Concordia Philosophy Student Weekly Tabloid Vol. 29
Week 4—nearly one third through the semester. How’s everyone faring? It’s a busy semester for me personally, but I’m managing. The trick lies in being organized, knowing how to prioritize, and persisting.
University studies can be a storm of assignments, tasks, and demands, along with our other life’s demands. Knowing how to distinguish these in time and space in relation to each other (organization), along with knowing if and when to take on these demands (prioritization), and then doing them despite our difficulty and will to not do them (persistence).
As we endure or persist through hardships, we build character, experience, and wisdom. We become more adept and efficient at doing what we need to do. But never remember to forget yourself and the heart—if you are not in good shape, you need to take time for yourself; life without some heart to it is essentially meaningless and inhuman. You need a good body, mind, heart, and spirit to lead a good life.
Here’s the 29th Volume of the Concordia Philosophy Student Weekly Tabloid, which brings you all the hottest and best events and relevant philosophy news.
This week, we tell you about:
- Our first winter term social event
- Our Sheila Mason Bursary
- A Concordia Research Symposium in Philosophy
- A Champlain College Speaker Series
- FutureBound skill workshops
- People’s Potato emergency food baskets
- Various Concordia events
- A book recommendation from our library
SoPhiA Start-of-Winter Social Event
SoPhiA is hosting our start-of-Winter-term social event!
We will meet at N Bar (N sur Mackay) at 7pm, Thursday Feb 2nd. Drink tickets will be provided on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Come out to meet and socialize with your peers and executive team! All philosophy students, staff, and alumni of Concordia are welcome.
What: SoPhiA’s Winter start-of-term social event
When: Thursday Feb 2, 7pm
Where: N sur Mackay (1244 Mackay St.)
See our Facebook event.
Sheila Mason Bursary
Each year, SoPhiA provides our Sheila Mason Bursary, an essay-based student bursary, to one or more lucky students! We do not evaluate academic performance or GPA, but how well the student engages in promoting diversity and inclusivity in the philosophy or Concordia community.
The bursary is restricted to current undergraduate students enrolled in a major, minor or honours program in the philosophy department.
Those eligible for application include (as self-disclosed):
- Women
- LGBTQAI+ (lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer, asexual, intersex, and others included in this umbrella)
- BIPOC (black, indigenous, people of colour)
- Students with disabilities
The application process typically includes:
- Personal statement, which must include a description of community involvement, how the individual is working towards creating an inclusive environment within philosophy, and an explanation of financial need.(500-750 words)
- Essay, on the topics of queer, postcolonial, intersectional, feminist, or race theory (1500-2000 words)
- Letter of recommendation (e.g., from teacher, advisor, employer, etc.)
- C.V. (resume), updated to include information pertinent to the award
Start thinking now about compiling your application and if you have a great essay on queer, postcolonial, intersectional, feminist, or race theory topics from one of your courses, that’s completely acceptable as a submission! Or you can write your midterm in one of your courses on this topic and use it as a submission.
See more information from our 2022 bursary, including previous year’s winners, on our Inclusivity Project page.
Stay tuned with more updates on exactly how and when to apply!
Who: Undergrad philosophy students who self-identify as: women, LGBTQAI, BIPOC, or disabled
What: An essay-based student bursary
When: Deadline for application is March 17th, 2023
Concordia Research Symposium in Philosophy (CRSP) 2023
Check out this exciting event happening on February 3rd!
Drs. Matthew Barker, David Morris, Pablo Gilabert, Jing Hu, and Anna Brinkerhoff will be presenting their cutting edge research in philosophy.
“Built on millennia of inquiry, contemporary research in philosophy covers a broad swath of topics, from enduring questions about the nature of morality and human experience, to urgent questions about how to overcome oppression. Research conducted in Concordia’s Department of Philosophy reflects this diversity, and is highly regarded in the profession. This event presents samples of this research, offering in combination a taste of today’s cutting-edge philosophy.”
Food and drink will be served.
What: Concordia Research Symposium in Philosophy
Where: Molson Building room 9B & online
When: February 3rd, 1-4:35pm
More information and register for online participation
Champlain College Speaker Series: Plato on Dialectic, Being, and The Good
Champlain College is hosting a speaker series of undergraduate and graduate students in philosophy. Many of these speakers are your own peers, including Ashkan Haghighat, Sarah Fortin, and Dean Joseph!
- February 8: Sara Elianne Fortin (Concordia University): Dialectic in The Philebus
- February 22: Dean Joseph (Concordia University): Plato’s Political ᾈπορία: The Greatest Difficulty as a Practical Problem
- March 8: Bogdan Ovcharuk, (Concordia University, York University): Dialectic and The Political in Republic VI
- March 22: Ashkan Haghighat: (Concordia University): Being and Becoming in The Timaeus
- April 5: Angelo Fata (Champlain College, St-Lambert, McGill, University of Montreal): A Moment with Plato’s Parmenides
Talks take place in the Champlain College Amphitheatre from 12:30-2:30pm.
