2014: Writing in Review

A bulk of my writing on the blog in 2014 was dedicated to recounting or posting matters related to my next book, Egalitarian Moments. This reflected that most of time that involved writing in general--especially once we subtract writing slides and notes for the two courses that I had to prepare last fall ("Ethics and Social Issues" and "Topics in European Philosophy")--was dedicated to the book as well. I wrote almost all of Part II and the conclusion to the book last year. As a consequence, I rarely found the time to jot down other stray or incomplete thoughts on the blog. I also neglected to mention a few things that I wrote in 2013 that were published in 2014:

• Two entries for The Meillassoux Dictionary, edited by Peter Gratton and Paul J. Ennis. Those entries are for Descartes and Fichte.
• A chapter for The Palgrave Handbook of German Idealism, edited by Matthew C. Altman. To be more specific, the chapter, "The 'Keystone' of the System: Schelling's Philosophy of Art," is a concise account of what I've argued are the three fundamental features of Schelling's philosophy of art, as elaborated in Freedom and Nature in Schelling's Philosophy of Art.

I also began two projects that will occupy parts of 2015:

• A talk at Saint Paul University here in Ottawa where I will be defending something called "curmudgeonly humanism." That term seems to be the only way I could figure out to describe the work of Kurt Vonnegut, so it shouldn't then be a surprise that the talk is about Vonnegut and Sartre. Concerning the latter, I've adopted the term humanism to oppose to a set of assumptions about political agency made by the New Atheists and the field of 'political theology.' (A belated Google search reveals that the term "curmudgeonly humanism" has been kicking around the internet--13 hits--but no one claims it as a developed philosophical position). It looks like this discussion might form the basis of my next book.
• A paper about Schelling, anthropocentrism, and speciesism, for a book on German idealism edited by Joseph Carew. More details on this project will be forthcoming.
• This isn't exactly a project, but I've also decided to write at least one scholarly book review in 2015 as well.