A/Prof Matthew Sharpe has published a piece via ABC Religion and Ethics on countering the appeal of the far right in contemporary politics:  

If we are to combat recruitment into the ranks of the far right, even among the well-educated in our communities, we need to face the uncomfortable fact that forms of right-wing libertarianism, misogyny, ethnonationalism, neo-Nazism, and accelerationism (the desire to “speed up” the purportedly inevitable collapse of the liberal democracies) have powerful appeal among certain groups — especially in periods of distress and social, political, and economic alienation like we face in the era of the global financial crisis, debt and immigration crises in Europe, and now the global pandemic.

The article can be read in full here.

Deakin’s Prof. Jack Reynolds and Dr Marilyn Stendera are presenting at the forthcoming “Reassessing the Relationship between Explanation and Phenomenology” online workshop, October 4-7 2021:  

“It is often claimed that phenomenology is not an explanatory enterprise, yet the motivations for this claim are not often spelled out explicitly. At the same time, for empirical science, explanation is a key concern, and there are a variety of suggestions currently under debate on how best to marry phenomenology with empirical science. Similarly, there are currently numerous types of explanation under discussion within analytic philosophy of science. This hybrid workshop brings together leading interdisciplinary scholars with the intention of furthering the understanding of the relationship between phenomenology and explanation in the areas of philosophy, cognitive science, and psychology.

“Our workshop is in preparation for a special issue of Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences due for release in 2022/23 being edited by Heath Williams (University of Notre Dame Australia) and Kristina Musholt (University of Leipzig). Each presenter is an invited contributor to the special issue. The workshop is hosted by the University of Leipzig philosophy department, and is in a ‘hybrid’ format. Some speakers will be present in Leipzig whereas others will present from locations across the globe such as Australia and the US.

“The focus of our workshop is on engaging in constructive dialogue with the aim of improving the quality of contributions to the special issue. Each presenter is assigned a primary ‘respondent’ who will be expected to pre-read their contribution and prepare a critical and constructive commentary. We are also making papers available for pre-reading approximately two weeks before the conference for the general public to read and comment. Presentations during the workshop are expected to be kept relatively short in order to allow for plenty of time for discussion. We are planning to record presentations as well as the Q&A session and to make recordings available via this website.

All interested scholars are invited to participate in the workshop. Registration is free, but the number of places available is limited.”

 

https://www.explanationandphenomenology.com/

A/Prof. Matthew Sharpe was a guest on ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live with Phillip Adams, discussing the increasing popularity of stoicism. 

Listen to the interview here.

Couldn’t make it to our recent fortnightly philosophy research seminars? Catch up on the recordings here! 

• Miguel Vatter, Atheism, Post-secularism and the Legitimacy of Democracy 
• Matthew Sharpe, Anais’ New Covenant: Montesquieu & the theologico-sexual politics of despotism in the Persian Letters 

And here’s the video of Christopher Mayes, From pastoral power to paddocking power: Rethinking Foucault’s conception in Australia:

Stoicon-x, a convention for stoics and people interested in stoicism, is taking place in Melbourne on 30 October 2021. 

The event features a keynote from former NSW Premier Bob Carr, while Deakin’s A/Prof. Matthew Sharpe will be interviewing Australian tennis great Pat Cash.

Stoicon-x is designed for people interested in taking their first steps on a journey to a Stoic life or for those who are already living a Stoic life and want to delve deeper into how and why it’s a valid philosophy for life in the unfolding world of covid.

For more details, visit the Stoicon-x website.

A/Prof. Matthew Sharpe has appeared on ABC Radio National’s Sunday Extra‘s ‘The Round Table,’ in a discussion of how stoicism can help in dealing with the pandemic:

The Ancient Greek philosophy has seen a revival in the last decade, which has rapidly accelerated during the pandemic. Is Stoicism, with its focus on emotional regulation, acceptance and self-awareness, the key to greater resilience during lockdown? 

The program can be downloaded here, via the ABC Listen app, or via your preferred podcast platform. 

A/Prof Matthew Sharpe and Dr Michael Ure (Monash) have just published their new book, Philosophy as a Way of Life: History, Directions, Dimensions (Bloomsbury, 2021):

In this first ever introduction to philosophy as a way of life in the Western tradition, Matthew Sharpe and Michael 

Ure take us through the history of the idea from Socrates and Plato, via the medievals, Renaissance and Enlightenment thinkers, to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Foucault and Hadot. They examine the kinds of practical exercises each thinker recommended to transform their philosophy into manners of living.

Philosophy as a Way of Life also examines the recent resurgence of thinking about philosophy as a practical, lived reality and why this ancient tradition still has so much relevance and power in the contemporary world.

A/Prof Matthew Sharpe was recently featured on the New American Baccalaureate Project podcast, discussing ‘The Shaping of Academic Subjectivity Through Bibliometrics'”

How has the proliferating use of bibliometrics as a means to evaluate academic research shaped academic subjectivity? How are bibliometrics being used as a new technology of neoliberal, biopolitical governmentality, alongside the host of other ‘metrics’ (led by biometrics) that have emerged in the last two decades? What of most importance has been lost in the use of marginalia by scholars as a personal and political act? Does the production of neoliberal subjectivity and the power of bibliopolitics within academia exaserbate the two tier system of tenured and adjunct labor in higher education? Are there  ways to resist the bibliometric regime and its multifarious form of surveillance and subjectivity formation? If so, what channels and modes of organizing should we be thinking about to resist our current trajectory?

The podcast is available for download here. 

Congratulations to Dr Andrew Kirkpatrick, who graduated with his PhD on 22 April after the successful examination of his thesis, “Whitehead and Merleau-Ponty: Toward a Process Phenomenology.” Well done Andy!

A/Prof. Matthew Sharpe recently appeared on Stoa Nova, hosted by Massimo Pigliucci and Rob Colter, to discus Stoic virtue ethics: