Thinking in the Midst

Our second and final recording of a PES session, this episode features Paul Geis, Brad Rowe, Natasha Levinson, Christina Donaldson, and Cara Furman reflecting on mentorship in our field and in academia more broadly. This PES panel discussion was sponsored by the Committee on Mentoring.To recommend future guests and topics, use this link!

Ariana Zetlin and Vik Joshi join Cara and Derek to talk about the 2024 Northeast Philosophy of Education Society meeting and the way it assisted the fantastic work that they share with us here. For more info on Project Belonging, click here.For the 2025 NEPES call for papers, click hereAs always, recommend future topics and guests here.

In a special hyper-alliterative episode, Claire Katz, Cristina Cammarano, and Clarissa Thompson join Cara and Derek to talk about philosophy in summer camp settings.For scholarly work on philosophy camps in general, click here and here.For information on Claire's camp, including how to sign up for this year's offerings, click here.To request information and reserve a spot in Cristina's camp, click here.And see these links for Clarissa's organization and camp.As always, use this form to recommend future guests and episodes!

Tristan Gleason and John Mullen sit down with Cara and Derek to talk about a wide range of matters, from science education to ecology to climate and beyond. For more of John's work, click here, here, and hereFor more of Tristan's work, click here, here, and hereAnd for an incomplete bibliography of what we discussed in this episode, see all of these several links.And as always, use this form to recommend future guests and topics!

This episode presents a panel from PES 2025 entitled "Philosophy, the Coming of Age, and the Future of the Future," and consisting of papers by Barbara Applebaum, Barb Stengel, Deborah Kerdeman, and Nicholas Burbules.To recommend future guests and topics, please use ⁠this form⁠!

Meredith Broussard and Sasha Sidorkin sit down with Cara and Derek to talk about what artificial intelligence can be, how it works, what it's for, and what it all means.For Meredith's books on the subject, click here and here.For Sasha's latest books, click here and here (and for an AI-generated podcast about the most recent book — WHAT ARE CARA AND I EVEN DOING ANYMORE — click here).To recommend future guests and topics, please use this form!

Cam Scribner and Kathleen Knight Abowitz join Cara and Derek to discuss a topic arising out of Scribner's contribution to Concordia University's fall institute on “Political Challenges of/for/in 21st Century Schools: Addressing Polarization in the Classroom.” There's a lot of talk about "small-c conservatism" in this one.For more of Cam's work, click here, here, and here.For Kathleen's work. click here, here, and here.Use this form to suggest future topics and guests!

Nicholas Tampio and Kathy Hytten join Cara and Derek to talk about Dewey, political saturation, democratic habits, and how expensive youth hockey is. For Kathy's works, click here and here For Nick's edition and intro to Democracy and Education, click here. And for his Common Core book, click here. And for public-facing work on Dewey, click here. And use this form to recommend future guests and topics!

A live episode! GroundWorks's 2024 edition features a piece on "Systemic Indoctrination" by Fedor Korochkin, and in an event held Tuesday, January 14th, he gave it as a talk, with Christopher Martin and Rebecca Taylor responding, and followed by a Q&A session. Here is the paper at the GroundWorks website, and Here is the form to recommend future topics and guests.

Doctoral students Phoebe Gilpin, Martha Perez-Mugg, and Arham Kazi sit down with Cara and Derek to talk about the writings that drew them to philosophy in the first place, the books they've encountered through their studies, and the works that they find themselves drawing upon in their own writing, as well. As always, please use this form to recommend future topics and guests. Works we talked about in this episode: Plato's Euthyphro David Labaree, "Public Goods, Private Goods" bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress Michel Foucault, Discipline and Punish Bruno Latour, Laboratory Life Sara Ahmed, Living a Feminist Life Sara Ahmed, On Being Included Natasha Myers, Rendering Life Molecular José Medina Epistemology of Resistance Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth Tithi Bhattacharya, ed. Social Reproduction Theory David Mitchell, Biopolitics of Ability Jess Calarco, Holding It Together Catherine Elgin, True Enough Naomi Oreskes, Why Trust Science? Savannah Shange, Progressive Dystopia

