Jehsmith - jehsmith.com - Justin Erik Halldór Smith
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‘When wild in woods’: The Embarrassment of Napoleon Chagnon 15 Aug 2013 | 02:45 pm
‘Among’ is a curious preposition. Today it seems to be used mostly to describe the relation of being with beings that are not quite like us, but still enough like us that a properly second-person rela...
In Defense of Sophistry (Or, My Summer Job) 8 Aug 2013 | 04:34 pm
It's time for me to come clean. I've been doing something that most would say is well beneath my social station, indeed that is a betrayal of my entire profession. I have been out hustling, working th...
A Racist Lynching in an Early Modern Philosophy Text (and the Non-Triviality of Examples) 7 Aug 2013 | 08:45 pm
One should not mistake the examples a philosopher uses for the focus of the philosopher's interest. This is a common complaint leveled against scholars who engage with philosophical texts from a posit...
The Crispy and the Crunchy 2 Aug 2013 | 07:56 pm
In his 1957 structuralist masterpiece, Le croustillant et le gluant, the French anthropologist Jean-Robert Klein argued that the fundamental binary distinction through which the savage mind filters th...
Support Gay Rights in Russia 29 Jul 2013 | 01:46 am
We've been watching with horror the worstening situation for gays and lesbians in Russia in the wake of the law that was unanimously passed by the Duma on June 11 against the spreading of 'gay propaga...
How to Get from Paris to Detroit 24 Jul 2013 | 08:08 am
What is French America? I have been thinking about this strange question a good deal these days, as my relation to that nebulous region winds to a close. My immigration documents inform me that I arri...
Being a White Person Who Talks about Race 17 Jul 2013 | 09:38 am
As many readers will know, I am currently finishing a book about the concept of race in early modern philosophy. I have been working on it for some years, and it occupies much of my thought and energy...
The Zimmerman Verdict 14 Jul 2013 | 09:07 am
To the extent that I, as a matter of principle, do not believe in incarceration, I am never sad when someone else is not sent to prison. I would have liked to see Zimmerman found guilty, and I would h...
Walrus Term-Paper for Sale 13 Jul 2013 | 11:23 pm
In view of my impending move to France at the end of this month, I am frantically sorting through a lifetime's worth of old papers, trying to perform a rather radical triage and to get what remains do...
Punish the Jester 7 Jul 2013 | 08:27 am
I consider myself politically progressive, but there are a few major sticking points that keep me perpetually at odds with my would-be allies. I hold in utter contempt anyone who would attempt to dict...
