Below is a message I sent to my colleagues in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University in the wake of the first turbulent days of 2021. Dear College of Arts &…
Christopher LongJanuary 7, 2021
Agate, Nicky, Rebecca Kennison, Stacy Konkiel, Christopher P. Long, Jason Rhody, Simone Sacchi, and Penelope Weber. “The Transformative Power of Values-Enacted Scholarship.” Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 7, no. 1 (December 7, 2020): 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-020-00647-z…
Christopher LongDecember 19, 2020
There is a line from Seinfeld that cuts to the heart of the distinction between sincerity and ethical candor. In a desperate attempt to beat a polygraph machine, Jerry turns to George, a practiced liar,…
Christopher LongNovember 28, 2020
On National Voter Registration Day, I sent the following message to students, staff, and faculty in the College of Arts & Letters. Dear College of Arts & Letters Students, Staff, and Faculty, As we navigate…
Christopher LongSeptember 22, 2020
The following reflections are offered in the context of the opening colloquium of the College and Beyond II: Liberal Arts & Life series. #collegeandbeyondii The current pandemic is an apocalypse — an uncovering. It reveals at once…
Christopher LongSeptember 15, 2020
Dear MSU Class of 2024, Welcome to Michigan State University and to the College of Arts & Letters! You are embarking on an education that will forever shape the course of your life. At the…
Christopher LongAugust 31, 2020
Dear College of Arts & Letters community, “Anger,” Audre Lorde insists, “is an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions arising from those attitudes do not change.”Lorde, Audre. “The Uses of…
Christopher LongJune 5, 2020
Agate, Nicky, Rebecca Kennison, Christoper P. Long, Jason Rhody, Simone Sacchi, and Penny Weber. “Syllabus as Locus of Intervention and Impact.” Syllabus 9, no. 1 (May 28, 2020). http://www.syllabusjournal.org/syllabus/article/view/300. This is a flash article related…
Christopher LongMay 28, 2020
There is nothing the world can now throw at you that you are unprepared to handle. You have harnessed the great power of a liberal arts education...
Christopher LongMay 7, 2020
As this disquieting semester comes to a close, it’s appropriate to pause for a moment to reflect on the distance we have traveled and the path that lies ahead.
Christopher LongApril 29, 2020
In October 2019, I attended a three-day workshop on Driving Institutional Change for Research Assessment Reform jointly convened by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) on the beautiful HHMI campus in Chevy Chase,…
Christopher LongNovember 9, 2019
On September 26, 2019, I had the opportunity to address the Michigan State University President’s Council, which includes the Deans Council and the Executive Leadership of the University, about the values-based strategic planning process we…
Christopher LongOctober 7, 2019
Dear Class of 2023, Welcome to Michigan State University! As we prepared our Welcome to MSU video this year, I found myself unexpectedly face-to-face with a picture of my past self as a first-year student…
Christopher LongAugust 27, 2019
Earlier this summer, I had the honor of offering the closing keynote address of the 2019 Association of University Presses annual conference held in Detroit. The address was entitled The Transformative Power of Publishing, and…
Christopher LongAugust 5, 2019
Michigan State University was awarded a four-year, $2.5 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support further development in the research and teaching of less commonly taught languages (LCTLs), with an emphasis on Indigenous languages.…
Christopher LongJuly 25, 2019
In the summer of 2018, a group of MSU Deans came together to write an essay that was published in Inside Higher Education under the title: "Can Michigan State Recover and Chart a New Path…
Christopher LongApril 24, 2019
In June of 2018, I held a short workshop about the HuMetricsHSS initiative with colleagues attending the 2018 Summer Seminar - East gathering of the Association of Departments of Foreign Languages that was meeting at…
Christopher LongMarch 13, 2019
One year ago today, Rachael Denhollander addressed the Ingham County court in Michigan, her abuser, and the institutions that failed to protect her and her #SisterSurvivors. Listen again to part of what she said on…
Christopher LongJanuary 24, 2019
Dear College of Arts & Letters Alumni, Students, Staff, and Faculty, One year ago this week, the courageous testimonies of the Sister Survivors began to sow the seeds of change at Michigan State University. Taking courage…
Christopher LongJanuary 17, 2019
In the open letter we wrote to the College of Arts & Letters community in January 2018, we promised to look critically at ourselves, recognize our failures, and rebuild the trust that is required of…