Dave Backer and Heather DuBois Bourenane join Cara and Derek to talk about how schools are funded, the way investment vehicles (as well as quantities) reflect certain social commitments, and what it all means for the way we (literally) value schooling. For Heather's organization, WPEN, click here. For Dave's forthcoming book, click here. The Shanker Institute's School Finance Indicators Database The bond statement search engine that Dave mentioned. Use this form to recommend future topics and guests

This week, we present another cross-posted episode -- this time featuring Cara's podcast Teaching from an Ethical Center. This week's guest, Jia Lee, talks to Cara about the idea of adapting curriculum to fit her students, the idea of "fidelity" as policymakers and curriculum designers use the term, and what else it might mean, as well. As always, please use this form to recommend future guests and topics!

In this episode, we're featuring a philosophical conversation in a different register, re-releasing a conversation between Derek and Annie Schultz about the 1998 film You've Got Mail. Is Nora Ephron an early object-oriented ontologist? What can we expect or hope to learn from fictional characters? The New Yorker article on Nora Ephron we referenced The Atlantic piece on the gentrification of the self. Please use this form to recommend future guests or topics!

PEN America's Jeremy Young and the University of Connecticut's Michael Lynch join Cara and Derek to talk about the use of state power to restrict what can be discussed and studied in educational institutions, particularly, though not exclusively, colleges and universities. Jeremy's report, America's Censored Classrooms 2024 Michael's forthcoming On Truth in Politics (available for preorder) Use this form to recommend future episodes and guests!

Casey Burkholder, Stephanie Jones, and Lauren Bialystok join Cara and Derek to talk about what ELSE we're teaching when we teach -- and argue about -- sexuality, and how it might be different. For more of Casey's work, click here, here, here, and here. Here is Lauren's book, and here is the book chapter she mentioned in the episode. And for Stephanie's work, click here, here, and here. Please use this form to recommend future topics and guests!

Katie Sellars and Alex Nikolaidis sit down with Cara and Derek to talk about their experiences with academic conferences in general, and with the Ohio Valley Philosophy of Education Society in particular. For Alex's work, see his website. For Katie's projects, see her website, too. To recommend future guests or topics, please use this form.

Sara Hardman and Elizabeth O'Brien join Cara and Derek to talk about -- I don't know how else to say it -- the mattering of the spaces where teachers work and children learn: how valorization and valuation work in and through educational settings. For Elizabeth's book, click here. For Sara's dissertation, hopefully a preview of the book to come, click here. As always, please use this form to recommend future guests and topics for the show!

With NEPES right around the corner -- tomorrow, in fact -- Siri Ranganath and Drew Chambers join Cara and Derek to talk about what motivates them to serve in organizational offices, what the work is like, and how they approach it. To see the NEPES program, click here. For Drew's personal website, click here. To recommend future episodes and guests, use this form.

Chris Higgins and Kristen Case are back with Cara and Derek to finish talking about Chris's new book, ⁠Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education.⁠ For Kristen's awesome work, visit ⁠her website⁠. Here is ⁠the form to recommend guests and topics⁠!

Chris Higgins and Kristen Case join Cara and Derek to talk about Chris's new book, Undeclared: A Philosophy of Formative Higher Education. For Kristen's awesome work, visit her website. Here is the form to recommend guests and topics!

Paula McAvoy and Pablo Wolfe join us to discuss the whys and the hows of fostering conversations about even the most fraught political issues in educational spaces like classrooms. LINKS: Here is Paula's The Political Classroom (with Diana Hess). More recent work of hers to help practitioners with these issues can be found here and here. And here is Pablo's The Civically Engaged Classroom. His organization, the Coalition of Civically Engaged Educators, is linked here. Please use this form to recommend future topics and guests!

Krystal Dillard and Kyle Greenwalt talk about the hows and whys of doing schooling beyond the schools. Here is Natural Creativity, the organization that Krystal co-directs. The 74 covered Krystal's work, as well, in this piece. Kyle's work is all available on his ResearchGate page, but these two pieces in Ed Theory and The Conversation are particularly worth highlighting. As always, use this form to recommend future topics and guests!

