Congratulations to Maria Kulp (Gonzaga University) on her team’s award to offer a series of workshops on the topic of “Demystifying Death.” Interest in the workshops has grown a lot! After assuming there would be about 20 participants following the initial offering, the series is now attracting 60 regular participants.
11/13 - Philosophy and Fascism online event
On Thursday, November 13th at 3:00 PM EST, PPN is hosting a webinar on Philosophy and Fascism. What role has philosophy played in the rise of fascism, historically, and how does it differ from the role that philosophy has played in mainstream conservative movements? How should we understand the features of the contemporary scene that people sometimes describe as fascist? What role should philosophy play in stemming the tide of fascism? Philosophers Anna Gotlib (Brooklyn College) and Mark Norris Lance (Georgetown University) and intellectual historian Emily Jones (University of Manchester) join the Public Philosophy Network for an online discussion.
You can register for a link here. You can also find a flyer below. Please share with anyone you think might be interested. Looking forward to a good, timely discussion.
10/29 - Screening and discussion of The Bowl
It’s philosophy movie night! This October 29th, at 6:00 PM Pacific / 9:00 PM Eastern, we’re hosting a free online screening and discussion of the new documentary The Bowl, which follows a team of six North Carolina high school girls and their teacher as they prepare for and compete in the National High School Ethics Bowl. The team takes on some of the toughest questions facing society – the global prison complex, artificial intelligence, sex education, drug policy, and more. It explores the bonds we form when we reason together about what matters. You can find out more about the movie and check out the trailer here.
The discussion will be led by Kyle Robertson, founder and director of the Northern California High School Ethics Bowl and organizer of San Quentin State Prison’s Ethics Bowl program.
Register here for a link!
Check out the flyer below! Invite literally anyone!
Many, many thanks to the University of Lethbridge’s Critical Thinking and Civic Engagement Lab and the Jarislowsky Network for their financial support!
PPN's 2025 election results!
The results of PPN’s 2025 elections are in! Please join me in welcoming our new Treasurer, Stephen Kekoa Miller, and our new and returning board members, Adam Briggle, Carolina Flores, Crystal L’Hote, and Elise Woodard! These are some really excellent, high-energy public philosophers - PPN is lucky to have them in leadership.
Thanks to this year's nominating committee (Abe Matthew, Alexia Papigiotis, and Justin Shin) for recruiting a great slate of candidates, and thanks to our members for voting! The organization is in good hands.
PPN Summer 2025 Events Sponsorships
The Public Philosophy Network is offering awards of up to $1000, as well as promotional support, to philosophers organizing public philosophy events.
Applications will close on Wednesday, October 1st, 2025: APPLY HERE!
Events can be public-facing work with communities outside of academic philosophy, or they can be events for public philosophers themselves. Early career philosophers, philosophy students, and philosophers working both inside and outside of academia are all encouraged to apply!
PPN is open to sponsoring a broad range of events, but applicants should consider how their proposals relate to PPN's mission: "to support philosophers who use their concepts and skills to serve communities outside of academia and to make positive changes in society; to reflect on how philosophy is transformed by various types of public engagement; [and] to support institutional changes supportive of publicly engaged work."
Past PPN events may provide some additional guidance. Applicants proposing public-facing events should also consider PPN’s best practices for public philosophy events.
Only current PPN members are eligible to apply. Become a PPN member on our website.
Please feel encouraged to share this call. If you have any questions, reach out to Jana McAuliffe, chair of the PPN Events committee, at jxmcauliffe@ualr.edu or Ian Olasov, President of PPN, at ianolasov@gmail.com.
What Are Think Tanks Really?
Rethinking Roles in the Policy Ecosystem
(a Public Philosophy Network + On Think Tanks workshop)
Wednesday, July 16th at 12:00 PM EDT
Think tanks are often seen as monolithic institutions—but what exactly is a think tank? This session unpacks the multiple definitions and models of think tanks, challenging traditional classifications by focusing on their real-world functions across different contexts. From policy research hubs to strategic advisors and communicators, we'll explore how these organizations operate globally and how they shape and are shaped by the policy ecosystems around them.
Participants will engage in a dynamic mapping exercise to identify where think tanks sit within their policy landscapes, uncovering their roles as conveners, evidence generators, and more. We'll also dive into practical tools like the Open Think Tank Directory, the JobsBoard, and the School of Think Tankers to help participants navigate and contribute to this influential sector.
The session should be of interest to public philosophers curious about policy influence, organizational strategy, and entering the world of think tanks more generally.
Registration is $10 for Public Philosophy Network members and $20 for non-members.
Please register here for the Zoom link! Share with anyone you think might be interested!
Author Meets Critics:
Michael Fuerstein’s Experiments in Living Together: How Democracy Drives Social Progress
Wednesday, June 18th at 5:00 PM EDT
Over the past 70 years, the United States has undergone major moral shifts surrounding gender, sexual orientation, and race. Although these changes have been incomplete and imperfect, they nonetheless represent stunning improvements in the human condition which have been supported by democracy. While on its face democratic governance embodies the promise of protest, free expression, and social change, the recent surge of populism has provoked some cynicism about democracy and the potential ignorance and irrationality of democratic citizens. This debate raises questions around the role of democracy in social progress, democracy's definitive principles and ideals, and the tension between democracy's characteristic aspirations and the disappointing realities of real-world politics.