Christopher LongNovember 30, 2018
Dear College of Arts & Letters Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Friends, For generations, the students, faculty, staff, and alumni of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University have demonstrated the capacity…
Christopher LongNovember 16, 2018
At the heart of my keynote address to the 2018 Association of General and Liberal Studies in Pittsburgh, PA is this idea: The intellectual and ethical habits we need to transform higher education are the…
Christopher LongSeptember 22, 2018
In her recent article in the Journal of Family Violence, Amy Bonomi, Chair of Human Development and Family Studies at Michigan State University, insists that sexual assault and relationship violence cannot be effectively redressed until we undertake…
Christopher LongSeptember 4, 2018
Welcome to the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University! As you embark on your educational journey here at MSU, I invite you to consider the doors that are opening for you all…
Christopher LongAugust 28, 2018
WASHINGTON, DC - Today a group of colleagues from the Association of American Universities, Association of Research Libraries, and Association of University Presses met to advance the Towards an Open Monograph Ecosystem (TOME) initiative. It…
Christopher LongJuly 31, 2018
In this introduction to issues 1-2 of volume 66 of the Journal of General Education, Sophia Pavlos and I articulate of the meaning and importance of thick collegiality for the Journal of General Education and…
Christopher LongJuly 26, 2018
The second Radical Open Access conference was held on June 26-7, 2018 at Coventry University on the "Ethics of Care." I participated from a distance via Skype, delivering a tweet storm style presentation based on…
Christopher LongJune 27, 2018
The 2018 Association of Departments of Foreign Languages Summer Session North was hosted by the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University May 30-June 2, 2018. I was invited to participate on a…
Christopher LongJune 2, 2018
Dear College of Arts & Letters alumni and friends, By now many of you have heard that the university has agreed in principle to a $500 million global settlement with the survivors of the sexual…
Christopher LongMay 24, 2018
“Practicing Public Scholarship.” Public Philosophy Journal 1, no. 1 (2018). https://doi.org/10.25335/m5/ppj.1.1-1. Situating the Public Philosophy Journal at the intersection of philosophy and questions of public concern, this essay articulates how the journal hopes to practice…
Christopher LongApril 23, 2018
The Academy for Teaching and Learning at Baylor University invited me to give two talks on the value of creating and nurturing online digital scholarly communities on April 19, 2018. The two presentations afforded me…
Christopher LongApril 19, 2018
It has been difficult to write for the public in the months since posting the Open Letter to the College of Arts & Letters in the wake of the survivor impact statements that are transforming…
Christopher LongApril 12, 2018
In the introduction to volume 65, issues 3-4 of the Journal for General Education, I draw on insights from Cathy Davidson's book, The New Education, to argue for a New General Education, one that is…
Christopher LongFebruary 28, 2018
Dear College of Arts & Letters Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni, and Friends, In the wake of the survivor impact statements, the Nassar sentencing, and the resignation of President Simon, we have entered an important period…
Christopher LongJanuary 25, 2018
Last year at this time, we spoke of beginnings and routine, of resolve and the quotidian habits required to weave them into a meaningful life. We set our intention to focus on five priorities through…
Christopher LongJanuary 15, 2018
As we navigate the intense period of transformation in human communication through which we are living, identifying ways to nurture sustainable communities through which scholarship can be shared, discovered, and enhanced gains urgency. So many…
Christopher LongNovember 29, 2017
Late last month, the faculty on the College Advisory Council (CAC) gave me a writing assignment. In preparation for our Fall 2017 faculty meeting on November 17, they asked me to take a step back…
Christopher LongNovember 14, 2017
Last weekend was homecoming on the Michigan State University campus, and I found myself reflecting on the meaning and significance of gratitude. So many alumni returned to campus to give thanks for all the ways…
Christopher LongOctober 24, 2017
“Pragmatism and the Cultivation of Digital Democracies.” In Richard J. Bernstein and the Expansion of American Philosophy: Thinking the Plural, edited by Marcia Morgan and Megan Craig, 37–59. Lanham: Lexington Books, 2016. As technology enables…
Christopher LongSeptember 16, 2017
