Joseph Keegin
@jmkeegin
contributing editor @the_point_mag; PhD student @TU_Philosophy
I’m excited to share my review of Antón Barba-Kay’s very rich and interesting book “A Web of Our Own Making: The Nature of Digital Formation” in the forthcoming issue of American Political Thought: journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/73…
My friend @jennfrey 100%: “It’s not that liberal learning is out of step w/ student demand. It’s out of step w/ the priorities, values & desires of a board of trustees w/ no commitment to liberal ed & an admin class that won’t fight for liberal arts” nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
A magnificent coda to a profoundly embarrassing episode at @utulsa. Grateful to Jenn for shining some light into the darkness these decision-makers like to hide in.
I wrote about the lack of administrative support for the liberal arts in @nytimes. The standard story we hear is that students don't want it. But a darker reality is that even when it wins big with students and donors it loses with those in power. nytimes.com/2025/07/17/opi…
My book now has a pre-order page. Looks like it'll come out January 8, 2026. I'll hound you about this plenty later, but for a start, please ask your library to buy a copy. bloomsbury.com/us/kierkegaard…
Now that the COVID-era tents of massive proportions are gone, the grass has returned to the legendary Newcomb Hall quad at Tulane. #winning
Congratulations - you knew a stupid physicist.
One time, a physicist I know dismissed the entire field of philosophy with one simple declaration, and I still love him for it. “If we can’t know, it doesn’t matter.”
Who would win: countless students and professors bemoaning the obvious (such as below), or 3 high-ranking administrators per institution shrugging their shoulders and saying “maybe we have too narrow a view of education and need to update our model”?
The college reading crisis is very real, argues @ElanKluger98143 persuasion.community/p/yes-college-…
Congratulations to the University of South Carolina, the latest flagship state university to establish a major academic program on civic life and leadership. sc.edu/uofsc/posts/20…
University of Tulsa students have started a petition to save their Honors College and have asked me to share with my followers here. If you are inclined to support these students in their goal to recover what was lost, you can sign here: change.org/Protect_UTulsa…
In case you missed it, I wrote about two much-loved Western novels for @hedgehogreview both of which incidentally turned 40 this year: Blood Meridian and Lonesome Dove
Suppressing viewpoint diversity can harm learning. It does not follow that promoting it helps learning. What our universities need is to restore the value of learning. By contrast, aiming for "viewpoint diversity" endangers learning further.
Also: it’s very weird to have the view that academic institutions could fulfill the their research and teaching functions if everyone had the same beliefs. Of course viewpoint diversity is valuable.
“And that surname? Every damn time” Got this screenshot a moment before the tweet was deleted. A remarkable case of candor, with Grok accurately reflecting its training data.
The absolute state of communications studies
I hate college so much
Here is the obituary for Keith Silverman (PhD, 2020), who passed away on June 23, along with links for donations, a board to post memories, and so on. townesfuneralhome.com/obituaries/kei…
if twitter is about loneliness capture, llms are about vanity, it's like watching people get trapped in an oak tree by a sprite, gazing at themself in a pool, forever
Here's a debate hosted by @interintellect_ where @a_n_a_berg offers a rebuttal to various proposals for (moderate) adoption of AI in general education substack.com/home/post/p-16…
some real advice though, the best way to get caught up on a slice of research is to ask someone! Ask a person, walk around the corner, call someone on the phone—this is one of the greatest benefits to working at a university
Leon Kass, magnificent as always, on Rousseau:
econtalk.org/leon-kass-on-t…
