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Dr. Johnathan Flowers says
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4 Dec, 9 tweets, 2 min read
A gif thread of how I have responded to frustrating communications over the past two weeks.
"We welcome a diversity approaches to the subject."
"How would you like to respond to these reccomendations?"
"You know, perhaps if we came together to have a conversation, we could come to a positive resolution?"
"The students don't seem too upset about these changes, I haven't heard any complaints."
"I think there is a recognition that these problems are systemic, but how do we resolve them?"
"Would you like to spearhead this effort?"
"I think we've demonstrated our commitment to <insert marginalized group here>."
*outlook alert chimes*

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Dr. Johnathan Flowers says
4 Dec
This is not going to be the case, and it has everything to do with the way that the organization of academia makes some things, some options, as "viable," or "in reach" while others are not. Until COVID, these accommodations were one such "unreachable" object. (1/n)
Even in the above tweet, which I agree with, the organization of academia as a space is made clear through the language we use: academia must be made "accessible," disabled folks must be "accommodated" by a space that was not organized with us in mind. (2/n)
In this sense, "access" and "accommodation" have the same affective force as "imposition:" disabled folks impose themselves, and their desires, upon an institution whose workings were just fine BEFORE our crip selves started to complain about not being able to conference. (3/n)
Read 16 tweets
Dr. Johnathan Flowers says
2 Dec
One more thing about job postings and then I'm done: if you're going to advertise for something like "metaphysics, broadly construed" you would do your department a service by appending "we are especially interested in diverse approaches to..." (1/n)
Now, this might seem counter-intuitive, but an ad like that might signal to someone whose area isn't "metaphysics," which we've been primed to treat as "western metaphysics only," that we should apply for it. Moreover, it increases the odds of pluralizing your department. (2/n)
I say increases, but not guarantees because even this incremental step is useless if committee members do not take seriously their responsibility to ensure that they are actually committing to the intentions of the ad, and not just performing pluralism as a virtue. (3/n)
Read 8 tweets
Dr. Johnathan Flowers says
2 Dec
Every time a job ad states that their department has needs in marginalized philosophy, but does not list marginalized philosophy in the AOS/AOC, my response is the following:
If a department had needs in marginalized philosophy, it would craft an ad that would net them a specialist in one of the half dozen areas that is listed in the ad. It would put that shit in the AOS/AOC.

Clearly, they don't need marginalized philosophy bad enough to do that.
And the fucked up thing is that specialists have no choice but to apply for these positions and accept the meager scraps that the field throws us. We have a collective understanding that a department would have to face significant pressure to even dare put us in their AOS/AOC.
Read 4 tweets
Dr. Johnathan Flowers says
2 Dec
Here's the thing, though: all of this depends on the people inflicting the systems upon students viewing students as deserving of the same kinds of privacy and human rights within the educational space as other individuals. That is, it relies on seeing them as human. (1/n)
I say "human," because the way that "student" is used in the deployment of these systems (and in higher ed generally) refers to something disembodied, detached from the context of education, and in need of disciplining into line with the expectations of the university. (2/n)
Now, not all students are viewed the same, and some students are in need of more disciplinary measures to ensure their compliance with the expectations of the institution, but there is the assumption that ALL students are in need of some form of surveillance. (3/n)
Read 6 tweets
Dr. Johnathan Flowers says
28 Nov
We always run reductionist comparisons like “music is just math” in one direction, as if it gives legitimacy to one side of the equation. Increasingly, I think this is a shitty way to do it.

What if math is just music? What if a good equation has an affective component to it?
I mean, you can get there via Dewey who is really fucking clear on this, but you really shouldn’t need to. What I’m asking is really quite simple: what would our science look like if we considered the possibility that affect lies at its ground?
That is, what if we recognized that the whole of scientific progress hasn’t been forged by logic, but by being moved by a felt connection with the world or some natural phenomena, and science is just a creative response to that feeling?
Read 4 tweets
Dr. Johnathan Flowers says
14 Nov
This is a joke, but a lot of Gundam series take this point seriously and make clear that there are limitations to the ways that one can embody forms that one didn’t grow into. This is most clearly indicated in the series Gundam Unicorn. (1/n)
In Unicorn, the eponymous RX-0 Unicorn mobile suits has what is called a “full psychoframe” in which materials are built into the suit which enable a newtype pilot, essentially a neuro-divergent person with expanded cognition to control the suit as if it was their body.(2/n)
Now, supplemental materials for the series indicate that the unicorn can only be operated in this fashion for a few minutes because the stress of embodying a giant robot is too much for the mind to handle. In short, the body is too big for the mind to embody it for long(2/n)
Read 7 tweets

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