Dear College of Arts & Letters Class of 2021, Welcome to Michigan State University! As you embark on the adventure of discovery and growth that is a liberal arts education in the College of Arts…
Christopher LongAugust 25, 2017
This month marks the beginning of my third year as Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. When I began as Dean in 2015, I spoke about advancing the arts and humanities at the…
Christopher LongJuly 19, 2017
To support the Humane Metrics for the Humanities and Social Sciences (HuMetricsHSS) initiative, Michigan State University has received a $309,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The collaborative HuMetricsHSS pilot aims to create a…
Christopher LongJuly 10, 2017
When Ryan Kilcoyne and I met late last year to plan the 2017 MSU College of Arts & Letters Dean’s Report, we wanted to show what we have long talked about: situating the liberal arts…
Christopher LongJune 26, 2017
Lessons from the Dragon Boat None of us knew quite what to expect on Saturday as we gathered at Hawk Island for our one-hour training session for the Capital City Dragon Boat Race to support the…
Christopher LongMay 23, 2017
The last two weeks of March this year brought sadness twice over to the College of Arts & Letters. On March 18, 2017, we lost Anna Norris, a beloved professor of French Literature who taught…
Christopher LongApril 14, 2017
“The Liberal Arts Endeavor: The Arts of Liberty in a Time of Uncertainty.” Journal of General Education, 65, 2 (2017), v-vi. Even if, as Hannah Arendt suggests, “we are always educating for a world that…
Christopher LongMarch 19, 2017
In early November last year, I returned to the Leviathan. In it, Thomas Hobbes grapples with the question of sovereignty and considers the human condition in a state of nature in which there is: …no…
Christopher LongMarch 17, 2017
As a junior faculty member, I attended every possible workshop on tenure and promotion I could find. Inevitably, however, as the shared wisdom of those who had successfully been tenured and promoted washed over me,…
Christopher LongMarch 14, 2017
“Care of Death: On the Teaching of Reiner Schürmann.” Philosophy Today, January 31, 2017. doi:10.5840/philtoday201713141. A homage in the guise of an essay, this is the story of the last course Reiner Schürmann taught. As…
Christopher LongMarch 11, 2017
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff in the College of Arts & Letters: Many of you have written to express your concern about the executive order signed by the President of the United States on January…
Christopher LongJanuary 30, 2017
Shortly after Barack Obama won the 2008 Iowa caucuses, I wrote a blog post entitled Toward a Mature Politics that began with the Kantian idea that enlightenment requires us to relinquish our self-incurred immaturity. Then,…
Christopher LongJanuary 19, 2017
With the new year comes the deluge of resolutions. This ritual of new beginnings affords us an opportunity to begin anew, for, as the ancient proverb reminds us, “well begun is half done.” Aristotle, Politics,…
Christopher LongJanuary 15, 2017
Sometimes in our efforts to advocate for the importance of a liberal arts education, we fail to demonstrate what it means to put the arts of liberty into practice. It’s easier to speak about the…
Christopher LongDecember 3, 2016
Dear Students, Faculty, and Staff: We in the College of Arts & Letters seek to advance the core values of Michigan State University — quality, inclusiveness, and connectivity — by practicing inclusion as a matter of institutional habit.…
Christopher LongNovember 12, 2016
Last year we developed a strategic plan in the College of Arts & Letters that called for a cluster hire in culturally engaged digital humanities that focuses on humanities questions of race, inclusion, cultural preservation,…
Christopher LongOctober 31, 2016
This is the text of the response I made to Emanuela Bianchi, The Feminine Symptom: Aleatory Matter in the Aristotelian Cosmos, (New York: Fordham University Press, 2014) at the 2016 meeting of the Society for…
Christopher LongOctober 21, 2016
“The Liberal Arts Endeavor: On Editing the Journal of General Education.” Journal of General Education, 65, 1 (2016), v-vii. In accepting the editorship of the Journal of General Education: A Curricular Commons of the Humanities…
Christopher LongOctober 19, 2016
In Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, there is a famous passage in which he reminds us that “to be happy takes a complete lifetime; for one swallow does not make a spring, nor does one fine day;…
Christopher LongOctober 14, 2016
Traditionally, a curriculum vitae (CV) is an articulation of one’s qualifications and accomplishments in an academic context. The Latin root of the term suggests the extent to which the CV indicates a “course of life.”…
Christopher LongSeptember 30, 2016
