Author Archives: Matthew J. Brown

About Matthew J. Brown

Professor of Philosophy, Boydston Chair of American Philosophy, and Director of the Center for Dewey Studies at Southern Illinois University.

Upcoming Conference CFPs

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I’m involved to some extent in organizing a number of conferences whose CFP are open right now:

  • Paul K. Feyerabend: A Centennial Celebration, the 12th Annual Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology Conference at the Center for Values in Medicine, Science, and Technology at UT Dallas (May 23-25, 2024). This conference focuses on the legacy of Feyerabend for contemporary history and philosophy of science, science & technology studies, science policy, and other relevant areas. 300-500 word abstract, Deadline: January 18, 2024.
  • John Dewey, Race, and Colonialism Workshop at the Center for Dewey Studies, Southern Illinois University (October 17-19, 2024). This workshop will bring together scholars working on the history of Dewey’s work on this subject in relation his contemporaries with scholars using Dewey as a resource for work on race, colonialism, and cultural pluralism. 5,000-6,000 word paper, Deadline: May 17, 2024.
  • Popular Arts Conference in Atlanta, in concert with DragonCon (August 30 – Sept 2, 2024). This conference brings multidisciplinary scholarship in pop culture studies to a broad audience associated with the convention. Technically, the deadline has passed, but we are still accepting submissions at the moment, and anything submitted before the submission portal closes will be considered. ≤500 word abstracts for individual submissions, see instructions for group submissions.

Although I’m not involved this year, submissions are also open for the Philosophy of Science Association biennial meeting in New Orleans (November 14-17, 2024).

  • Symposium Proposals, abstracts for panel and individual presentations (see instructions), Deadline: January 15, 2024.
  • Contributed Papers, ≤4,500 word papers, Deadline: March 15, 2024

UNESCO Recommendation Report Published

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From late 2020 through mid-2021 I worked with a diverse group of experts on a report for UNESCO on science and scientific researchers in the United States. This work was facilitated by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). As a bit of background, in 2017 UNESCO adopted a set of recommendations, “the Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers,” which supersedes a similar recommendation going back to 1974. The new recommendation has 10 key areas; according to the summary,

  1. “underlines the responsibility of science towards the United Nations’ ideals of human dignity,
    progress, justice, peace, welfare of humankind and respect for the environment;
  2. emphasizes the need for science to meaningfully interact with society and vice versa;
  3. recognizes the role of science in national policy and decision-making, international
    cooperation and development;
  4. promotes science as a common good;
  5. calls for inclusive and non-discriminatory work conditions and access to education and
    employment in science;
  6. emphasizes that any scientific conduct is subject to universal human rights standards;
  7. balances the freedoms, rights and responsibilities of researchers;
  8. calls for scientific integrity and ethical codes of conduct for science and research and their
    technical applications;
  9. recognizes the vital importance of human capital for a sound and responsible science system;
    and
  10. stresses the role of Member States in creating an enabling environment for science and
    research.”

Now, as you may be aware, the United States stopped paying dues to UNESCO in 2011 under Obama, and withdrew completely in 2019 under Trump. So the US government did not produce the report required by the 2017 recommendation. Instead, AAAS took it upon itself to produce this sort of report. That report has now been published:

Wyndham, J., Weisenberg, N., McCarty, C., Goldman, G., Brown, M., and Borenstein, J. 2022.
UNESCO Recommendation on Science and Scientific Researchers and the United States: An
Analysis of Key Themes. https://doi.org/10.1126/aaas.ade8203

Advice on Adjusting Your Course for Online Delivery due to COVID-19

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A list of suggestions based on my reading of various sources and thinking about the needs of students. Some things have been copied and pasted in haste without citation (sorry). I’ve listed a few of the documents I’ve drawn from and others that seem rather helpful at the end of this document

  1. Nobody signed up for this, neither you nor your students. Be gentle with yourself and generous with them.
  2. Honor the work that students have already done, at at least the value you told them it would have at the beginning of the class. (But also make sure your new grading system doesn’t turn a low-stakes assignment they’ve already completed into a high-stakes one.)
  3. Be humane. Everyone’s lives are getting harder. Make your course easier to adjust to the pressures your students may be experiencing at home. Prioritize supporting your students. Tell your students that the course will be easier than previously planned, to ease their minds, and then live up to that.
  4. Be aware of your students’ limitations. In many cases, your students are less adept with technology than you think they are (or than you are). They may only be accessing materials from their phone, and may not have access to computer, scanner, or camera. They may have limited bandwidth or data, and need it for more important things that video lectures or video conferencing. They may be taking care of their children or elderly parents full-time due to closings. They may become depressed, they may lose their jobs, or fall under other hardships as a direct result of social isolation. Don’t expect too much.
  5. Be aware of your own limitations. You are not going to become a fundamentally different kind of teacher in two weeks of preparation, nor will you become radically more technically capable. You are also going to be under various pressures and stress from social distancing, loss of childcare, etc. Don’t do too much.
  6. When in doubt, choose simpler solutions. If you’ve been using eLearning all semester, don’t switch everything to Teams (or vice versa). Don’t introduce 4 different technologies or types of assignments when 1 will meet the same goal. Email and phone are viable technological solutions for remote teaching.
  7. Some things just won’t work online. Some assignments and assessments won’t work. Some expectations are not reasonable. It is okay to cut things rather than figure out how to replace them, as long as your course is still accomplishing its major goals.
  8. Required content and assignments should be asynchronous. Students may not have reliable internet access, they may have childcare issues, or other complications that make synchronous participation unworkable.
  9. Optional synchronous discussions by video chat is a good idea, if you’re comfortable with it. Some students need the face-to-face contact (even virtually) and the structure that this provides. These discussions should take place during your regular class time. Record these discussions so asynchronous students can also benefit. Make sure students know that it is really optional.
  10. If you cannot or are not comfortable doing synchronous discussions, try to make contact with your class as many times per week as your class is scheduled and try to be more available by email, phone, etc. for students who need contact, support, or reassurance.
  11. Rely on self-grading (multiple choice) and low-stakes (completed/not completed) assignments as much as you can. This will allow you to save your time for directly supporting the students and for self-care.
  12. Allow students to take online quizzes or tests twice, if you’re doing such tests. If they have a technical problem, this gives them the opportunity to fix it. Set it to use the most recent attempt, rather than the highest grade, to discourage abuse. Disable any autosubmit features.
  13. Make every assessment open-notes, open-book, and open-internet. You won’t be able to stop students from using these resources anyway. Limit the time to take the exam if you want to discourage detailed searches and collaboration. Make questions hard to cheat on, use randomization, and question pools. Don’t bother with high-tech solutions to prevent cheating. They don’t work.
  14. Provide uniform due dates, once per week. Pick a time, preferably Sunday night at 11:59pm. Make everything due at that time. Leave quizzes and tests open for a week, due at the uniform due date. Give them the flexibility throughout the week to find the time to do it.
  15. Remind students of the assignments that are due. The extra reminder can help them in a hectic time. This is easy to do via eLearning for those using it: Go to Grade Center, find the assignment’s column in the grade book, and click the arrow. Choose “Send Reminder.” You can also schedule Announcements ahead of time.
  16. Listen when students ask for help or when they let you know what is not working for them. Be responsive. (But remember to be aware of your own limitations.)
  17. Be flexible. Some things you put in place may not work, and you need to be ready to fix problems. You need to be able to adjust your class further to adapt to the changing situation. And there will be service outages that you need to respond to.

