Concordia Philosophy Student Weekly Tabloid Vol. 30
What a cold, snowy season we’ve had the last week or so. 🥶❄️
Nonetheless, the flame of our intellectual and life passions burn on in our academic study. Our willingness for hope, success, and improvement drive us in pursuing what we see as good. We often see university as a means to some ideal end, but some—those few intellectual knowledge-seekers—see it as an end in itself.
Accordingly, we’re where we are at this moment; Consequently, we’re thrown into and have to navigate through a complex world of almost endless interactions and relations. We must choose what to engage and what to ignore and our actions define our essence.
Incidentally, we’re here to help you make and navigate through those ambiguous choices. This newsletter seeks to narrow your scope and focus on relevancies. We hope it brings meaning and direction to your path as a student of philosophy.
Without further ado, here’s the 30th 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 February executive meeting
- Our Sheila Mason Bursary
- ASFA academic awards
- A Champlain College Speaker Series
- Philopolis inter-university conference
- People’s Potato emergency food baskets
- Various Concordia events
- A book recommendation from our library
SoPhiA February Executive Meeting
SoPhiA is holding our executive meeting for February most likely next week on Friday afternoon (details TBA).
All philosophy students are welcome to attend to see what we’re up to and join in on the conversation! We’ll discuss:
- Harassment awareness workshop
- Allocation of merchandise budget
- Bylaw review meeting
- Concordia MA fair
- Guest talks co-hosted with SoPhiA
Email [president dot sophia at asfa dot ca] for more info or to RSVP.
What: SoPhiA’s February executive meeting
When: Friday Feb 10 (TBA)
Where: TBD (Most likely S-Annex).
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
ASFA Student Academic Awards
The Arts and Science Federation of Associations (ASFA) has opened their applications for the 2022-2023 Concordia University undergraduate Arts & Science students!
ASFA is a student-led nonprofit consisting of student leaders for all students registered in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. ASFA aims to recognize students who have worked hard academically, contributed to student life at the University or demonstrate a financial need.
They have awards for:
- Outstanding community contribution
- High academic achievement
- Most improved student
This is a great opportunity to get a small financial award for all your hard work!
Who: Arts and Science Federation of Associations
What: ASFA Academic Awards
When: March 15 Deadline
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)
Philopolis Montreal Inter-University Philosophy Conference
Philopolis Montreal is coming back for their 14th iteration of their inter-university philosophy conference!
Philopolis is a public and completely free event whose goal is to foster positive philosophical discussions between the general public, students, teachers and scholars. It is a student-run project from all philosophy departments of Montreal (McGill University, Concordia University, University of Montreal, and University of Quebec in Montreal). We also give an annual donation to this event to make sure it happens each year!
This year, many of your Concordia philosophy peers will be presenting! This includes:
- Soline Van de Moortelle: Adorno’s Critique of Progress and the Envisioning of New Futures in the Ecological Crisis: The Case of Ecovillages
- Feb 25, 10am
- Diana Pylypenko: Merleau-Ponty’s Ambiguity and Buddhist Philosophy: The Absence of an Essential Self
- Feb 25, 11:05am
- Dean Joseph: The Yoke of Emancipation: A Reworked Toolkit for Social Transformation
- Feb 25, 2:10pm
- Andrew Wilcox: The Three Basic Axioms of Truth
- Feb 25, 3:15pm
- Wesley Smith: Law, Rationality, and Nationhood: John Locke’s Relativistic Moral World
- Feb 25, 3:15pm
- William Aylward: Spinozism in Kant’s “Only Possible Argument”
- Feb 26, 4pm
Official public schedule to be released soon!
What’s more is several of your peers are also volunteering at the event.
Keep up to date on the Philopolis website or Facebook group
Who: Philopolis Montreal
What: Inter-university philosophy conference
When: February 24-26, 2023
Where: UQAM, Pavillon Sciences de la Gestion, 315 Sainte-Catherine East & 400 Sainte-Catherine East
Why: Come support your peers and see what sort of research they’re up to!
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:
- 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.
- Counsellor chat in the Zen Dens – MB: Feb 7, 11am
- “Drop by the Zen Den to meet with a Concordia counsellor for a chat about available resources!”
- Avoiding Plagiarism at the Undergraduate Level: Feb 8, 1pm
- “How do I know when I “accidentally plagiarized something?” When do I use sources? HOW do I use sources? How do I get better at paraphrasing? Learn about Concordia’s Academic Code of Conduct, what happens if you are charged with plagiarism, and how to AVOID doing it in the first place!”
- Demystifying teamwork: Strategies for empathetic collaboration: Feb 8, 1pm
- “In this workshop, grow your capacity to respond to a variety of challenges and work towards strong, collaborative relationships. This session contains multiple activities to practice new strategies and to help you build a toolkit to take with you into your next group project or relationship.”
- Decarbonizing Canadian Buildings: Opportunities and Obstacles: Feb 8, 1pm
- “Join us for a panel discussion that will bring together academic and professional experts from various fields to explore the current state of decarbonization efforts in Canada’s building sector and the challenges that must be overcome in order to meet the country’s emissions reduction targets.”
- Budgeting for Student Life: Feb 9, 12pm
- “This workshop aims to help you with tools to manage your personal finances, improve your financial wellness, and learn about financial support resources available for you so you can achieve your financial goals.”
- Scientific Management and Manual Skill in Mao-Era China: February 10, 1pm
- “Like other socialist states, Mao-era China set itself the goal of closing the gap between mental and manual labor. More so than the Soviet Union and its European allies, China took concrete steps towards that aim: it sought to systematize and “elevate” the experiential knowledge of artisans and peasants, to recruit shopfloor workers into management, and to build a unified education system that promoted practice-oriented learning. However, these efforts were hampered by a fundamental failure to understand the nature of manual skill and counteracted by the CCP’s technocratic tendencies. At the conceptual level, Party leaders fell into the trap of thinking of manual and mental work as separate categories, failing to see no work is ever purely mental or purely manual: most handwork requires judgement and careful planning, and all brainwork is based in sentient, moving bodies. The CCP never developed a theory of skilled work as unity of knowing and doing, theory and practice. At the practical level, the CCP absorbed the lessons of the international Taylorist movement and the European Science of Work, filtered through the Soviet Union. These lessons, too, pushed it towards standardized mass production and the use of prescriptive “work methods” (gongzuofa). The result, I argue, was a complex mix of skilling and deskilling, as millions of workers learned new techniques but control over the production process was increasingly inscribed in formulas and machines.”
See more of Concordia’s events
SoPhiA Book Library: Weekly Book Recommendation
This week’s highlighted book:
Religious Reasons: The Rational and Moral Basis of Religious Belief by Ronald Green (1991)
“Without religious reason, Green argues, the familiar sequence of theoretical reason, prudential reason, moral reason, is incomplete. From even such a skeletal account of Green’s programme, it is clear that Kant provides the inspiration; and the reader may be excused for feeling that an attempt to resurrect Kant’s account of religion requires a suspension of disbelief if it is to be taken seriously. In fact, Green has written a book which is of enormous interest on at least three counts: first, as an exegesis of Kant; second, as an account of the nature and rational basis of religious belief; and third, as an attempt to apply an abstract philosophy of religion to concrete religious traditions.”
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 