I look to The Social Contract’s passages on censorship and court of honor in order to evaluate their roles as institutions that forestall the inflammation of amour-propre. Finally, I examine the social institutions that citizens actively participate in as they practice their freedom: the festivals, dances, balls and games described in The Letter to D’Alembert and Considerations on the Government of Poland. It is in these institutions that we see the political implications of Rousseau’s genealogical system manifest: because his genealogy illuminates the human tendency toward vice, the cultivation of virtuous citizenship appears as a constant struggle rather than an idealist achievement.

My latest in Philosophy & Social Criticism! "Dancing in the streets: Rousseau, the genealogy of vice, and the practice of freedom"

Check it out here:
sidsimpson.com/wp-content/u...

Very nice post-doc at Yale in Directed Studies, which (among other things) completely changed my dissertation supervisor's life and instilled him with a passion for all things philosophical and literary.

apply.interfolio.com/158738

Hell yeah

Fittingly massive volume. 50 essays. And “Du Bois’ last message,” which, strangely, I had not seen before.

Obligatory

Universities are now in a semi-permanent reactive position, forced to satisfy contradictory demands:

Why don’t you allow free speech? Why don’t you punish X kind of speech?

Why do you teach X? Why don’t you teach Y?

Why don’t you offer X programs? Why haven’t you eliminate Y programs? 1/2

Dr. Samantha Hancox-Li @sjshancoxli.bsky.social Follow • Bluesky Elder a decent article from the dreaded noah on how a blut und boden nationalism has come to cloak itself in the language of "decolonization" and "indigenous land" www.noahpinion.blog/p/no-you-are… No, you are not on Indigenous land Pieces of territory belong to institutions, not to racial groups. www.noahpinion.blog

Landback is about governance and stewardship, not European and capitalist notions of ownership.

Comparing it to Naziism is the height of settler anxiety, propaganda, and bullshit. Nobody wants to sink to your level guys. Stop projecting.

Journalists should have used the increasingly dubious quality of polls as an excuse to spend this election talking about actual issues but instead they doubled down on the horse race

I’m a College President. Universities Aren’t Ready for What’s Coming. “Institutional neutrality” is all the rage. But right now we should be anything but neutral.

"…the fear of offending students, faculty, and, especially, lawmakers and donors has led many academic leaders to retreat from the public sphere.

This is exactly the wrong time for such a retreat."

slate.com/life/2024/10...

I remember sometime in grad school reading that Bezos made all his managers read “Remains of the Day” to teach them the importance of the pursuit of excellence.
Missing the point of course that Stevens’ obsession with being the perfect butler ruins his life.