Barry Lam
Barry Lam is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College and the host and creator of Hi-Phi Nation, an innovative philosophy podcast that "turns stories into ideas."
I spoke to Barry to learn more about what led him to start Hi-Phi Nation, his experience of creating the show and what it has taught him about the relationship between philosophy, journalism, storytelling and much more.
""In every one of these areas [of reporting] you'll find a connection to philosophy. [...] A little bit everywhere, that's sort of what Hi-Phi Nation is. "
Barry Lam
Justine Kolata
Justine Kolata has recently completed a PhD at Cambridge, where she researched conceptions of Bildung (self-cultivation) and Die Schöne Seele ('The Beautiful Soul') in German philosophy.
She is also the founder and director of The Public Sphere Salons, an organisation that works to revive Enlightenment salon culture. I spoke to Justine to learn more about the organisation and her experience of running salons.
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"The salon was a microcosm of life; the grief, the beauty, the intellectual thirst, the banality, the joy, the courage and weakness of humanity were all represented, but in a concentrated form that seemed to spontaneously induce personal revelation. False ideas and prejudices could not be left unexamined. "
Justine Kolata
Graeme Tiffany
Graeme Tiffany is a researcher, trainer, lecturer and education consultant working in the UK, with special interests in detached and street-based youth work, youth social policy, informal education, democratic education, participation and the use of philosophical tools to support learning.
I spoke to Graeme to learn about his pioneering work in Community Philosophy, which empowers people in any context to be active citizens and to generate ideas at a grassroots level.
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"Can we have people who are present, on an ongoing basis, in communities, helping people to learn how to use philosophy in their own spaces and places? "
Graeme Tiffany
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij is a reader in Phiosophy at Birkbeck College, London researching immigration attitudes, prediction markets and epistemic values, virtues and norms.
In 2015-16 Kristoffer set-up and ran a philosophy in prison programme in South London. I spoke to him to learn about his experiences of this work.
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"I thought less and less about the supposed boundaries of philosophy and was simply liberated by the fact that, as a philosopher [...] you have a lot of latitude in terms of what you work on and how you decide to work on it."
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij
Ty Branch is a PhD student at the University of Waterloo, Canada, researching the philosophy of science communication.
I spoke to Ty to learn about her public philosophical experiences, including working as a philosopher-in-residence/field philosopher in an architecture firm and in a big data analytics organisation.
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"If you do philosophy "in the field" the problems that [you] could decide to tackle are really enormous. I also love that they intersect in ways that you can't see when you're doing textbook philosophy"
Ty Branch
Ty Branch
Kilian Jörg
Kilian Jörg is a philosopher and artist based in Vienna and Berlin whose research focuses on ecological epistemology and the intersection of art and philosophy.
He is the founder of Philosophy Unbound (PU), a collective which organises regular open stages for performative philosophy. The Public Life of the Mind spoke to Kilian to learn about his experiences with PU.
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Kilian Jörg. Image by Anna Lerchbaumer.
"Philosophy is a struggle for bringing something into a concept, in a way, and it's very limiting if you have just one kind of form for it"
Kilian Jörg
Carrie Jenkins
Carrie Jenkins is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of British Columbia, Canada, who has developed a public audience through her research on the Philosophy of Love.
The Public Life of the Mind spoke to Carrie to learn about her experiences as a public philosopher.
Carrie Jenkins. Image by Jonathan Jenkins Ichikawa
"I've started to realise that actually the proper way to do philosophy and the things I love about philosophy are conversation"
Chloé de Canson
Chloé de Canson is a Philosophy PhD student at the London School of Economics.
The Public Life of the Mind spoke to Chloé to learn about her experience of doing philosophy in schools.
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Chloé de Canson. Image by Chloé de Canson
"There's a quiet desire for some other place for philosophy to exist in the world"
Todd Altschuler
Todd Altschuler is a former lecturer-turned-'philosophical investigator' based in New York City.
The Public Life of the Mind spoke to Todd to learn about his experience of engaging in consultation work outside of academia from a distinctly philosophical angle.
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Todd Altschuler. Image by Stephan Sagmiller
Barry Lam. Image by Melissa Surprise.
Justine Kolata. Image by Justine Kolata.
Graeme Tiffany. Image by Graeme Tiffany.
Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij. Image by Kristoffer Ahlstrom-Vij.
Ty Branch. Image by Ty Branch.