00:00:00.080Hi everybody, this is Gad Saad. I just returned yesterday from a speaking engagement in L.A. at the Jewish American Summit, a wonderful event.
00:00:11.180They will have my talk hopefully ready soon so I can upload it and share it with you.
00:00:16.580but today i want to spend a few minutes talking about this apparent reversal brain drain that's
00:00:24.980taking place where the canadian government is poaching i think 64 academics from u.s-based
00:00:32.720schools to canada to the cost of 504 million dollars that's some pretty impressive
00:00:41.680investment in top scholars, and I think they're receiving something like a million dollars
00:00:48.920per year for eight years or something, so these must be true luminaries.
00:00:55.240I quickly checked, sorry, I have a bit of a cold, so that's why I'm swallowing.
00:01:02.220In any case, I thought, okay, well, let me look at some of these folks, and it's
00:01:07.680the typical stuff, climate change and social justice and inequity and human geography and so
00:01:18.460on. It's all victimology, victimology, identity politics, a lot of them were at least. But then
00:01:24.540I came through to one that really suggests that Canada is on to something really big here.
00:01:31.180it's about a trans philosopher so this person who is a trans woman themselves
00:01:39.340has founded a discipline called trans philosophy so you know there's philosophy of science there
00:01:47.860is logic that could be part of philosophy there is all kind continental philosophy there's you
00:01:54.340know Aristotle is a philosopher Socrates was a philosopher Wittgenstein is a philosopher
00:01:59.820Thomas Kuhn is a philosopher, Plato is a philosopher, but then there's also trans
00:02:05.080philosophy, which is part of, you know, queer epistemology. And so I went to, so this person0.88
00:02:13.520is going to be at the University of Waterloo, which is, as I've mentioned previously, and as I
00:02:19.940discuss in this book right here, Suicidal Empathy, is a premier Canadian university in engineering and
00:02:26.180computer science they recently had two positions for canada research chairs which are the highest
00:02:33.620most prestigious uh professorships that the canadian government endowed and they were looking
00:02:38.460for ai researchers and computer scientists but they had to be either trans gender fluid
00:02:47.060two-spirit non-binary and so on then i'm not being hyperbolic or i'm not being satirical this is
00:02:56.080This was the official requirement by University of Waterloo.
00:03:03.040Okay, so University of Waterloo decided to poach this person.
00:03:20.080the person in question is Dr. Talia Boettcher who will be leading this new program of trans
00:03:31.960philosophy creating a more inclusive and kind world where trans people feel more accepted and
00:03:40.880so on and so I went to Dr. Boettcher's Google Scholar page by the way you should go and check
00:03:46.900her Google Scholar metrics. And here I'm being respectful by referring to this person as her.
00:03:56.100What is trans philosophy? This is the title of the article. It's in Hypatia or Hypatia. I'm not
00:04:03.580sure how you pronounce it. In this article, I explored a question, what is trans philosophy,
00:04:09.000by reviewing trans philosophy as a contribution to the field of trans studies. This requires
00:04:15.780positioning the question vis-a-vis Judith Butler's notion of philosophy's other, that is the
00:04:22.760philosophical work done outside of the boundaries of professional philosophy, as trans studies has
00:04:29.260largely grown from this other. It also requires taking seriously Susan Stryker's distinction
00:04:35.960between the mere study of trans phenomena and trans studies as the coming to academic voice
00:04:42.560of trans people. Finally, it requires thinking about the types of questions that emerge when
00:04:49.080philosophy is placed within a multidisciplinary context. One, what does philosophy have to offer?
00:04:55.380Two, given that philosophy typically does not use data, what grounds philosophical claims
00:05:01.640about the world? Three, what is the relationship between philosophy and the quote, the literature?
00:05:08.220In an attempt to answer these questions, I examine the notion of philosophical perplexity and the relation of philosophy to the everyday.0.64
00:05:18.480Rather than guiding us to perplexity, I argue trans philosophy attempts to eliminate trans experiences in an everyday that is confusing and hostile.0.69
00:05:30.360alternative socialities are required I argue in order to make trans philosophy possible0.98
00:05:39.260this looks like it's going to be a fantastic return on investment for Canada I so regret
00:05:46.580having left Canada because I could have had such wonderful colleagues within the Canadian ecosystem