I’m presently reading and enjoying Sean Sayers’ recollections of ‘the making of a Marxist philosopher’. He relays his experiences of the dull and conservative teaching of philosophy he experienced at Oxford and Cambridge and how he and a handful of colleagues sought to overcome this deadening influence when at Kent University. This included the founding… Read More »
My rate of production of blogs has dropped off of late. This is probably in part because my attention has been diverted by COVID, but it’s also a function of the fact that I have been writing my book on critical realism and sport. I may be tiring more quickly too, but let’s not go… Read More »
I have grown accustomed to revisiting the books read in the past year with a view to selecting a few to recommend. In 2021 I am surprised to discover that I read considerably more than in previous years; maybe the lockdowns and lack of alternatives to reading helped out here. At any event, my list… Read More »
I read 107 books in 2020. Interestingly, this total does not exceed those for the last couple of years despite the fact that much of 2020 was spent in lockdowns, bubbles or ‘tiered’ struggles. Twenty-five of the books read in 2020 were novels; 17 thrillers; 24 autobiographies or biographies; 9 books of poetry or the… Read More »
I have elsewhere, in all due modesty, blogged on the meaning of life (no less). I eschewed, and pitched it between, fundamentalisms and absolutisms and their antitheses, nihilisms and radical scepticism. I won’t repeat myself here, but the present effort should be understood in this context. I have remained fascinated by the various forms of… Read More »
I can’t pretend that keeping a record of books read during any given year is a matter of much interest to others, but here we go with a commentary nonetheless. If there is a return it may perhaps be in terms of the odd recommendation. I find I have steadily increased the number of books… Read More »
This is a blog about ‘beginnings’. Why am I committing valuable café time to this concept? For three reasons: (a) it is a significant notion with an extended reach and multiple reference points; (b) it is of sociological import in several respects, and (c) it is fascinating in its own right. The beginnings I’ve opted… Read More »
There is a real risk that the transition to ‘senior’ – let alone retired – academic is accompanied by a shift in output towards: (a) quasi-magesterial overviews of literatures, and/or (b) sheer, unadulterated repetition. I may show signs of such shifts but fortunately that’s for others to ascertain (I’m a babyboomer touching 70 after all).… Read More »
The link with sociologists at Emory University in Atlanta in southern USA has run like a thread through my academic and personal lives. This short blog is a celebration and expression of gratitude to the friends I’ve made, plus one or two reflections on change. Dick Levinson lit the spark in 1976 by approaching Margot… Read More »
Last time round, I was a sociologist in a laboratory-based Department of Medicine. Even before the RAE peeped over the horizon I was summoned by my HofD, whom I had not yet met during the several years of his tenure, to explain who I was and what I did. He was not overly harsh, agreeing… Read More »