Wim Weymans

‘I wish I could push ChatGPT off a cliff’: professors scramble to save critical thinking in an age of AI As AI has upended the way students learn, academics worry about the future of the humanities - and society at large

I'm one of many professors quoted in this report from Alice Speri. I really appreciate The Guardian taking an angle which has basically eluded every other major outlet.

Brüssel & Wien - tv.ORF.at tv.ORF.at: Robert Menasses Novelle „Die Lebensentscheidung“

Im Kultur.Montag (ORF2) geht es heute u.a. um das neue Buch von Robert Menasse, die Novelle "Die Lebensentscheidung"; der Autor ist auch zu Gast im Studio. tv.orf.at/program/orf2...

Ik kijk heel erg uit naar deze lezing van @tomwgvdmeer.bsky.social ! Ben je op 26 maart in Leuven of in de buurt, schrijf dan zeker in! 👇

Frederick Wiseman, Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, dies at 96 Frederick Wiseman, the celebrated director of “Titicut Follies” and dozens of other documentaries whose in-depth, unadorned movies comprised a unique and revelatory history of American institutions, died Monday at age 96.

Frederick Wiseman, the celebrated director of "Titicut Follies" and dozens of other documentaries whose in-depth, unadorned movies comprised a unique and revelatory history of American institutions, died Monday at age 96. https://to.pbs.org/3ZFuyLW

« L’histoire de la démocratie, ce n’est pas seulement l’histoire du suffrage universel »
Entretien avec Pierre Rosanvallon, réalisé par Simon Cottin-Marx et Julien Talpin.
shs.cairn.info/revue-mouvem...

📢 The Voting & Democracy Research Group is thrilled to invite you to a book talk by Professor Natasha Wunsch on her recent publication, “Democratic Commitment: Why Citizens Tolerate Democratic Backsliding”.

🗓️ 20 January 2026 at 2:00 p.m. in room FSW 03.155.
📝 Registration: lnkd.in/dQGFXSiJ

23 | 2025 Traditions, révolutions, imaginaires : repenser le commu... ThéoRèmes est une revue consacrée à la philosophie des sciences des religions

Le n° 23 de ThéoRèmes met à l'honneur Michel de Certeau, avec un dossier coordonné par @phlppgnzlz.bsky.social et Carlos Alvarez. En sus, ce n° inaugure une nouvelle rubrique, "Traductions", avec dix textes de W. E. B. Du Bois traduits et introduits par @jostavodebauge.bsky.social
Bonne lecture !

"[U]niversities are not tech companies. Our role is to foster critical thinking, not to follow industry trends uncritically."

Wider die Selbstgewissheit Raymond Geuss als anti-heroischer Philosoph im postmetaphysischen Zeitalter

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Theessay explores Raymond Geuss as an “anti-heroic” philosopher in our postmetaphysical age. Geuss rejects grand narratives, embracing skepticism & historical context over normative certainties.
#Philosophy #Geuss #PoliticalTheory #Philsky
das.ubernerden.com/ott-geuss.html

Ask a Political Scientist: A Conversation with Raymond Geuss on Realism, Liberalism, and Political Imagination | Polity: Vol 57, No 3

PIR’s Dr. Alicia Steinmetz recently published, “Ask a Political Scientist: A Conversation with Raymond Geuss on Realism, Liberalism, and Political Imagination.” Read it here: www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/...

Philosophy’s claim to universal truth is a “cultural artifact." In positing a Nietzschean genealogy to explore the violent origins of our concepts, our podcast of the week rejects any search for an abstract primordial reality.

With Raymond Geuss at @standrewsiih.bsky.social

buff.ly/oleBSEJ

Prof. Standaert in front of his first slide.

An large audience showed up.

This Thrusday, I was able to join Prof. Nicolas Standaert‘s emeritation lecture on “The Art of Turning Muddled” (難得糊塗). From challenges universities are facing over their achievements to his famous 4Vs, it felt like he really brought together insights from his whole career.

‘One Does Not Escape the Philosophy of History’: The Disenchantment of the World and the Nature of Man By Stéphane Vibert

New piece! Stéphane Vibert on the French philosopher Marcel Gauchet, his rejection of teleological history, and “otherness” as a core element of modernity and human sociality. Check it out!

Is Anti-totalitarian Theory Still Relevant? The Example of Claude Lefort - Dick Howard, 2023 After asking whether the concept of totalitarianism still has a meaning in today’s world, and whether its critique makes political sense, the author turns to th...

ICYMI: Dick Howard, 'Is Anti-totalitarian Theory Still Relevant? The Example of Claude Lefort' - asks if the concept of totalitarianism still has meaning in today’s world, then turns to Lefort’s attempts to understand totalitarianism over the past 60 years. journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Why, when, and how did #europeanvalues over their rivals as a tool to legitimize the European project? Find out in this new essay "Young and Ambivalent. A New Look at the Recent
Rise of European Values, Their History, Precursors and Critics" (open access) www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-...