In a follow-up to episode 47, AG Rud and Sarah Stitzlein sit down with Cara and Derek to talk about the process of selecting a conference theme, writing a presidential address, composing a good response, and sharing one's ideas in public. As always, recommend future episodes and guests to us using this form!

Jon Shelton and Neil Kraus join Cara and Derek to talk about the way education policy imagines the relationship between schooling, workforce preparation, socioeconomic security, and individual fulfillment -- and why it is all a sham. Jon's excellent book, The Education Myth Neil's excellent book, The Fantasy Economy Use this form to suggest future episodes and guests!

Kip Kline and Jeff Dudas join Cara and Derek to talk discuss their work on the educative power of pop culture artifacts, the use of popular media in the classroom, and the fantasies of education (tm Winston Thompson) that certain films, in particular express. For Kip's book on Baudrillard and film, click here. For Jeffrey's most recent book, click here. Tell us what topics/books we ought to be covering with this form!

In this special episode, we once again feature the most recent PES meeting's Presidential Address -- given by AG Rud, this year -- and the response, which is delivered by Sarah Stitzlein. We'll link to their recent work in a follow-up episode with them, where we'll discuss the address and the response, and what it's like to create and deliver that kind of thing. Here is the form with which to recommend future guests and episodes!

Barb Stengel, Kathy Hytten, and Deron Boyles join us to talk about Barb's brand new book Responsibility. Deron and Kathy have worked out the positions they're coming from in work of their own, too, of course. See Deron's John Dewey's Imaginative Vision of Teaching. See Kathy's "On Building Islands of Decency." Recommend future guests and topics with this form! Other works mentioned in the course of the conversation include: Purpel's Moral Outrage in Education Kozol's Savage Inequalities Wood's Time to Learn

Kathy Schultz and Jerusha (Rue) Beckerman join Cara and Derek to talk about what attracted them to teaching in the first place, what anchors their thinking there, and where they see dignity emerging in practice and where they see it under threat. For Kathy's most recent book, click here. For more on the teaching program Rue runs, click here. Here is the transcript for the episode. Use this form to recommend future guests and topics!

Spurred by Adam Kotsko's piece on reading habits among college students (a similar piece appeared just this week in the Chronicle of Higher Ed), Cara and I invited David Hansen and Claudia Ruitenberg -- both esteemed and thoughtful readers -- to talk to us about how they think about reading in their own lives and as part of what they teach their students. For David's books, click here and here. For Claudia's books, click here and here. The transcript of the episode is here. Recommend future guests and topics using this form!

Morgan Anderson and Ken Saltman sit down with Cara and Derek to discuss ed tech's penchant for innovating new forms of much older problems, even as they are promoted as presenting solutions. Solutions for whom? See Morgan's critique of "technophilia" here. See Ken's recent books here, here, and here. Click here for the transcript. Use this form to recommend future guests and topics!

Jess Calarco and Mark Nagasawa sit down with Cara and Derek to talk about public institutions and programs--and especially the lack thereof--for early childhood education, and the racialized and gendered ramifications of our policy choices. LINKS: Order Mark's collection, Transforming Early Years Policy in the US. Preorder Jess's new book, Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net. Here is a transcript of the episode. Use this form to recommend future guests and episodes!

Philosophical Studies in Education SIG officers Caitlin Murphy Brust, Jamie Herman, and Ka Ya Lee join Cara and Derek to share thoughts and advice about navigating conferences generally and AERA in particular. Two events for grad students to note at AERA: 1.) Mentoring coffee chat (Sat Apr 13th, Elixr Coffee, 3-4:30pm) 2.) Graduate student social (Sat Ap 13th, Victory Brewing, 5-6:30pm) LINKS For more of Caitlin's work, click here For more of Ka Ya's work, click here, here, and here Here is a transcript of this episode. And please recommend future guests and topics here.

In this episode, we present a symposium on the idea of culturally just assessments proposed and led by Joy Dangora Erickson, and featuring Winston Thompson, myself, and Cara. It was convenient to put together because neither Cara nor Winston were able to be at PES in person and so had pre-recorded their comments already. LINKS! The two articles that started this conversation are here and here. Here is a transcript of the episode! And here is the form to recommend future topics and guests!

