In the winter semester of 2009, I took Philosophy of Mind, an undergraduate course, with the late Prof. Bernard Hodgson (1946-2009) at Trent University. Prof. Hodgson sadly passed away very soon after delivering the final lecture for the course. He was a very pleasant and engaging speaker and after his general outline of the course,…
Category: Academia
Three Teachers
I have been lucky to have had many great teachers during my academic life and mentors who continue to enrich my intellectual pursuits. In this post, I want to write about only three of them. The first is Graham Fulton. When I first met him, he was a psychology professor at University College Sedaya International…
My Days in Leiden
During the year I spent in Leiden (2015-16) I did almost nothing that would count as academic productivity. In fact I cannot think of any other postdoctoral researcher, who I have met or have heard of, less productive than me during that year. It wasn’t that I didn’t have ideas. I had many ideas, enough…
Experimental Psychology of Culture
It is, for understandable reasons, difficult to hear, ‘What you’re doing is not what you think/say it is.’ A message like this is not likely to evoke a friendly response; it is unlikely to be seen as a friendly remark. In essence, the message does not deny the activity—’Yes, you are doing something’—but rather denies…
Finding Your Passion in Psychology: A Method of Study
It is common for senior undergrads or post-grads in Psychology to lose their interest. They forget why they had decided to enter into Psychology in the first place. Even when (or perhaps especially because) they get involved in a line of research, they might become cynical, practical, confused, mirroring the attitude of many of their…