What: Speaker Series: Plato on Dialectic, Being, and The Good
When: Every second Wednesday of February and April
Where: Champlain College Amphitheatre (Champlain College of Saint-Lambert)
FutureBound Skill Workshops
Did you know that Concordia’s Student Success Center offers a plethora of free skill workshops?
Yes! They offer workshops to improve your skills in six core modules:
- Career Development
- Communication and Digitial Capabilities
- Innovation and Entrepreneurship
- Growth and Balance
- Leadership and Collaboration
- Financial Literacy
Completing four workshops in a specific module will give you a certificate of completion for that skill, and it also shows on your Co-Curricular Record (CCR)!
I’ve already taken about 10 of these workshops in my years at Concordia (I have one certificate and close to a second) and they are very helpful in learning skills like:
- Public speaking
- Presenting
- Project management
- Working in groups
- Skills with Excel or PowerPoint
- Self-development
- Networking
- Career development skills
Check out their website for more information
See the interactive calendar of workshops for the Winter term
Who: Student Success center
What: Skill workshops
When: Various dates throughout the term
People’s Potato Emergency Food Baskets
Are you low on food or money? Don’t despair, People’s Potato is here!
People’s Potato is a nonprofit organization within Concordia that provides food for students and they are serving emergency food baskets throughout the term. (They also serve meals on the daily).
The emergency food baskets are on specific dates and they ask you to bring your own bags. First come, first serve.
Dates:
- Jan 27, 3:30pm
- Feb 10, 3:30pm
- Feb 24, 3:30pm
- Mar 17, 3:30pm
- Mar 31, 3:30pm
- Apr 14, 1pm
- Apr 21, 1pm
- Apr 28, 1pm
Check out their website for more information
Follow them on Facebook
Who: People’s Potato
What: Emergency food baskets
Where: Hall 7th floor
When: Mon-Thurs 12:30-2pm
Various Concordia Events
There are several events in the next week that may be interesting to philosophy students.
- How to prepare for and take exams: January 30, 11:45am
- “Whether you’re dealing with multiple choice, essay, closed or open book exams, learn how to prepare strategically and progress systematically through the exam in order to optimize your success. ”
- Public speaking prowess: Mastering the skills, part 1 – In-person: January 30, 3pm
- “we will dispel common public speaking myths, provide useful tips to conquer fear and help you meaningfully connect with your audiences in-person and online. In Part 1, you will learn to develop your public speaker prowess, find your voice and use it with confidence.”
- Applied Artificial Intelligence Research Exchange: January 31, 4pm
- “The Applied AI Institute is connecting problem solvers and problem makers to encourage multidisciplinary collaborations.”
- The basics of academic writing : February 1, 11:45am
- “This short workshop will help undergraduate students plan a writing assignment, understand what their professors expect from their writing, explore strategies for structuring papers, and discover online resources for further help.”
- John Molson’s Graduate Diploma & Certificates Online Information Session: February 2, 12pm
- “Join our information session to learn about all aspects of John Molson’s Graduate Diploma and Certificates in Business Administration.”
- Stephanie Eccles – “Animal Waste and the Fraught Politics of Renewable Natural Gas”: February 2, 12pm
- “Stephanie’s research engages with political economy/ecology focusing on the links between energy and food systems, Discard Studies, and multispecies relations. Her work is grounded on the broader political projects of transforming how we relate to each other and the nonhuman animal world to work towards a future that is abundantly just and kind.”
See more of Concordia’s events
SoPhiA Book Library: Weekly Book Recommendation
This week’s highlighted book:
The Ideology of the Text by Christopher Hampton (1990)
“This book is a polemical response to ‘the mystifying dislocations of theory and practice embodied in the forms of literary discourse produced out of the culture of industrial capitalism—from Arnold to Leavis and Eliot, and from the structuralism of Levi-Strauss and Althusser to the proto-idealist theories of the post-structuralists’. As such, it represents an attack on currently critical theories through a reassertion of historically-grounded criticism. This interactive process is demonstrated in a sequence of case-study chapters moving from Shakespeare to Milton, Blake and the Romantics, to Arnold and Morris, and finally from Eliot and the writers of the 1930s to the work of Raymond Williams and E.P. Thompson.”
If you didn’t know, SoPhiA has a library of over 650 books! We have books from different domains of philosophy and some outside philosophy (psychology, business, political science, and even novels). We even have textbooks for some of your courses! (e.g., PHIL-210, 235, 260, 266, and more)
You can borrow a book for an hour, or even the whole semester. Just drop by our office or send us an email.
You can see our complete library of books online on our Librarika virtual library.
What: Books!
Where: The SoPhiA library (in our office space)
Do you know of any cool philosophy-related events in Montreal or the Concordia Community? Please let us know and we will advertise them here!
**Pictures are for representative effect only and aren’t actual photos of the events, products, or services we report on.
Students of Philosophy Association 