Brian Leiter's Law School Reports

New Contact Info...

...for Brian Leiter.  The Texas e-mail will continue to work for another couple of weeks, but the Chicago e-mail is already operational.

My Teaching at Chicago Next Year

A couple of folks have asked about my law & philosophy offerings, so here's what's on the agenda at this point:

I'll be doing the "Law and Philosophy Workshop" all year on the topic "Toleration and Religious Liberty."  This is cross-listed between the Law School and Philosophy Department, and is open to students in either unit, as well as others at the university; all students will need to submit a statement of interest and other information to be considered for admission (there are details at the link, above).  Speakers at the workshop will include Joseph Raz, Simon Blackburn, Susan Mendus, Leslie Green, and Martha Nussbaum, as well as various legal scholars and legal theorists.

In the fall quarter, I'll be offering in the Law School the basic Jurisprudence I course (scroll down) covering the nature of law and the theory of adjudication.  In the Spring quarter, I'll offer Jurisprudence II (again, scroll down), which will cover "topics in moral, political, and legal theory."  I haven't fixed the precise topics yet, but Juris I won't be a prerequisite.  JD students get priority for these, though MA and PhD students from other units can take them as cognates.

Please feel free to e-mail me with any questions.

Advice Sought on Summer Travel in Southern Europe

I have professional engagements this summer in Northern Italy and Spain, and was hoping to spend some time between events with my family at some appealing place (nice beach, good swimming, great food) on the Italian or French Riviera (i.e., inbetween the Italian and Spanish engagements).  I would be grateful for suggestions!  Many thanks.

Busy March

This is a rather hectic (but exciting) month for me, as I'm giving the Fresco Lectures in Jurisprudence at the University of Genoa in Italy, the Dunbar Lecture in Law and Philosophy at the University of Mississippi, and participating in an American Philosophical Association session (at the meeting in Pasadena) on Nietzsche.  I may be slower than usual in replying to e-mails, but I will keep udpating the blog with pertinent faculty news, since this is likely to be a busy month for news.

A Google Curiosity

The top two results for a Google search of "Leiter" are my philosophy blog and this blog.  Take that Al Leiter and Felix Leiter!

Trends in Law Blog Readership

Blog Emperor Caron has, of course, collected the facts!  Traffic stats are, in one sense, misleading, since there are huge differences in visit length between blogs as well.  The average length of a visit to this blog tends to be over one minute and forty seconds most of the time; the average length of a visit to the right-wing Instapundit blog, by contrast, tends to be about four seconds.  So how does one combine these two data points--number of visits and length of visit--for a meaningful gauge of readership?  Who knows?

Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy

This may only be of interest to a limited number of readers, but...I'm delighted to announce that The Oxford Handbook of Continental Philosophy (edited by myself and Michael Rosen) has now been published.  It's an outstanding group of contributors from the U.S., Britain, Australia, Canada, and Continental Europe, including many of the leading senior and junior scholars in the field. Here is a pertinent bit from the "Introduction":

Since the 1970s, we have entered a “Golden Age” for English-speaking scholarship on the so-called “Continental” traditions of philosophy, meaning (primarily) philosophy after Kant in Germany and France in the 19th and 20^th centuries. Much of this work has been concerned to introduce and interpret the writings of major individual thinkers and to locate them within a conceptual framework that is familiar to those with a background in the mainstream of philosophy as conventionally taught in Anglophone departments. At the same time, a hallmark of recent scholarly developments is the renewed appreciation for the sometimes distinctive historical and philosophical contexts in which Continental philosophy has been produced, allowing us to appreciate both where the Continental traditions depart from those familiar in the Anglophone world and to assess the philosophical merits of the distinctive philosophical positions developed.

This volume aims to give a representative sample of these important developments in philosophical scholarship, and, more importantly, to give a broad and inclusive thematic treatment of Continental philosophy, treating its subject-matter philosophically and not simply as a series of museum pieces from the history of ideas. Each of the essays takes up a topic from within the field in such a way as to bring key ideas into focus and capture their distinctiveness as well as providing a critical assessment of their value.

"Readability level" of Blogs

Daniel Solove (George Washington) compiles an amusing list of blogs based on their supposed "readability" level.  He doesn't note that my legal philosophy blog and my Nietzsche blog are both at the "genius" level (which shows that "genius" ain't what it used to be).  Of course, readability level is not the same as intellectual level or content, though when one looks at the list of those blogs (and news outlets) purported to be at the "junior high" level, the conflation is tempting!  And when the disgraceful Drudge Report turns out to be at the "elementary school" level, one begins to think this measure is on to something!

"Legal Philosophy: 5 Questions"

An update on the book.

In case you were wondering about the names and affiliations of the 300+ law professors who are now blogging...

...Daniel Solove (George Washington) has the information you seek!  Soon it will be easier to compile a list of law professors who are not blogging.  (Of course, the number who are listed as being members of a blog and the number who actually blog are quite different.)