In Experiments in Living Together (Oxford: 2024) Michael Fuerstein addresses these questions, presenting a fresh philosophical account of social progress that focuses on democracy and delivering an innovative rebuttal to skeptics inspired by the recent populist wave. Following in the tradition of John Dewey, he argues that democracy enables progress through "experiments in living": innovations in social practice that transform social emotions and identities and cultivate moral learning.
Join us for a discussion of the book featuring Fuerstein, Susan Dieleman and Alex Madva.
Please register here for the Zoom link! Share with anyone you think might be interested! See you there, I hope!
Yancy, LaRosa receive 2024 PPN Leadership & Early Career Excellence Awards
I am pleased to announce (after some delay) that George Yancy (Emory University) and Emily LaRosa (Michigan State University) have been awarded PPN’s 2024 Leadership and Early Career Excellence Awards. We received a number of outstanding nominations, but the decision of the committee was unanimous.
George Yancy needs no introduction. From his field-defining African-American Philosophers: 17 Conversations (Routledge: 1998), to over 100 publications for a general audience in venues ranging from Truthout to The New York Times, to his participation in multiple documentaries (including most recently Yance Ford’s Power, a critical history of policing), Yancy is one of the most prolific and impactful public philosophers of our time. In her nominating letter, Nancy McHugh writes of Yancy’s interviews, “Frequently George is interviewing incredibly high profile philosophers, such as Cornel West and Judith Butler. However, he also creates a space and readership for less well-known, but also important philosophers, such as Todd Franklin and Christina Wheeler. Multiple important things happen for philosophy from this work: 1. It shows how philosophy and philosophers are ready and adept at engaging critical social issues. 2. It shows that it is not just the ‘heavy hitters’ that are poised to be engaging in public facing work. Many philosophers are positioned to do so.” Yancy is a model of how to practice, in the words of his keynote address at the 2018 Night of Philosophy, “philosophy with a human face.” No one could possibly deserve this Leadership Award more than him.
In recognition of her innovative, high-impact work with a range of community partners in artificial intelligence and robotics, Emily LaRosa has received the Early Career Excellence Award. LaRosa, a graduate student at Michigan State University, is currently serving as a member of AgAID, an NSF/USDA-NIFA working group, on issues across the world of agriculture, land management, and AI adoption, with her own focus on autonomous harvesting systems. As Samantha Noll wrote in her nominating letter, “She is investigating how to best anticipate social concerns, pushing for inclusivity, and usefully responding to system concerns which arise to ensure a healthful deployment of a system. When I met her at extension events, Emily LaRosa was shadowing a robotics lab that houses an AI created to meet manual labor needs, and helping to determine what ethical questions are not being asked. As an embedded public philosopher in this lab, she is helping to create guidelines of inquiry into a system’s impacts and to anticipate potential frictions and negative outcomes prior to a systems deployment. I saw firsthand how important LaRosa’s research was, as various stakeholders, from labor union leaders to roboticists sought her out for her ethical and epistemological expertise, when grappling with troubling impacts in the field.”
Excellent public philosophy is not always as celebrated within the field as it should be. We hope the PPN Awards can do something to change that.
Please join me in congratulating George and Emily!
CFP: Public Philosophy Network Events Sponsorships, Fall 2024
The Public Philosophy Network is offering awards of up to $1000, as well as promotional support, to philosophers organizing public philosophy events.
Applications will close on Friday, November 15th, 2024: APPLY HERE!
The events can be public-facing events working with communities outside of academic philosophy, or they can be events for public philosophers themselves. Early career philosophers, philosophy students, and philosophers working both inside and outside of academia are all encouraged to apply!
PPN is open to sponsoring a broad range of events, but applicants should consider how their proposals relate to PPN's mission: "to support philosophers who use their concepts and skills to serve communities outside of academia and to make positive changes in society; to reflect on how philosophy is transformed by various types of public engagement; [and] to support institutional changes supportive of publicly engaged work."
Past PPN events may provide some additional guidance. Applicants proposing public-facing events should also consider PPN’s best practices for public philosophy events.
Only current PPN members are eligible to apply. Become a PPN member on our website.
Please feel encouraged to share this call. If you have any questions, reach out to Jana McAuliffe, chair of the PPN Events committee, at jxmcauliffe@ualr.edu or Ian Olasov, President of PPN, at ianolasov@gmail.com.
PPN election results!
The results are in from our most recent election! Please join me in welcoming:
Our new vice president/president-elect, Jeanne Proust;
our new secretary, Michaila Peters;
and our four new governing board members, Ellie Anderson, Kim Díaz, Jana McAuliffe, and Mike Menser!
These are some really excellent, high-energy public philosophers - we're lucky to have them on board. I'm looking forward to working with them over the next couple of years.
I'm also happy to report that we passed two amendments to the bylaws, tidying up the process for handling vacancies in leadership positions and managing the member rolls.
Thank you again to everyone for voting! As always, if there's ever any way PPN can help you do what you do, please don't hesitate to reach out.
Best,
Ian Olasov
President, Public Philosophy Network