The Rubicon has been crossed. I'm now on Twitter - @mnjrowlands

One might think that the beginning of a four month European 'Tour' would have been a better time to cross this particular Rubicon rather than 2-and-a-half months in - but there you go.

Better late than never, I suppose ...

Saturday 11th May, Philosophy on the Run, Wimbledon Common/Richmond Park, London – 10.00-17.00. 

http://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/pe-philosophyontherunwithmarkrowlands/

[SOLD OUT)

Sunday 12th May, ‘Running with the Pack’ (in conversation with Julian Baggini), Bristol Festival of Ideas, Bristol, 14.30

http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/2013/events/mark-rowlands/

Sunday 12th May, ‘Animals and Humans’, panel session with Miriam Darlington and Caspar Henderson, 17.30

http://www.ideasfestival.co.uk/2013/events/miriam-darlington-caspar-henderson-and-mark-rowlands/

Saturday 25th May, ‘Thinking the Unthinkable’, panel session with Hannah Dawson and Simon Saunders, How the Light Gets In, Hay-on-Wye, 12.00 p.m.

http://howthelightgetsin.org/2013-programme/event-tickets/debates-and-talks/#product-id-127

Sunday 26th May, ‘Catching Sight of Ourselves’, panel session with Peter Hacker and Colin Blakemore, How The Lights Gets In, Hay-on-Wye, 13.15

http://howthelightgetsin.org/2013-programme/event-tickets/debates-and-talks/#product-id-170

Sunday 26th May, ‘Can Animal Be Moral? How The Lights Gets In, Hay-on-Wye, 18.00

http://howthelightgetsin.org/2013-programme/event-tickets/debates-and-talks/#product-id-182

Wednesday 29th May, ‘Running with the Pack’, Hay Festival of Literature and the Arts, Hay-on-Wye, 11.30

http://www.hayfestival.com/p-6131-mark-rowlands.aspx

I'll be involved several events at the How The Light Gets In Festival in Hay-on-Wye next month. I'll be talking about my recent book, Can Animals Be Moral? And I'll also be participating in two panel sessions, one on the nature of the self, and the other on what happens when we run up against the limits of thought. Details can be found here and here and here. 

Full details of (the second half of) the UK Running with the Pack festivities to follow shortly.

Here is Miranda Sawyer's review of Running with the Pack (and also of Alexandra Heminsley's Running Like a Girl - which sounds great) which came out in The Observer last month.  

Here you will find me talking with Nigel Warburton for his well known podcast series, Philosophy Bites. The topic is running and philosophy, and we were talking during the Words by the Water literature festival held in Keswick in March.

I don't have one. I know I really should, but I don't. Maybe one day soon I'll get round to it, but as of yet I haven't. So, I'm really grateful to some extraordinarily generous soul who - as was recently brought to my attention - has set up a Facebook page in my name and, between you and me, done a better job of maintaining it than I ever would. The only down side is that some might think me rude that I never reply to any comments or questions. Now you know why. 

Running with the Pack will be published on March 7th – with Granta, the publishers of The Philosopher and the Wolf. The launch coincided with a scheduled (and, needless to say, very well-earned) sabbatical from the University of Miami, and before I knew it I found myself on a tour of the UK: split between March and May (in between I’ll be spending a month at the École Normale Supérieure in Lyon, where I’ll be Visiting Professor). I’ll post details of the March schedule as soon as they have been finalized.

I’m looking forward to going back to Oxford at the end of March – I spent a couple of very happy years there in the late 1980s doing my doctorate, and haven't really been back very much since. I’ll be writer-in-residence at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival, and will be giving two talks there – one on Running with the Pack and the other on The Philosopher and the Wolf. 

And, in May, I’m very much looking forward to appearing at the Telegraph Hay Festival. I grew up only around thirty miles away, but it will be the first time I’ve visited the area in the same number of years.

One last thing – if anyone does have a ticket for the Wales-England game in Cardiff on March 16th, and might be willing to part with said ticket for an agreed price, please do let me know

Anyway, here is the March schedule, as it currently stands. I apologize for posting it so late - the precise details have been in flux until now. 

Monday 4th March

7.00 p.m. Waterstone’s Piccadilly (Guest of Serpentine Running Club), London, UK (SOLD OUT)

Wednesday 6th March

12.00 p.m. Book Signing, Toppings and Co., The Paragon, Bath

1.00 p.m.        Bath Festival (Guildhall), Bath, UK

http://www.bathlitfest.org.uk/

7.00pm           The School of Life, London, UK

http://www.theschooloflife.com/shop/runningandphilosophywithmarkrowlands/

(SOLD OUT)

Saturday 9th March

3.45pm           Words by the Water, Keswick, UK

http://www.wayswithwords.co.uk/uploads/festivals/brochures/68.pdf

Monday 11th March

7.15 p.m. Run and Become, Edinburgh

http://run.runandbecome.com/event/edinburgh-running-with-the-pack-book-event/?COLLCC=1571007198

and

http://nvaspeedoflight.org.uk/page/45/Book+Event

 (SOLD OUT)

Thursday 14th March

7.00 p.m. John Pounds Church

http://portsmouththoughtrowlands.eventbrite.co.uk/

Saturday 16th March – Sunday 24th March

Writer-in-Residence at the Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

Thursday 21st March

10.00 a.m. Oxford Literary Festival: Running with the Pack

http://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-events-2013/Thursday-21/running-with-the-pack-on-meaning-and-mortality

(SOLD OUT)

Saturday 23rd March

2.00 p.m. Oxford Literary Festival: The Philosopher and the Wolf

http://oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-events-2013/Saturday-23/philosopher-and-the-wolf-lessons-from-wild-on-love-death-and-happiness

(SOLD OUT)

My tour of the UK - to go with the launch of Running with the Pack - begins early next month. Details to follow shortly ...

Here is a piece of mine that came out recently in Aeon Magazine.

Here is an article in Live Science, talking about Can Animals be Moral? (I should add that I'm not a scientist, and I didn't argue that we have moral obligations to animals because they can act morally -  our obligations have an entirely different source).

Here is an interview that came out in 3 am Magazine earlier this year.

Douglas Adams had the Babel Fish. It’s the Tardigrade that did it for me.

Not knowing any better, you would almost certainly guess Doctor Who, sometime in the mid-seventies, probably the Jon Pertwee tenure, with an outside chance of Tom Baker. It’s coming to the end of the series and the costume department has run out of money, so they drape a sheet over something, stick a gas mask on it, and make it into the principal alien villain for the next episode or two. 

Put yourself in the mind of God. You’ve created the heavens and earth, and all the creatures that runneth, walketh, flyeth, swimmeth and slittereth therein/on. And now you've found out you have to do the bloody microorganisms too! Look, it’s Saturday night, you’re shagged out, and your mind is already on tomorrow’s well-earned rest. Clearly, you’re entitled to a half-arsed job. After all no one will ever notice, will they?

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Tartigrade: the most compelling evidence of intelligent, if rather lazy, design there is.