Crooked Timber

For the album by Therapy?, see Crooked Timber (album).

Crooked Timber is a widely read left-of-centre political blog run by a group of (mostly) academics from and working in several different nations, including the United States, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia and Singapore. The name alludes to a quotation of Immanuel Kant:

Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made.

History

Crooked Timber was founded in July 2003 as a merger of several individual blogs, including Junius and Gallowglass, along with some new contributors. Additional members were added over subsequent months until the group reached an agreed optimum of 15 members.

Crooked Timber ranked in Technorati's Top 100 blogs between 2003 and 2005 and is still widely linked to in the academic blogosphere. On March 9, 2008, it was listed as number 33 in The Guardian's list of the world's 50 most important blogs. On April 15, 2011, an article on academic blogs in The New York Times listed Crooked Timber as one of seven influential examples of the type, describing it as having "built a reputation as an intellectual global powerhouse".

The quotation "Out of the crooked timber of humanity no straight thing was ever made" (Aus so krummem Holze, als woraus der Mensch gemacht ist, kann nichts ganz Gerades gezimmert werden) is from Kant's Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Purpose. The liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin alluded to the quotation in The Crooked Timber of Humanity: Chapters in the History of Ideas.

Crooked Timber has held several online book events, during which a subset of members (and often also invited guestbloggers) read a book and each write a blog post about it, either a review or a post inspired by the book.

Current members

Name	Occupation
Chris Bertram	Political philosopher at the University of Bristol, UK
Michael Bérubé	Professor of American literature and cultural studies at Pennsylvania State University
Harry Brighouse	Political philosopher at the University of Wisconsin, Madison
Daniel Davies	Banker; former stockbroker and economist
Henry Farrell	Political scientist at George Washington University
Maria Farrell	Director of Information Coordination, ICANN
Niamh Hardiman	Senior Lecturer at University College Dublin
Eszter Hargittai	Sociologist at Northwestern University
Kieran Healy	Sociologist at Duke University
John Holbo	Philosopher at the National University of Singapore
Jon Mandle	Political philosopher at SUNY Albany
Scott McLemee	Writer, Inside Higher Education
John Quiggin	Economist at the University of Queensland, Australia
Tedra Osell	Freelance editor, California
Ingrid Robeyns	Political Philosopher at the Erasmus University Rotterdam
Corey Robin	Political Theorist at Brooklyn College
Belle Waring	Trained as a Classicist at Berkeley; living in Singapore
Brian Weatherson	A philosopher at The University of Michigan

Former members

Name	Occupation
Ted Barlow	Economic consultant in Houston, TX
Tom Runnacles	Software developer in the city of London, previously studied philosophy at Oxford University
Micah Schwartzman	Professor at the University of Virginia School of Law

External links

• Crooked Timber