Welcome to blackthumb.org.uk, homepage of Robert Farrow.
I currently work as a researcher on the Mobile Technologies in Lifelong Learning (MOTILL) project at the Institute of Educational Technology (Open University). Prior to joining the O.U. I taught philosophy at the University of Essex, where I am finishing my PhD thesis. During my time at Essex I also worked as Editorial Office Manager for the journal Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. My previous employers include the National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (NALDIC) and the Association of Charity Shops, where I was Research, Policy and Information Officer.
My research interests are primarily in ethics, social and political philosophy, and philosophical anthropology. My PhD work is concerned with the normative idea of 'social pathology', particularly as explored in contemporary critical theory. I am particularly interested in the importance of autonomy in lifelong learning, and the relationship between autonomy and technology.
I am an Associate Member of the Higher Education Academy.
PhD Philosophy (expected 2009)
Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice
MA Continental Philosophy
BA (Hons) Philosophy
Site news: 30th August 2009 23rd June 2009 30th March 2009 26th February 2009 8th February 2009 6th February 2009 26th November 2008 5th October 2008 3rd October 2008 16th August 2008 24th July 2008 1st June 2008
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If you're looking for news of a more philosophical nature, see the archive at my Wordpress blog, which includes recent calls for papers.
Robert Farrow Recent CV
I studied analytic philosophy and literature at the University of Kent at Canterbury and continental philosophy at the University of Essex. I have been a research student there since 2004, and will soon be submitting a Ph.D thesis entitled "Communication, Recognition and Social Pathology: Normative Paradigms in Critical Theory", supervised by Prof. Peter Dews. My philosophical interests are in moral and political philosophy, with a specific focus on normative theories of intersubjectivity and communication. I also have interests in applied ethics, especially bioethics, abortion and euthanasia. Most recently I have been working on the relationship between autonomy and technology.
My most recent employers include Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy, where I was editorial office manager; and the University of Essex, where I taught undergraduate philosophy for three years.
I have published productively both in print and online. I am a member of the National Union of Journalists, and have provided copy for articles on music, film, regional history and social issues.
I occasionally work on a freelance basis as a researcher & writer, and as a web developer. I have expertise in:
I work with Adobe CS3 Professional, HTML, MS FrontPage/Expression, XML and PHP to create websites that are fully compliant with W3C standards. All print jobs are provided in high quality Adobe Portable Document File (pdf) for a professional finish.
If you'd like me to work on your project, get in touch for an informal discussion and/or a quote.
Research Publications
“Adorno”, “Habermas” and “The Frankfurt School/Critical Theory” in The Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy (Continuum Press, forthcoming 2009)
“European Constitutionalism and 'Retrospective' Legitimacy” (Sep 2007) (Democracy and Knowledge Programme). Available from http://www.iphils.uj.edu.pl/democracy/?p=papers
“The Wicker Man: games of truth, anthropology and the death of ‘man’”. metaphilm.com(Jun 2005). Available from http://metaphilm.com/philm.php?id=426_0_2_0
“Benchmarking” Quarterly Market Analysis Reports 9-17, 20 (Jan-Mar 2001 – Jan-Mar 2004) (London: Association of Charity Shops)
“Sequential Market Analysis 1998 – 2003” (London: Association of Charity Shops, 2003)
“Annual Charity Shops Survey”, Charity Finance (as researcher) (London: Plaza Publishing, 2002)
Editorial
Issues 48.5-51.5 inclusive (2016 pp.). Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy [ISSN 1502-3923/0020-174X](Wakefield: Routledge/Taylor and Francis, 2005-2008) (as Office Manager)
Issue 1 (Spring 2008) Rebus: An International Journal of Art History http://www2.essex.ac.uk/arthistory/rebus/ (as Web Editor)
Peter Dews, An Idea of Evil (London: Blackwell, 2007) (ISBN 9781405117043) (as Research & Editorial Assistant)
Vols. 3-4, Essex Human Rights Review (ISSN 1756-1957) http://projects.essex.ac.uk/ehrr/ (as Web Editor)
National Association for Language Development in the Curriculum (NALDIC): Complete audit of the Initial Teacher Training for Speakers of English as Another Language (ITTSEAL) website at http://www.naldic.org.uk/ITTSEAL2/index.cfm (Sep 2005)
Web Design / Webmaster
Open University: Mobile Technologies in Lifelong Learning (Jul 2009)
MOTILL UK Research Blog (Jun 2008)
Sarah Homes Chirology (Aug 2008)
Re.bus: An Online Journal of Art History (Jun 2008)
blackthumb (research blog, 2005-2009)
Introduction to Philosophy (teaching blog, 2007-present)
Essex Human Rights Review (2006-2007)
Layer Marney (band website) (Aug 2007)
Neil Hannah PR (Aug 2005)
Sample Graphic Design
Promotional Flyer, Sarah Homes Chirology (2008) pdf
Programme, "Philosophy Post-1968" (2008) pdf
Call for Papers, "200 Years of the Phenomenology of Spirit" (2007) pdf
Programme, "200 Years of the Phenomenology of Spirit" (2007) pdf
Wall calendar for Inquiry pdf
Select Journalism
“Looking Closer: Ascott House” and "Sons of Bedfordshire: Daniel Albone“ in Discover Bedfordshire (6) (Autumn 2005) (Luton: JNB Publishing)
"Is There No Alternative?" Luton at Large (Aug 2005) (Luton: JNB Publishing)
“Corporate Heaven”, "Go Fish!", "Sons of Bedfordshire: Joseph Paxton“ and “Looking Closer: Luton Town Hall” in Discover Bedfordshire (5) (Summer 2005) (Luton: JNB Publishing) http://www.discoverbedfordshire.co.uk/article.php?issueopen=5&id=37
“Rambling on: Walks of Bedfordshire” and “The Spirit of Carnival” in Discover Bedfordshire (4) (Spring 2005) (Luton: JNB Publishing) http://www.discoverbedfordshire.co.uk/article.php?issueopen=4&id=30
“Set Europe Ablaze!” (Tempsford Air Base) in Discover Bedfordshire (3) (Winter 2004) (Luton: JNB Publishing)
“Is Luton really ‘crap’? A Response to The Idler” Luton at Large (Nov 2004) (Luton: JNB Publishing)
COMING SOON
People often ask me for advice on fixing their computers and resolving IT problems, so I made this page to keep this information in a handy place. If you're somebody who experiences problems with their PC, you might find something useful here too.
