Throughout his pseudonymous authorship, Kierkegaard employed a method of indirect communication. ... more Throughout his pseudonymous authorship, Kierkegaard employed a method of indirect communication. The existentialist Kierkegaard was acutely aware of the importance of various types of communication. His contribution and relevance has gone relatively unnoticed in our discipline of communication. This article looks at the impact the Kierkegaardian notion of indirect communication has on the individual, community, and various organizations. Kierkegaard also provides powerful critiques of the public, the press, and Christendom. Considering the ethical impact of Kierkegaardian indirect communication, this paper calls for a Kierkegaardian revolution within the discipline of communication.
This study investigated the interactions of 72 children (ages 7 to 15) with Sony’s robotic dog AI... more This study investigated the interactions of 72 children (ages 7 to 15) with Sony’s robotic dog AIBO in comparison to a live Australian Shepherd dog. Results showed that more children conceptualized the live dog, as compared to AIBO, as having physical essences, mental states, sociality, and moral standing. Based on behavioral analyses, children also spent more time touching and within arms distance of the live dog, as compared to AIBO. That said, a surprising majority of children conceptualized and interacted with AIBO in ways that were like a live dog. Discussion focuses on two questions. First, is it possible that a new technological genre is emerging in HCI that challenges traditional ontological categories (e.g., between animate and inanimate)? Second, are pervasive interactions with a wide array of “robotic others ” – increasingly sophisticated personified computational artifacts that mimic biological forms and pull psychologically in mental, social, and moral ways – a good thi...
The Creolizing Subject: Race, Reason, and the Politics of Purity by Michael J. Monahan"The p... more The Creolizing Subject: Race, Reason, and the Politics of Purity by Michael J. Monahan"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."(W.E.B. Du Bois)As we enter the twentieth century, the problem of the color line still is a pervasive one. A recent theoretical attempt to "solve" this problem has been to deny the idea of racial lines and advocate living in a "postracial society." I have been suspicious of exactly what is meant by striving to live in a "postracial" society. One finds the policy of adopting this "colorblind" postracial position on both the right and left. On the right, the concept of race is pointed to as allowing for reverse discrimination that unfairly victimizes white males. On the left, the idea is put forth that racism ultimately comes from our conceptualization of race and this conceptualization of race itself is not real. Therefore, we should be postracial to combat racism. The unity of J...
... Thank you especially to Devika, Robyn, Katerina, Kristin, Chris, Cory, Rebecca, Damion and Sh... more ... Thank you especially to Devika, Robyn, Katerina, Kristin, Chris, Cory, Rebecca, Damion and Sharron in the department of communication. ... could help 6 For various studies on social interaction with animals see for example: Corson, S., & Corson, EO (1981), Eddy, J., Hart, LA, & ...
This article reexamines Alfred Schutz’s famous 1944 Stranger essay and the initial criticism of A... more This article reexamines Alfred Schutz’s famous 1944 Stranger essay and the initial criticism of Aron Gurwitsch. I side with Schutz in thinking of the refugee as a special type of stranger. Then to respond to the charge that the essay is not philosophical enough from Gurwitsch, I read Schutz’s notion of the strange with Husserl’s notion of homeworld and Levinas’s notion of fecundity. This allows us to see the philosophical depth of doing a phenomenology of the stranger and strangeness.
Abstract: This paper describes the award-winning pedagogical innovation of a virtual collaboratio... more Abstract: This paper describes the award-winning pedagogical innovation of a virtual collaboration between two classes in different schools at a major mid-Atlantic university. In the school of education a professor was looking to teach her students the importance of advocacy in the field of ...
Douglas Rushkoff describes the condition of digiphrenia as a ‘digital order’ where technology spl... more Douglas Rushkoff describes the condition of digiphrenia as a ‘digital order’ where technology splits us off from ourselves and requires us to simultaneously be in multiple places and times simultaneously. He focuses on the temporal trauma of the digital split. In this article, I argue digiphrenia creates a ‘divided self’ – in multiple places and yet nowhere. This digital split is a technological version of what R. D. Laing would refer to as a ‘schizoid world’.