New publication, open access: Happy to see this last and maybe most important article of my PhD research published. I argue that liberal democracies cannot require 'shared values', neither of migrants (only), as is the case for the integration requirement... (1/4)
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Het zoeken naar zondebokken zal de democratie blijvend beschadigen - Joop - BNNVARA Door groepen uit te sluiten en permanent verdacht te maken hanteren rechtspopulisten een totalitair middel dat de democratie blijvend zal beschadigen.

Bart Verheijen: Het zoeken naar zondebokken zal de democratie blijvend beschadigen www.bnnvara.nl/joop/artikel...

Quentin Skinner and the Contested History of Freedom Over a long career, Skinner has sought to reclaim the idea of republican liberty for the modern age. But his work also raises the question: free for what?

"Quentin Skinner has [focused on] the loss of a republican vision of freedom from domination, as opposed to modern & libertarian freedom from interference that prevails today. And yet he's never shown much interest in what freedom is for" - @samuelmoyn.bsky.social

www.thenation.com/article/poli...

Conflicting ideas of liberty The great scholar of intellectual history, Quentin Skinner, has set the terms for a debate that is only just beginning about what liberty looks like after liberalism.

The great scholar of intellectual history, Quentin Skinner, has set the terms for a debate that is only just beginning about what liberty looks like after liberalism.

Conflicting ideas of liberty | David Wootton

engelsbergideas.com/essays/confl...

Raymond Geuss, Storyteller — Sidecar Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025).

For Sidecar, Raymond Geuss remembers Alasdair MacIntyre:

'He was one of the very few anglophone philosophers of the past two hundred years whom one could imagine emerging from the pages of Plutarch or Diogenes Laertius.'

newleftreview.org/sidecar/post...

Congress has decided to claw back previously approved funding for public media.

This decision hurts people in communities across the country, but it has only strengthened our resolve to keep Americans informed and connected. (1/2)

Obituary: Sir Roger Norrington The pioneering conductor of the London Classical Players and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment has died, aged 91.

“It’s been very serious, but serious fun.” The conductor Sir Roger Norrington has died, aged 91.
bachtrack.com/news-roger-n...

Michel Foucault and Daniel Defert’s library 285 rue de Vaugirard – online catalogue soon available La bibliothèque de Michel Foucault et de Daniel Defert du 285 rue de Vaugirard Philippe Chevallier, Henri-Paul Fruchaud and colleagues have catalogued much of Foucault and Defert’s personal l…

Michel Foucault and Daniel Defert's library at 285 rue de Vaugirard - online catalogue soon available
progressivegeographies.com/2025/07/07/l...

The French Socialist Party sinks into the mire: tocqueville21.com/art-goldhamm...

Inside Asylum Appeals: Access, Participation and Procedure in Europe Appeals are a crucial part of Europe’s asylum system but they remain poorly understood. Building on insights and perspectives from legal geography and socio-legal studies, this book shines a light on ...

Another recent open-access book some will find interesting: Inside Asylum Appeals by Nick Gill and others. It's a comparative study involving observations of appeal hearings + research interviews covering Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Greece, Italy and the UK. www.routledge.com/Inside-Asylu...

[Event]
The Institut d'études européennes ULB welcomes you to the Book pre-launch Debate: 'What do judges do, and how do they perceive their role when democracy is under strain?'

June the 5th at 5pm.

L’historien Pierre Nora est mort Historien, maître d’œuvre des « Lieux de mémoire », publiés en sept volumes à partir de 1984, le créateur de la revue « Le Débat » est mort le 2 juin, à l’âge de 93 ans.

L’historien Pierre Nora est mort

The Hall of Uselessness by Simon Leys (NYRB, 2011)

A delight in the finest prose. Legendary Belgian sinologists on emptiness, claptrap from Western Maoists, Chesterton—democrat and thus journalist, Liu Xiaobo, the sea.

I return again and again.

4/🧵

#SaveTheDate
Le 26 mai 2025, nous explorons la désobéissance sous toutes ses formes, du Moyen Âge à nos jours !
10ᵉ journée d’étude #ModerNum à la KBR (Bruxelles).
Programme & inscriptions : modernum.hypotheses.org/je2025
#histoire #recherche #colloque

Colin Kidd · Dangerous Chimera: What is liberty? Whereas Isaiah Berlin saw no necessary connection between liberty and democracy, Quentin Skinner argues that...

‘Whereas Berlin saw no necessary connection between liberty and democracy, Skinner argues that representative democracy is the only form of governance that can guarantee liberty as independence: “No democracy, no liberty.”’

Colin Kidd on Quentin Skinner and liberty: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...