Too many people are still paying too much money for software when there are many freeware and open source packages available. Here is a list of FREE software that I recommend for private use. It's often a lot better than the premium equivalent.
All of these programs do a great job at keeping your computer and its contents safe, keeping things running smoothly, and improving your productivity.
Firefox - If you're still using Internet Explorer now's the time to stop. You're putting your machine at risk and the limited user experience of IE doesn't justify it. Mozilla Firefox is a free, customisable, innovative and secure web browser. Once you adapt it to your needs, you'll never go back: it's faster, more secure and it doesn't try to take over your PC.
Useful FireFox add-ons - Adblock, Download Helper, Greasemonkey, Zotero
Thunderbird - Mozilla's email client offers a welcome alternative to MS Outlook.
There seems to be little point in paying for an expensive anti-virus program when regularly updated, secure and free alternatives abound. So cancel that subscription and save yourself a few beans.
Avira - I've never had any problems with this anti-virus program, which combines email protection, spyware and malware protection with a scanning system and firewall. The standard version is free, but business licences are reasonably priced. Once a day you get a desktop ad asking whether you want to upgrade to premium, but it's a small price to pay for a free and reliable antivirus program. An alternative free anti-virus is AVG, which is a popular program. I used to use it, but after having problems integrating it into the outgoing email scanner in Outlook I don't think it's as user friendly as Avira.
SpyBot - A highly regarded malware scanner, SpyBot can fix problems with system internals (Registry), Winsock LSPs, ActiveX objects, browser hijackers and BHOs, PUPS, cookie trackers, heavy duty, homepage hijackers, keyloggers, LSP, tracks, trojans, spybots, revision, and other kinds of malware. The Tea-Timer warning system lets you know whenever something fishy is happening.
Ad-Aware - Ad-Aware is a similar program to SpyBot, but it's worth using both just in case the malware definitions from one are more up to date than the other. They will run nicely next to each other.
VLC Player - If you're tired of problems with Windows Media Player, consider switching to VLC as soon as possible. It handles any file type you throw at it and doesn't try to scan your PC or bring you to a shop. A really nice bit of software that does what it says on the tin.
Irfanview - Replace the Windows picture viewer with this lightning fast non-commercial image viewer. Clean and functional.
CCleaner - Remove ununsed system and browser files and scan your registry for problems just by emptying the recycling bin.
Treesize - Provides a visual representation of space on your hard drive so you can see where it has all got to through an intuitive Windows Explorer interface.
CutePDF - No need for Adobe Acrobat when you can print to standard Portable Document Format (PDF) for free with this. Be sure to install Ghostscript too for it to work.
Help & Manual - Write your own interactive help files.
Free alternatives to Microsoft Office have really come on as of late.
OpenOffice - OpenOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office. You can use it to produce documents, spreadsheets, presentations and databases, all of which are files compatible with Microsoft standards. If you've used programs from the Office Suite, you'll have no problems using these. You can sometimes use these programs to recover data from corrupted files that Microsoft programs can't read.
LaTeX - LaTeX is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting. It is most often used for medium-to-large technical or scientific documents but it can be used for almost any form of publishing. LaTeX works by defining styles rather than having you manually word process every grapheme: so no more tearing your hair trying to get that paragraph to align correctly. You might also want to try LEd.
Most PCs come shipped with Microsoft Windows installed 'for free'. Except it's not really free, since the cost of the licence is figured into the cost of the machine. The place of Windows as the standard operating system is how Microsoft got so rich. Howver, truly free operating systems are becoming more widespread.
This is because the systems themselves are becoming viable competitors. Earlier version of Linux weren't too appealing to the casual user because of their code-based command system. Later versions are much more user-friendly. My favourite of the recent builds is Ubuntu, an integrated operating system packed with features. Its small size will make you wonder what Windows is full of.
Although I like Ubuntu, I'm not ready to make the transition to Linux just yet. But if, like me, you have a spare PC lying around, consider installing a free operating system on it and learning how to use it: you could save yourself a lot of cash in the future.
This page is provided for information only. If you have any questions or would like to recommend some software, just get in touch!
