they had a philosophy colloqium at my uni earlier today. philosophers from all over came. one prof, from South Florida (its Canada here) came to present his paper on pre-critical kant and his relationship to euler… pretty much all went over my head, but thats not the point.
here is the key, THERE WERE ONLY 5 (approx.) PEOPLE IN THE PRESENTATION!
south florida for 5 people… and 2 of them were undergrads!
maybe thats just the way it works. (maybe especially if you’re expertise is the pre-critical works)
they must’ve bought his plan ticket and all… but still, Canada is a shitty place to visit.
Pathetic. Do what my prof did. Make the entire class go during class time.
that is fairly typical…
-Imp
how could that be typical? what would be the point.
I’ve attended 4 such activities at the University of Missouri, and each time we have about 10-15 people.
that is simply the way it is… most guest speakers at any university get at most 20 people in the audience… and that is only if the graduate classes in philosophy are filled… you will usually find no more than 3-5 grad students in philosophy at most universities…
there aren’t that many people who care and even fewer who even have an inkling of who the speakers are or their positions…
the point? lol…
-Imp
what uni are you at? those sound like numbers from york, brock or some such stick uni to me…
me? I graduated with my batchelor degree in history and philosophy from ohio university a few years ago, I graduated with my master of education (emphasis in cultural studies and philosophy) from the same last year…
-Imp
trix - laurier, in waterloo
yes, laurier. the high school. i hear that the uni is small though, so it should be no surprised at the turnout. i’m at uoft, and average phil talk attracks about 15-30 ppl, but our department is relatively decent sized. damn near huge compared to laurier.
is that right, well we’ve had some distinguished people here… the prof who i’m talking about was fairly significant, german from south florida, pre critical expert… next week we’re having mr.oxford charles taylor, and possibly habermas
i imagine there’ll be a few more out for those ones.
great. well, i’m sure the department will come out for that, that’s what, the whole 2 of you? enjoy!
Holy fuck. Chuck Taylor? Of Converse Fame !!!?? I didn’t know he also did philosophy!!!
no, just kidding. That’s really cool that you guys can pull in big folks like Taylor and Habermas. My alma mater once grabbed Gorbechaev (How the fuck do you spell that commie’s name?) but we rarely get cool folks (although thsi past semester they did manage to get one of the more interesting Spanish Playwrites to speak, Jeronimo Lopez Mozo.
oh ill enjoy trix. i’ll be jerking off in the class.
laurier is part of the tri universities with waterloo and guelph, they share profs and libraries. i don’t know about uoft… its uoft
i think its a plus that laurier is small, like the cheers song, where everybody knows your name…
there’s nothing wrong with philosophy, it’s just, sometimes it seems so cool and interesting and consequential. but this is a mistake. it’s really no more interesting than geology. it’s the intense study of the ground beneath our feet, but after awhile you lose interest and just walk away on it. if philosophy mattered, it would matter.
yes well, if that’s true, try not to bother starting a bloody thread about the low turnout when only 5 peeps show up. do you honestly think that laurier gets better/more speakers than uoft? you do know that chuck t is teaching a grad course here while giving several public lecture? and that’s only the tip of the iceberg really. also, i always thought most men held their dicks while doing philosophy, you’ve taken in to a new level. i can appreciate exhibitionism.
yes i should be ashamed of myself.
but there is more than two people here.
You could cut the sexual tension in this thread with a plastic butter knife!
that would have to be a pretty sharp knife to cut plastic butter…
-Imp
Indeed.