Whenever I talk to faculty and students about the use of social media in the academy, I advocate for a community building approach. The idea is relatively simple: communication has the power to enrich or…
Christopher LongSeptember 8, 2016
Michigan State University will use a three-year $1.2 million grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to lead a multi-university research project to improve the teaching of less commonly taught languages, or LCTLs. Faculty from MSU’s Center for…
Christopher LongSeptember 1, 2016
Dear College of Arts & Letters Class of 2020, Welcome to Michigan State University! As you begin your journey in the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University, let me tell you a…
Christopher LongAugust 31, 2016
To be honest, I didn’t know what to expect when I arrived at the headquarters of the Association of American Universities in Washington, D.C. early last week to take part in a discussion about a…
Christopher LongAugust 8, 2016
In the wake of last week’s violence, we have again become caught up in the fraught dichotomy into which public discourse always seems to force us. It is as if somehow the human capacity to…
Christopher LongJuly 14, 2016
A year ago today, as I began my tenure as Dean of the College of Arts & Letters at Michigan State University, I made reference to a passage by Peter Raible, one that draws from…
Christopher LongJuly 1, 2016
Lists are the current vernacular of the internet. There is even a social media site, li.st, wholly dedicated to the creation and sharing of lists of all sorts. So, as I considered how I might…
Christopher LongJune 27, 2016
de Avlillez, André Rosenbaum, Mark Fisher, Kris Klotz, and Christopher P. Long. “Public Philosophy and Philosophical Publics: Performative Publishing and the Cultivation of Community.” The Good Society 24, no. 2 (2015): 118–45. The emergence of…
Christopher LongJune 27, 2016
Sharing your work online, especially in its early phases of development, can open new paths of inquiry and establish connections with scholars who can enrich your work.
Christopher LongMay 10, 2016
On three different days in three different meetings, the same note was sounded. It struck a cord that resonated with me as I listened to faculty from three groups talk about their experience in the…
Christopher LongApril 25, 2016
On the surface, it appeared to be a simple question of style: should we spell out “and” or use the ampersand when referring to the College? But form and content are intertwined; no style presents…
Christopher LongMarch 3, 2016
Institutions of higher education across the country have long talked about diversity and inclusion. Many have established offices of equity or inclusion and hired staff to ensure that the institution is living up to its…
Christopher LongFebruary 14, 2016
In his inaugural address as president of the college he founded, Frederick Augustus Muhlenberg spoke of the values that animate the institution: "We do not regard an education as complete that aims only at improving the intellect,”…
Christopher LongFebruary 1, 2016
I have been owning up to this affliction in each of the introductory department meetings I have had with faculty across the College during my first semester as Dean. Of course, the more cynical among…
Christopher LongJanuary 12, 2016
“Symbols effect the translation of discourse into a course, a path.” Schürmann, Reiner. “Symbolic Difference.” The Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal 19/20, no. 2/1 (1997): 9–38, 33. It was early in the afternoon on November 21st,…
Christopher LongDecember 24, 2015
This was initially posted on Medium as part of my Writing Along the Way project. Engaged Scholarship To speak of “applied” scholarship is to divorce theory from practice in a way that impoverishes both. This,…
Christopher LongDecember 24, 2015
As a member of the Cultural Engagement Council at MSU, I've been thinking about how we might create a more coherent and integrated arts and cultural experience for students at the university. Drawing on my…
Christopher LongDecember 17, 2015
“On Touch and Life in the De Anima.” In Phenomenology and the Metaphysics of Sight, edited by Antonio Cimino and Pavlos Kontos, (Leiden: Brill Academic Publisher, 2015, 69-94). Although Aristotle is often thought to give…
Christopher LongDecember 15, 2015
Continuing my experiment in public writing along the way, this post on Medium outlines the contours of what I've been thinking about as "catalytic opportunities." Catalytic Opportunities I’ve begun thinking about strategic initiatives as catalytic.…
Christopher LongDecember 11, 2015
This post on Medium initiates an experiment in public writing designed to facilitate transparency and refine my thinking in relation to issues I face in my role as Dean of the College of Arts and…
Christopher LongDecember 6, 2015
Un-Keynote Address: The Writing in Digital Environments/Eastern Michigan Un-Conference, October 12, 2015.