The publication of the Phenomena of power: Authority, domination, and violence into English allow... more The publication of the Phenomena of power: Authority, domination, and violence into English allows for the English-speaking world to engage the work of Heinrich Popitz. Popitz provides a thorough and organized description of how power operates in social relations that should be valuable to any scholar of the human sciences. This essay is supportive of Popitz’s project, but seeks a critical engagement by extending the analysis on violence and technical power. I argue that reading Popitz alongside the decolonial thinker, Franz Fanon and the media ecologist, Marshall McLuhan can provide important correctives. In particular, Fanon’s analysis that the colonial use of rhetorical power to dehumanize the oppressed and McLuhan’s comment on the importance of the control of medium are missing in an otherwise very thorough philosophical anthropology on the phenomena of power.
In Herbeck, D. & Drucker, S. (Eds). There used to be a ballpark here: Communication, community... more In Herbeck, D. & Drucker, S. (Eds). There used to be a ballpark here: Communication, community, and the spaces of baseball. Peter Lang Press. (forthcoming)
Ucok-Sayrak, O. & Garrett, E. (2013). Grounding globalization: Theory, communication, and servi... more Ucok-Sayrak, O. & Garrett, E. (2013). Grounding globalization: Theory, communication, and service-learning. In L. Nganga, J. Kambutu & W. Russell III (Eds.), Exploring Globalization Opportunities and Challenges in Social Studies: Effective Instructional Approaches. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
Lewis R. Gordon is a well-known philosopher and social critic who has written extensively on a wi... more Lewis R. Gordon is a well-known philosopher and social critic who has written extensively on a wide range of issues in race theory, Africana philosophy, film and literature, postcolonial phenomenology, and the philosophy of the human sciences. His work deals with issues ...
Throughout his pseudonymous authorship, Kierkegaard employed a method of indirect communication. ... more Throughout his pseudonymous authorship, Kierkegaard employed a method of indirect communication. The existentialist Kierkegaard was acutely aware of the importance of various types of communication. His contribution and relevance has gone relatively unnoticed in our discipline of communication. This article looks at the impact the Kierkegaardian notion of indirect communication has on the individual, community, and various organizations. Kierkegaard also provides powerful critiques of the public, the press, and Christendom. Considering the ethical impact of Kierkegaardian indirect communication, this paper calls for a Kierkegaardian revolution within the discipline of communication.
This study investigated the interactions of 72 children (ages 7 to 15) with Sony’s robotic dog AI... more This study investigated the interactions of 72 children (ages 7 to 15) with Sony’s robotic dog AIBO in comparison to a live Australian Shepherd dog. Results showed that more children conceptualized the live dog, as compared to AIBO, as having physical essences, mental states, sociality, and moral standing. Based on behavioral analyses, children also spent more time touching and within arms distance of the live dog, as compared to AIBO. That said, a surprising majority of children conceptualized and interacted with AIBO in ways that were like a live dog. Discussion focuses on two questions. First, is it possible that a new technological genre is emerging in HCI that challenges traditional ontological categories (e.g., between animate and inanimate)? Second, are pervasive interactions with a wide array of “robotic others ” – increasingly sophisticated personified computational artifacts that mimic biological forms and pull psychologically in mental, social, and moral ways – a good thi...
The Creolizing Subject: Race, Reason, and the Politics of Purity by Michael J. Monahan"The p... more The Creolizing Subject: Race, Reason, and the Politics of Purity by Michael J. Monahan"The problem of the twentieth century is the problem of the color line."(W.E.B. Du Bois)As we enter the twentieth century, the problem of the color line still is a pervasive one. A recent theoretical attempt to "solve" this problem has been to deny the idea of racial lines and advocate living in a "postracial society." I have been suspicious of exactly what is meant by striving to live in a "postracial" society. One finds the policy of adopting this "colorblind" postracial position on both the right and left. On the right, the concept of race is pointed to as allowing for reverse discrimination that unfairly victimizes white males. On the left, the idea is put forth that racism ultimately comes from our conceptualization of race and this conceptualization of race itself is not real. Therefore, we should be postracial to combat racism. The unity of J...
... Thank you especially to Devika, Robyn, Katerina, Kristin, Chris, Cory, Rebecca, Damion and Sh... more ... Thank you especially to Devika, Robyn, Katerina, Kristin, Chris, Cory, Rebecca, Damion and Sharron in the department of communication. ... could help 6 For various studies on social interaction with animals see for example: Corson, S., & Corson, EO (1981), Eddy, J., Hart, LA, & ...
