Regular

For 2021, I’ve decided to refresh my website. As a result, I will no longer be maintaining redlibrarian.github.io as of January 1, 2021. I’m going to leave the blog up so that all the posts remain available. After January 1, 2021 new blog posts, etc, will be available at spopowich.ca....

In political thought — which generally means liberal political thought — there is a tendency to “unmark” or play down political orientations that are unethical, unpopular, or are simply meant to be taken for granted. For example, in John Rawls’ Theory of Justice (1971), a book which revitalized liberal thinking...

I spend a lot of time critiquing the concept of intellectual freedom, but I rarely if ever try to articulate what alternative conception I think would be better suited to librarianship. One of the ways I think intellectual freedom is undertheorized is that, while many commentators and scholars debate the...

In the last blog post, I criticized the idea that Intellectual Freedom is an origin. Intellectual Freedom as origin is mixed confusingly with Intellectual Freedom as outcome, which can also be criticized from a social justice perspective. But I want to stay on the topic of IF as origin here,...

One thing I’ve figured out in my research on intellectual freedom is that two competing notions are hidden beneath what is presented as a clearly defined legal and moral concept. Intellectual freedom can be understood as both an origin - something which naturally pertains to individuals, must be protected and...