Some Biography I was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1970. In 1981 my family moved out to Lethbridge in southern Alberta, and that’s where I spent the rest of my childhood. I went to the University of Lethbridge after high school and discovered philosophy more or less by accident: the class I wanted to take in psychology was full when I went to register, so I settled for philosophy instead. This was probably the single luckiest thing that has ever happened to me (in my academic life!). Four years of philosophy weren’t enough for me, so I went on to do a Ph.D. at Stanford, and that was bliss. Five years later, I was lucky enough to land a job at the University of Manitoba, which was also great but a bit cold for bliss. I’m now happily settled at Ohio State University. Some Strong Preferences It might not be art, but I know what I like. When I started grad school I hadn’t tried much of anything. Here are some things I really like that I would recommended to anyone in similar circumstances. Food: good bread (a pain au levain or a batard, say), good chocolate (Michel Cluizel, Valhrona; not Scharffen-Berger), cheese that goes beyond cheddar (manchego, brie, buffalo mozzarella), fruit that goes beyond the apple/orange/banana trinity (yellow mangoes, lychee, pomegranates). Books: Primo Levi (The Periodic Table), Vikram Seth (The Golden Gate), Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel), Steven J. Gould (Bully for Brontosaurus), William Shakespeare (Hamlet), Salmon Rushdie (Midnight’s Children), Vladimir Nabokov (Pale Fire), David Foster Wallace (Infinite Jest). Anything else? Well, when I was a grad student, books and food pretty much covered everything that wasn’t school. For undergraduates who have never taken philosophy before: may I make a few more recommendations? If you like much of the following, you will probably (I’d guess) like taking a few courses in philosophy. Books: Douglas Hofstadter (Gödel, Escher, Bach), Daniel Dennett (Darwin’s Dangerous Idea), Fyodor Dostoyevsky (The Brothers Karamazov), Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaimon (Good Omens), Don Marquis (Archy and Mehitabel), Lewis Carroll (Through the Looking Glass). Films: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, I Heart Huckabees, Waking Life, Being John Malkovich |