Caleb Ward
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calebw.bsky.social
Caleb Ward
@calebw.bsky.social
Social and political philosophy, feminism and social change, almost done with a book on the philosophy of Audre Lorde

Postdoc at Uni Hamburg
Photo by Frank Ward, 1999
https://www.calebward.xyz/
This is funny, and I'll add that Alfred North Whitehead's Process and Reality proves horseshoe theory, but for continental and analytic philosophy
November 25, 2025 at 10:00 PM
Not everyone has a lawyer, but even those who don't can be like Audre Lorde on this one (this from her FBI file)
November 25, 2025 at 7:33 PM
This made me laugh. HBD!
November 22, 2025 at 8:06 AM
I mean, rule of law blah blah blah, but this is obviously outrageous given how publicly obvious corruption has been over the past year. But also:
November 21, 2025 at 8:08 AM
Just spent a couple hours talking about Audre Lorde's erotic with an awesome student-led research group at FU Berlin on love/friendship and political action.

We read some of her erotic poetry too, and listened to her read it. I had a little epiphany about the first four lines of this poem 🧄
November 20, 2025 at 12:54 PM
Oh look, some good news for holding accountable transnational corporations. Nice when a week starts with humanity beating out profit.

From the weekly global newsletter by @shamjaff.bsky.social, which you should probably just subscribe to
November 17, 2025 at 8:43 AM
Already got feedback on "Hot for Revolution", and the chapter is almost ready to go out as a preprint. I'm presenting it in the Emotion & Society Lab work-in-progress series in a couple weeks if you want to read it and talk about it with me 🤗

Info below and at emotionandsociety.substack.com
November 14, 2025 at 8:00 AM
Here's some material on Lorde's theory of power (this material is consecutive and i've marked the order in alt-text)
November 12, 2025 at 10:52 AM
November 12, 2025 at 9:55 AM
"People aren't just hot for revolution because they eroticize change. People are hot for revolution because change is the condition of possibility for regaining agency over their sexual & erotic lives, which have been exploited & usurped by a hostile society."

I'm gonna finish this chapter today!
November 10, 2025 at 12:28 PM
Here’s some important news I learned from @shamjaff.bsky.social’s global newsletter today: Australia secretively shipping people for indefinite detention in Nauru

This world sucks sometimes, but this newsletter is great, and you should sign up for it.
November 10, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Just want to note that closed captioning on zoom writes “herbivore” for “de Beauvoir”
November 7, 2025 at 7:44 PM
Thoughts on "rigorous" philosophy:

I'm back at the 6th Roundtable for Black Feminist & Womanist Theory, listening to Bailey Thomas introduce the event as "a space grounded not in hierarchy, but in care, collaboration, & rigor."

Time's ripe to reclaim "rigor" as a demand we make of philosophy 1/
November 6, 2025 at 3:31 PM
Looks like Marie Kondo is a good place to start
November 6, 2025 at 10:38 AM
This is gonna be fun. APA symposium on my master‘s tools paper!
November 6, 2025 at 10:30 AM
This snippet from a French news story perfectly highlights the automatism of the criminal justice system:

Damaging your cell door is prosecuted as a crime, but police can legally smash down your door & shoot your dog while executing a warrant, even if they find nothing.
November 6, 2025 at 8:45 AM
Have any feminists out there read Abdullah Öcalan, the Kurdish anarchist freedom fighter? I knew Rojava in Syria was supposedly a feminist state, but actually reading Öcalan is wild... he's straight up a radical feminist.

"Masculinity must be killed"😮 👇
November 5, 2025 at 3:09 PM
Lorde concludes: "That's true of the city. I think that's true about anything that is both onerous & vital. I see the city as those two polarities. Very much, very much."

I want us to watch NYC spark those polarities again, show the places of both our power & strain! Very much. Very much. 🌩️
November 4, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Lorde's 1974 book New York Head Shop & Museum has some of the most powerful NYC poems I've read, including amazing jeremiads like "Cables to Rage"👇
November 4, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Hi NYC👋 I think about you so much, imagining Audre Lorde in Harlem & Staten while my grandparents & then my mom carved out life in the Bronx in the 30s–60s.

Here's to New York City and what Lorde calls its "doses of truth—that particular form of annihilation" that is NYC's regional delicacy. 🍎
...
November 4, 2025 at 10:21 AM
Basically I'm trying to win the trust of the reader that I won't waste your time with "This makes me think of this other text that you probably haven't read, but I have." We'll see if it works.

I give a lot of long Lorde quotes in the notes from hard to find sources, and also analysis like these 👇
November 3, 2025 at 1:55 PM
Gonna use this formatting, even if it means OUP bans me for life
November 3, 2025 at 1:30 PM
This is literally the SS page in the 1940 NSDAP party handbook. If I may hammer home my point: the book includes hundreds of pages of costume guidelines for all levels of society, and then 10 pages at the end with blood quantum rules, including laws for intermarriage among "Mischlinge"
October 31, 2025 at 1:23 PM
A fantastic show last night, had me tipping my head back in meditation & reconsidering many of my life priorities.

I realized I saw these two in Philly in 2005 too… here’s the 2025 version
October 31, 2025 at 11:28 AM
Remember folks, there’s no difference between cosplaying as a fascist and being a fascist. Cosplaying is essential to fascism
October 31, 2025 at 10:46 AM