Further Reading and Sources:

Help on UT Dallas Campus Resources

Just published: More Critical Approaches to Comics

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More Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods, edited by Randy Duncan, Matthew J. Smith, and I, has just been published by Routledge. You can also find it at Amazon.

The book is a followup to the original Critical Approaches to Comics: Theories and Methods (edited by Matt and Randy), with 19 chapters covering all-new critical approaches, filling in a few lacunae from the first book as well as representing the growth in relevant approaches in comics studies over the past ~8 years.

As with the first book, each chapter is written with the student in mind, laying out background, underlying assumptions, and procedures for the relevant critical approach, an explanation of what sort of works / artifacts are appropriate for that type of approach, and a sample analysis of a specific work. 

The book is useful not only for teaching comics studies courses, but can also be used to teach theories and methods in arts and humanities more generally. 

List of approaches and contributors is below.

  • Critical Theory, Matthew P. McAllister & Joe Cruz
  • Postcolonial Theory, Christophe Dony
  • Critical Race Theory, Phillip Lamarr Cunningham
  • Queer Theory, Valentino L. Zullo
  • Disability Studies, Krista Quesenberry
  • Critical Geography, Julian C. Chambliss
  • Utopianism, Graham J. Murphy
  • New Criticism, Rocco Versaci
  • Psychoanalytic Criticism, Evita Lykou
  • Autographics, Andy J. Kunka
  • Linguistics, Kristy Beers Fägersten
  • Philosophical Aesthetics, Aaron Meskin & Roy T. Cook
  • Burkean Dramatistic Analysis, A. Cheree Carlson
  • Adaptation, David Coughlan
  • Transmedia Storytelling, William Proctor
  • Parasocial Relationship Analysis, Randy Duncan
  • Historiography, Adam Sherif
  • Bakhtinian Dialogics, Daniel Pinti
  • Scientific Humanities, Matthew J. Brown

Climate Trilogy with Joyce Havstad

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A few years ago I wrote about work in progress on science, values, and climate change with my good friend, fellow UCSD alum, and brilliant philosopher of biology Joyce C. Havstad. I’ve excited to say that the fruits of our labors are finally seeing publication, with one article just out at the beginning of the year in Perspectives on Science and two more forthcoming later this year in a book on inductive risk and a special issue of PAQ, both edited by Kevin Elliott and Ted Richards. Full references and preprint links below.

Marston Article Published

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Great Hera! My article “Love Slaves and Wonder Women: Radical Feminism and Social Reform in the Psychology of William Moulton Marston” was published in the latest issue of the new, open-access journal Feminist Philosophy Quarterly. Thanks to the libraries at University of Western Ontario, the article is freely available to all comers (as all products of publicly-funded scholarship ought to be).

This paper has been a labor of love for about 8 years, when I encountered Molly Rhodes’ article on Marston and Wonder Woman (“Wonder Woman and Her Disciplinary Powers: The Queer Intersection of Scientific Authority and Mass Culture,” published in Reid & Traweek’s Doing Science + Culture) while sitting in on Roddey Reid’s course on cultural studies of science in the UCSD Lit department (it is an unfortunate thing that more philosophers of science don’t engage with cultural studies of science — see Rouse).

I did a lot of the basic research in 2009-2011, and have spent a lot of time refining my interpretation and my argument. In a way, I wish I had published it before the explosion of work around 2014-2015 on Marston (most notably Jill Lepore’s book). But if I had, (a) I wouldn’t have been able to publish it in this wonderful journal, and (b) for all her book’s flaws, I wouldn’t have been able to benefit from Lepore’s incredibly rich archival research. In many ways the paper would not have been as good in 2011 or 2013 as it is today.

I do my thank yous in the acknowledgements section of the paper, but I want to reiterate my thanks to Sabrina Starnaman, who helped me refine this work over the years, and who brought me into Reid’s class in the first place. I think she even came up with the title for the paper! And also, thanks to the many audiences who listened to this talk over the years as I worked these ideas out.