This article reexamines Alfred Schutz’s famous 1944 Stranger essay and the initial criticism of A... more This article reexamines Alfred Schutz’s famous 1944 Stranger essay and the initial criticism of Aron Gurwitsch. I side with Schutz in thinking of the refugee as a special type of stranger. Then to respond to the charge that the essay is not philosophical enough from Gurwitsch, I read Schutz’s notion of the strange with Husserl’s notion of homeworld and Levinas’s notion of fecundity. This allows us to see the philosophical depth of doing a phenomenology of the stranger and strangeness.
Abstract: This paper describes the award-winning pedagogical innovation of a virtual collaboratio... more Abstract: This paper describes the award-winning pedagogical innovation of a virtual collaboration between two classes in different schools at a major mid-Atlantic university. In the school of education a professor was looking to teach her students the importance of advocacy in the field of ...
Douglas Rushkoff describes the condition of digiphrenia as a ‘digital order’ where technology spl... more Douglas Rushkoff describes the condition of digiphrenia as a ‘digital order’ where technology splits us off from ourselves and requires us to simultaneously be in multiple places and times simultaneously. He focuses on the temporal trauma of the digital split. In this article, I argue digiphrenia creates a ‘divided self’ – in multiple places and yet nowhere. This digital split is a technological version of what R. D. Laing would refer to as a ‘schizoid world’.
The publication of the Phenomena of power: Authority, domination, and violence into English allow... more The publication of the Phenomena of power: Authority, domination, and violence into English allows for the English-speaking world to engage the work of Heinrich Popitz. Popitz provides a thorough and organized description of how power operates in social relations that should be valuable to any scholar of the human sciences. This essay is supportive of Popitz’s project, but seeks a critical engagement by extending the analysis on violence and technical power. I argue that reading Popitz alongside the decolonial thinker, Franz Fanon and the media ecologist, Marshall McLuhan can provide important correctives. In particular, Fanon’s analysis that the colonial use of rhetorical power to dehumanize the oppressed and McLuhan’s comment on the importance of the control of medium are missing in an otherwise very thorough philosophical anthropology on the phenomena of power.
In Herbeck, D. & Drucker, S. (Eds). There used to be a ballpark here: Communication, community... more In Herbeck, D. & Drucker, S. (Eds). There used to be a ballpark here: Communication, community, and the spaces of baseball. Peter Lang Press. (forthcoming)
Ucok-Sayrak, O. & Garrett, E. (2013). Grounding globalization: Theory, communication, and servi... more Ucok-Sayrak, O. & Garrett, E. (2013). Grounding globalization: Theory, communication, and service-learning. In L. Nganga, J. Kambutu & W. Russell III (Eds.), Exploring Globalization Opportunities and Challenges in Social Studies: Effective Instructional Approaches. New York: Peter Lang Publishers.
Lewis R. Gordon is a well-known philosopher and social critic who has written extensively on a wi... more Lewis R. Gordon is a well-known philosopher and social critic who has written extensively on a wide range of issues in race theory, Africana philosophy, film and literature, postcolonial phenomenology, and the philosophy of the human sciences. His work deals with issues ...
During the first week of March 2016 I gave a series of talks, seminars, and classes at the Univer... more During the first week of March 2016 I gave a series of talks, seminars, and classes at the University of Buenos Aires, and the National University of General Sarmiento. All the talks were structured around the theme of doing phenomenology. Specifically I focused on a Husserlian, Levinasian, and Schutzian perspectives. Thanks to the Williams Foundation, the two Universities, and specifically Carlos Belvedere for the invitation and opportunity for the wonderful engagement.
Clean Pittsburgh’s Litter and Illegal Dumping Roundtable. Convened by Mayor Peduto’s Office. Pi... more Clean Pittsburgh’s Litter and Illegal Dumping Roundtable. Convened by Mayor Peduto’s Office. Pittsburgh, PA. July 2015
Keynote presentation of the Pittsburgh Continental Philosophy Network First Annual Conference, Pi... more Keynote presentation of the Pittsburgh Continental Philosophy Network First Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA. September 2014
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Thanks to the Williams Foundation, the two Universities, and specifically Carlos Belvedere for the invitation and opportunity for the wonderful engagement.