I’ve been a little quiet here lately as this very difficult semester comes to a close. It was healing yesterday to spend some time with Dr. Fauci before our MSU doctoral convocation. In his address…
Christopher LongMay 6, 2023
On Tuesday morning when I made my way to the sacred circle, past the resilient tree, to Linton Hall there was a silence such as I had never heard before. It was not the silence…
Christopher LongFebruary 18, 2023
A week that began with a nightmare, ended with a dream. The Nightmare On Tuesday morning, I received the call from my wife I've long dreaded—she said there was a 911 call about an active…
Christopher LongFebruary 12, 2023
This question, What does religion sound like?, inspired the creation of a remarkable collaborative project on Religious Sounds between Amy Derogatis of Michigan State University and Isaac Weiner at The Ohio State University. Yesterday, I…
Christopher LongJanuary 28, 2023
The only way to ensure that transformative culture change takes root and grows across higher education is to build coalitions within and across institutions and organizations with colleagues who are structurally positioned and values-oriented and…
Christopher LongJanuary 22, 2023
Since Thursday, I have been reflecting on the powerful keynote address Professor LeConté Dill gave at the 43rd Annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Unity Dinner. Drawing on King's insistence that "ower, properly understood, is…
Christopher LongJanuary 14, 2023
A new year brings new calls for a return to personal blogging as an antidote to the toxic and extractive systems of social media. Giving our attention and creative content to major social media corporations…
Christopher LongJanuary 7, 2023
As my eighth year at Michigan State University begins, I have been reflecting on the work we have done and the work that lies ahead. In many ways, this past semester and the next mark…
Christopher LongAugust 16, 2022
The news came early on July 5 in a text message from my friend Rick Lee: Richard J. Bernstein, our beloved teacher, died on July 4, 2022. In life, Bernstein taught and embodied a commitment…
Christopher LongJuly 16, 2022
On September 12, 2021, we remembered the life and legacy of Ted Loder, my stepfather, and long-time Senior Minister at First United Methodist Church of Germantown. In collaboration with my step-siblings, we created the montage…
Christopher LongSeptember 14, 2021
To the Class of 2025, Welcome to Michigan State University, to the College of Arts & Letters, and to the MSU Honors College! You begin your MSU journey at a time like no other. As…
Christopher LongAugust 31, 2021
Ted Loder, eloquent preacher, fierce advocate for justice, long-time minister of the First United Methodist Church in Germantown, and my beloved stepfather, died on Thursday, April 1, 2021. Ted always encouraged us to watch for…
Christopher LongApril 4, 2021
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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
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
@cplong: Advocacy for Open Access in the humanities is gaining momentum. I myself have committed to reviewing articles for Open Access journals and am working with colleagues to develop a new model of open access…
Christopher LongDecember 14, 2014
The print edition of my book, Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy: Practicing a Politics of Reading, has been ready since May, but I asked Cambridge to hold back its release until they completed development of…
Christopher LongNovember 23, 2014
The Public Philosophy Journal project has been animated from the beginning by the attempt to cultivate excellent habits of scholarly communication in a digital age. To do so will require finding ways to develop thick…
Christopher LongOctober 23, 2014
Recently I was asked by the editors of a journal whose mission and scholarship I support and respect to review a book by a scholar I very much admire. In the past, I would have…
Christopher LongOctober 19, 2014
Among its many affordances, Twitter can be a powerful public note taking tool. At the end of a rich and exhausting conference celebrating the work and teaching of Richard J. Bernstein, I used Twitter to…
Christopher LongSeptember 28, 2014
Today we embark upon an exciting new phase of the General Education reform process at Penn State. After more than a year of conversations and discussion, we are now in a position to engage in…
Christopher LongSeptember 21, 2014
Without diminishing the centrality of the PhD research endeavor, how can we cultivate more engaged graduate students? This presentation situates the graduate research endeavor in its wider institutional and public context and suggests two concrete…
Christopher LongSeptember 19, 2014
Whatever else can be said of the PhD endeavor, it is fraught with anxiety and self-doubt. Everyone associated with graduate education knows this, many of us from first-hand experience, but rarely do we discuss it,…
Christopher LongSeptember 2, 2014
It was paragraph three, section b) of the Contributor Publishing Agreement from Indiana University Press that gave me pause. In it I read that I would not be permitted to post the final published version…
Christopher LongAugust 13, 2014
To honor the work of Richard Bernstein and specifically his influence as a teacher at the New School for Social Research, Marcia Morgan and Jonathan Pickle invited a group of his former students to write…
Christopher LongJuly 6, 2014
One of the main affordances of the emergence of digital modes of scholarship in the humanities is the manner in which they have opened the question anew about the relationship between the content of humanities…
Christopher LongJune 23, 2014
Fifty-nine years ago today, on June 9, 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower addressed the centennial graduating class of Penn State, where his brother, Milton, was president of the university. Two things were on the President's mind…
Christopher LongJune 9, 2014
In his own essay on Kant's "What is Enlightenment?," Foucault ascribes to Baudelaire a modern attitude that captures well the spirit of Kant's public essay on enlightenment. For Baudelaire, according to Foucault, modernity is "an…
Christopher LongJune 4, 2014
As a discipline, philosophy is struggling to come to terms with the public affordances of social media. This is a bit surprising given that Socrates himself never shied away from publicly engaging those he encountered…
Christopher LongMay 26, 2014
At the Penn State General Education Spring 2014 retreat, we decided to begin anew with GenEd as we try to find ways to feasibly adopt a curriculum that would be animated by substantive integrative learning…
Christopher LongMay 18, 2014
In his famous 1784 essay, What is Enlightenment?, Kant identifies the activity of enlightenment with a certain way of being public. This post considers that essay as a performance of public philosophy, arguing that in…
Christopher LongMay 10, 2014
From time to time, I am called upon in my role as Associate Dean to welcome academic groups to campus. This afternoon, I had the opportunity to say a few words of welcome to philoSOPHIA:…
Christopher LongMay 1, 2014
This drawing from Mathew Paris (1217-1259), made famous more recently by Derrida's disquisition on it in The Postcard, appears in a 13th century manuscript that contains a series of fortune-telling tracts. Now, with the generous…
Christopher LongApril 20, 2014
The Information Technology unit at Penn State holds IT Matters breakfasts a few times a year. This semester I joined colleagues on stage to talk about my work and how it intersects with IT at…
Christopher LongApril 15, 2014
We at Penn State are engaged in an intense, ongoing and, in my view, very healthy dialogue about General Education reform. In order to integrate the research endeavor into the undergraduate experience, we ought to…
Christopher LongApril 10, 2014
Today is the Day of Digital Humanities 2014, an open community publication project designed to document digital humanities practices around the world. Throughout the day I will be posting content related to various facets of…
Christopher LongApril 8, 2014
To be published or to be read, that is the question scholars increasingly face. Although publications with reputable university presses or journals continue to be the cornerstone of the tenure and promotion process, many remain…
Christopher LongMarch 19, 2014
With the spring release of Socratic and Platonic Political Philosophy: Practicing a Politics of Reading, we are working hard to create the infrastructure for the online discussion the enhanced digital book will be designed to…
Christopher LongMarch 11, 2014
This experiment in academic public writing began with a compliment. In a Twitter conversation with @ProfessMoravec, I came across her Rationale for Academic Writing in Public in which she discusses how and why she has…
Christopher LongFebruary 20, 2014
The Chronicle of Higher Education recently published an article Susan Welch and I wrote about the data the College has collected since 1996 on the placement of our graduate students in the social sciences and…
Christopher LongFebruary 10, 2014
