New student-staff philosophy reading group
30th October saw the inaugural meeting of the Student-Staff Philosophy Reading Group.
The rationale behind the initiative is simple: to provide an inclusive and non-hierarchical, student-led forum for philosophers to pursue interests that build upon and stretch beyond our current curricula.
At the meeting, members of our undergraduate community (including first-year students Victoria Brown, Thomas McConville, Laura Foley, and Miguel Rodrigues Gaspar, Rhys Jones from the second year, and third-year Philsoc supremo Stephen Arkley) chose readings for the next six meetings ranging from queer theory to philosophy of neurobiology, via existentialism, nativism, transhumanism, and anarchism.
Although the ongoing reading list will continue to be generated by undergraduates, everyone (undergraduates, postgraduates, staff, 'non-philosophers') is welcome to come and join in with the meetings. Judging by the list of readings below, all that do attend are surely in for a treat!
13th November (2:30-3:30, 128MP-SR11): Chapter 1 (‘The Conflict Between Authority and Autonomy’) of In Defense of Anarchism by Robert P. Wolff.
27th November (2:30-3:30, 128MP-SR11 tbc): Chapter 8 (‘A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century’) of Simians, Cyborgs and the Reinvention of Nature, by Donna Haraway.
11th December (2:30-3:30, 128MP-SR11 tbc): ‘Philosophy of Neuroscience’ by Ian Gold and Adina L. Roskies in The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Biology.
15th January (2:30-3:30, 128MP-SR11 tbc): ‘Recent Contributions to the Theory of Innate Ideas’ by Noam Chomsky. Synthese 17 (1).
29th January (2:30-3:30, 128MP-SR11 tbc): The Transcendence of the Ego: A Sketch for a Phenomenological Description by Jean-Paul Sartre.
12th February (2:30-3:30, 128MP-SR11 tbc): ‘Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory’ by Judith Butler. Theatre Journal. 40 (4).
All readings have been selected by undergraduate students and all, bar the Wolff reading, are available electronically through the library. SJL has physical copies of Wolff and electronic copies of the first chapter are easy to source online.
For more information please contact Dr Rob Booth, <robert.booth@liverpool.ac.uk>