Christopher LongOctober 12, 2015
Last week was the first week of the fall semester at Michigan State. It was my first opportunity to welcome new students to campus as Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. In order…
Christopher LongSeptember 7, 2015
The places we inhabit habituate us. The virtues they cultivate are grounded in the values they embody. In 1855, a natural opening in the oak forest of the Burr farm was selected as a fitting…
Christopher LongJuly 28, 2015
As I begin my tenure as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State University I find myself thinking of these lines adapted from Deuteronomy 6:10-12 by Peter Raible: "We build on…
Christopher LongJuly 1, 2015
The fog had receded when Danielle, Anne Marie, and Lisa moved out onto the back porch of the Inn at the Presidio to continue writing. I could hear their heated conversation unfolding below my second…
Christopher LongJune 14, 2015
We held the first Public Philosophy Journal Writing Workshop at the Inn at the Presidio this to facilitate the work of five collaborative projects. On episode 73 of the Digital Dialogue, each collaborative writing team joins me…
Christopher LongJune 12, 2015
It is probably fair to say that Will Altman and I met one another in my book Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy. Perhaps it is strange to think of a book as a place in…
Christopher LongJune 10, 2015
With the announcement that I would be recommended as Dean of the College of Arts and Letters at Michigan State, Val, the girls, and I entered a liminal space. I have long be drawn to the…
Christopher LongMay 25, 2015
My friend and colleague, Rick Lee (@rickleephilos), asked me to speak with his graduate teaching seminar at DePaul University about using technology to teach philosophy. Rick and I have a long history of conversations extending…
Christopher LongMay 1, 2015
By committing to take a picture of something beautiful I encountered in my life each day, I sought to see differently, to cultivate what might be called the habits of a quotidian aesthetics.
Christopher LongApril 6, 2015
The liberal arts have always given us powerful ways to study and understand the world we inhabit. The events in Ferguson call for a liberal arts approach because they are multidimensional. They require us to…
Christopher LongMarch 29, 2015
By the summer of 1954, the students at Penn State had grown impatient. The world had settled into a Cold War, the nuclear arms race threatened total annihilation, and the students felt unprepared to address…
Christopher LongFebruary 20, 2015
“Who Let the Dogs Out? Tracking the Philosophical Life Among the Wolves and Dogs of Plato’s Republic.” In Plato’s Animals: Gadflies, Snakes, Stingrays, Swans, and Other Philosophical Beasts, edited by Jeremy Bell and Michael Naas,…
Christopher LongFebruary 19, 2015
At the beginning of the Physics, Aristotle captures something of the essence of the liberal arts and sciences as an endeavor. This path from the surface of things to a deeper understanding of their nature…
Christopher LongFebruary 16, 2015
At Bucknell's Digital Scholarship Conference last fall, Zeynep Tufekci made a compelling case for public academic writing. Her keynote address, Researching Out Loud: Public Scholarship as a Process of Publishing Before and After Publishing, argued…
Christopher LongJanuary 25, 2015
I was asked to facilitate a discussion about productivity and administration with my Associate Dean colleagues on the Academic Council for Undergraduate Education (ACUE) at Penn State. Being something of a productivity geek, I jumped…
Christopher LongJanuary 19, 2015
In the winter of 1988, during my freshman year at Wittenberg University, I took Professor Warren Copeland’s Introduction to Ethics: Racism course. This course and its sister, Advanced Ethics: Racism, which I took the following…
Christopher LongJanuary 19, 2015
Here is the press release we wrote for the second Public Philosophy Journal grant from the Mellon Foundation: Penn State has been awarded $549,000 by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for an additional two years…
Christopher LongJanuary 9, 2015
There is nothing more fun to teach than Plato's dialogues. Whether they love him or hate him, the figure of Socrates Plato draws in his dialogues move students to think more deeply about their relationships…
Christopher LongJanuary 7, 2015
For three of the past four years (2011, 2013, 2014), I have posted one picture each day of something beautiful I encounter. The impetus behind the project was to cultivate an attentiveness to the beauty…
Christopher LongDecember 31, 2014
