Thanks to Graduate School Dean John Kiss for the photo. I enjoy meeting with the new graduate instructors each year at the University of Mississippi. Copyright John Kiss, 2015.
Photo from the 2015 Graduate Instructor Training
Category Archives: Education
“‘Purpose in Life and Work,’ Ep2 of Philosophy Bakes Bread”
by Eric Thomas Weber
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Philosophy Bakes Bread
Thursday, May 21, 2015
Thursday, May 21, 2015
I gave an interview in 2010 on the Day of Dialogue at the University of Mississippi on February 22nd. You can watch the interview here.
| Date: | February 22, 2010 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 09:00-09:15 a.m. |
| Appearance: | 2010 Interview on Memphis’s WREG, Channel 3’s Live at 9 Morning Show |
| Outlet: | Memphis's WREG, Live at 9 Morning Show |
| Location: | Memphis, TN |
| Format: | Television |
If you'd like to invite me to come speak with your group, visit my Speaking page.
Gave a 2013 interview on SVT Nyheter, Sweden’s national TV news service, talking about corporal punishment in Mississippi. You can watch the interview here.
| Date: | August 29, 2013 |
|---|---|
| Appearance: | Interview in 2013 on corporal punishment for the Swedish National TV News Service |
| Outlet: | SVT Nyheter, Sweden's National TV news service |
| Location: | Stockholm, Sweden |
| Format: | Television |
If you want me to come speak with your group, visit my Speaking page.
Looking forward to giving an interview about Uniting Mississippi on WDAM’s television news, channel 7.
| Date: | January 29, 2016 |
|---|---|
| Time: | 11:45 a.m. -12:20 p.m. |
| Appearance: | Interview on Uniting Mississippi with WDAM of Hattiesburg, MS |
| Outlet: | WDAM, Channel 7, Hattiesburg, MS |
| Location: | Hattiesburg, MS |
| Format: | Television |
If you're interested in inviting me to speak with your group, visit my speaking page.
2010 photo of a class meeting out in the Grove
This photo was taken in 2010, during a class meeting of the spring semester honors writing course in the University of Mississippi’s Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. The photo was taken out on a beautiful day in the Grove.
Photo by Blake Belcher. Copyright Weber 2010.
Delusions of Genocide & the Real Thing
On returning home from Germany, I was startled to hear a voicemail from a white supremacist campaigning for President. It repeated the old trope that there is a genocide being perpetrated on the white race. In the United States, we often throw around words like “Nazi” and “genocide.” Seinfeld’s funny “Soup Nazi” story is one thing, but ridiculous demonizing of political opposition is another. The Iowa Tea Party offered one blatant example, but so do national commentators warning of “liberal fascism” or labeling conservatives “Nazis.” We should sober up and remember what real genocide looks like.
Some of the ovens made to dispose of bodies at the Dachau concentration camp.
In Democracy and Leadership, one of the key virtues of democratic leadership I wrote about is moderation. Today people so often dismiss moderation, seeing it as a weakness of will, as a lack of principled character. I find that view tragic, as it inspires such polarization that even the Federal government was shut down in 2013, despite the fact that the world is watching and the credit rating for U.S. debt was downgraded in 2011. Unstable societies are risky investments, as are unjust societies.
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Marveling at Human Potential, Part 2
One of the remarkable things rarely considered among average museum-goers is the somewhat unbelievable fact that nations in the Western world have gone to places like Egypt and taken out of sacred and historical landmarks beautiful cultural treasures. It is true that archaeologists get permits. It is true that the explorer who found Tutankhamun’s tomb spent the better part of a decade looking. It is true that he secured and invested somewhat incredible financial resources to have upwards of 100 people helping him to dig and to search for years. There was enormous work that went into finding Tut’s tomb. Nevertheless, I can’t help but appreciate the point of view which says that relevant artifacts belong to the people and region from which they came.
Of course, I also appreciate the view which says that the labor one puts into a work makes it partly yours. Tut’s tomb may have remained lost to this day without the investment of time and money that helped find it. The issue would be less troubling for me if Egypt were not a quite poor country, compared with the U.K., and had the U.K. not had troubling colonialist practices of domination and exploitation.
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Processing Our Dachau Concentration Camp Visit
I’ll write more about this soon. I’m still processing what we saw there. It was harshly jarring for my sense of what human beings are capable of doing – not one or a few troubling individuals, but a coordinated secret police force. Truly sobering. The experience was visceral.
The gate door to the camp reads “Arbeit Macht Frei,” which translates as “Works makes one free,” or “work makes you free.” The message was a horrible lie, as were the fake shower heads in the gas chamber there. More on that in a follow-up post.
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Marveling at Human Potential, Part 1
It is easy today to find examples of things that are simply marvels of human invention and brilliance. The everyday cellphone today is a pretty amazing instrument, considering all that one can do. This past week, I had a chance to see an exhibit of replicas of the items that were found in the tomb of Tutankhamun.
What I find remarkable are the incredible effort, skill, and resources that were put into respecting Tutankhamun. At so early a period in history, people gathered and used a simply massive quantity of gold, masterfully designed and adorned, to pay homage to a ruler who died quite young, Tutankhamun. Tut’s tomb featured countless treasures (ok, there were a little over 700), besides the multiple nested shrines, each of which protected yet another shrine of gold-leaf covered wood. Ultimately, inside the larger gold-covered shrines there was an incredible whole piece of carved alabaster, which contained several solid gold nested sarcophagi.
Continue Reading »
iTunes has it too, though for some reason as I post this the episodes are out of order.
“Purpose in Life and Work”
This second episode of Philosophy Bakes Bread considers the challenge of envisioning and choosing the right purposes for oneself and for one’s organizations in life and at work.
The transcript for this episode is available here.
Check out the other episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread here.
Finally, if you’d prefer to “watch” the podcast on YouTube, here it is:
If you prefer that format, here’s a playlist of the podcast episodes on my YouTube channel.