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Browsing All Posts filed under »Alison K McConwell«
The Gould (I) Files #2
What’s the ‘I’ for you ask? It’s Friday night. TGIF folks. I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss archival work because I’ve caught archive-fever, as it were. I recently read “Blue Years: An Ethnography of a Prison Archive” by Angela Garcia (Stanford University) published in Cultural Anthropology. Actually, I was fortunate enough to listen […]
Congratulations to our Founding Editor: Dr. Justin Caouette
October 2, 2018 by Alison K McConwell
Bridgewater State University recently published a profile of our very own Dr. Justin Caouette outlining what many people close to him already know: Justin is currently making a difference in the lives of students attending BSU. Many of us (myself included) who are first generation college students–students with neither parent having attended college–are often faced […]
Russell and Philosophy in Real Life
May 10, 2018 by Alison K McConwell
Bertrand Russell (May 18th 1872-February 2nd 1970) writes in the prologue of his autobiography “What I Have Lived For”: Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and […]
Teaching as a Grad Student: Philosophy of Science
January 25, 2017 by Alison K McConwell
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Thanks to Aaron for starting this series. There are particular challenges that grad students might face as instructors, some of which I imagine are exclusive to grad students, whereas others could probably be generalized to new professors on the track. And perhaps in my case, grad students, new professors on the track, and maybe even […]
Kinds and Classification: Why the Gun Control and Canine Profiling Analogy Breaks Down
October 14, 2016 by Alison K McConwell
Though this post is partly in response to comments on my previous post concerning breed specific legislation from Mike Steiner, a fellow APT contributor, this is now, in effect, also a response to Yvevs Boisvert’s post for the Globe and Mail. Now is a timely moment to discuss the analogy between pit bulls and guns […]
On Breed Specific Legislation, Public Safety, and Why The Research Matters
July 16, 2016 by Alison K McConwell
There is recent nation-wide attention to animal control issues concerning dogs in Canada. The target is “pit bulls” or dogs with traits that resemble particular characteristics of breeds included in this generic term. One common response to serious dog bites and maulings is to lobby for a ban of particular breeds by enacting Breed Specific […]
The Art of Presentations
June 13, 2016 by Alison K McConwell
Pat Kelly from the CBC gives an hilariously accurate account of qualities that comprise successful presentations. The catch line is: “Thought Leader gives a talk that will inspire your thoughts.” Watch the video here. “Let’s look at the picture of the planet for no reason.” I take it that the definition of ‘success’ here simply […]
Summer Productivity and Relaxation: We Really Can Have It All
May 25, 2016 by Alison K McConwell
While thinking about how the month of May has zoomed by and engaging in a quasi-productive procrastination on the Daily Nous website, I conveniently stumbled upon a post concerning how to actually work during the summer. Here are some highlights from this hilarious, but scarily accurate article that truly resonated with my ‘summer self.’ Going […]
Philosophy and Industry: We Have Transferable Skills
May 20, 2016 by Alison K McConwell
Over the last year I’ve been thinking about how to identify and present the transferable skills one gains from philosophy. Recently Mike Steiner, a UCalgary alumnus, gave a presentation to grads in our department concerning his experience with the non-academic job market. Mike demystified the process of applying for jobs in industry. Although many of […]
Why Is Biological Individuality So Strange?
February 3, 2016 by Alison K McConwell
If you find questions of biological individuality peculiar, then this post is for you. Biological individuality is an area of special interest. Classic individuality principles lurk in the background—philosophers of biology are still concerned with how to carve up a particular domain into basic units and with how to tell those units apart. There may […]
Two Senses of Individuality
November 2, 2015 by Alison K McConwell
Recently, David Wallace-Wells published “Adventures in the Science of the Superorganism” found here. He uses impressive examples to motivate the problem of biological individuality, such as one twin ingesting the embryo of the other twin in utero, the trillions of gut bacteria that house themselves within us, viruses and diseases that colonize our DNA, and […]
Books by Contributors
A Philosopher's Take 
March 9, 2019 by Alison K McConwell
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