"If you really analyze it, all bullying is gender policing," says one of our guests this week. Cris Mayo and Elizabethe Payne join Cara and Derek to talk about the various forces at work making LGBTQ+ students and their institutional allies especially vulnerable in our current climate. LINKS: The transcript is here. For more of Cris's work, click here and here. For more of Elizabethe's work, click here and here. To recommend guests and topics, use this form.

Michaila Peters, Ksenia Filatov, and Yuya Takeda join Cara and Derek to talk about their work on conspiratorial thinking and media literacy. All three guests are presenting work on this topic at the 2024 PES annual meeting, and this conversation broadly covers the genesis and context of the arguments they will make next week. LINKS! A transcript is here! For Ksenia's ongoing work, click here. For Yuya's work, click here and here. For Michaila's work, come see her session at PES! We'll update this with the link as soon as it's published. Here is the form to recommend future guests and topics!

Virginia Dearani, Adi Burton, and Clarence Joldersma speak to Cara and Derek about the mutual implications and shared concerns, both real and possible, of these two massively complex regions of human experience. LINKS! A transcript of the episode is here. The form to recommend future guests/topics! The Masha Gessen piece we briefly discussed is here. Adi's dissertation is available here For more on Virginia, see here. For Clarence's work, click here, here, and here.

Natasha Levinson and Chris Higgins join Cara and Derek to talk about the structures and practices of academic conferences--especially PES; registration remains open!--as well as the role of questioning in general and what makes for a good question in the context of PES, especially. LINKS: PES registration! Transcript of the episode! Chris's forthcoming book is here; see other good things here and here. For more of Natasha's work, see here, here, and here.

Bill Pinar and Sam Rocha sit down with Cara and Derek to talk about the role that philosophical thinking and curriculum studies has played, so far, in their intellectual lives and their academic careers. LINKS! Here is the transcript. For more of Sam's work, see here, here, and here For more of Bill's work, see here, here and here. To recommend guests and topics for future shows, use this form!

Laura D'Olimipio and René Arcilla sit down with Derek and Cara to talk about the aesthetic dimensions of educational experience and how to defend or articulate the value of the arts in schools. LINKS: Here is a transcript of the episode. You can find more of Laura's work here, here, here, and here. René's work is available here, here, and here. And here is the form you can use to recommend future topics or guests for the podcast!

Elham Kazemi and Kurt Stemhagen join Cara and Derek to talk about the democratic affordances of mathematics classrooms. LINKS: Find more of Elham's work here, here, and here. Find more of Kurt's work here, here, and here. Here is the transcript of the episode, and you can recommend future guests and topics with this form.

Addyson Frattura and Kierstin Giunco speak with Cara and Derek about the best things they've read in recent years -- including things they discovered through assigned coursework, independent research, and for pleasure. LINKS! The list of books we recommended and discussed The transcript of the episode (with plenty of proper-name misspellings) The form to recommend guests and topics for future episodes

Historians Matthew Kelly and Andrew Kahrl join Cara and Derek to talk about racialized land values, the definition of "property" for the purposes of taxation, the history and power of local tax administration, and inequities in the funding of public services, including schools. For Matthew's forthcoming book -- preorders available now -- click here. For Andrew's forthcoming book, also available for preorder, click here. For a transcript of this episode, click here. And please use this form to suggest topics and guests for future episodes!

Continuing a conversation that took place at OVPES 2023, Gabe Keehn, Kenneth Driggers, and Deron Boyles join Cara and Derek to discuss novel (as well as hackneyed) concerns around grading -- how worried should we be about grade inflation, and what does ChatGPT mean for us as teachers and learners? We've solved our transcription issue! Here is a transcript of the ep. For more of Deron's work, click here, here, and here. For more of Kenneth's work, click here, here, and here. To suggest future topics and guests, use this form.

So as to avoid dropping a regular episode during the US's thanksgiving holiday, Cara and I sit for an interview by one of the podcast's listeners--all about how doing the podcast influences our scholarship, how we hope that it is received, and where we hope it goes in the future.

Cristina Cammarano, Shapel LaBorde, and Ariana Gonzalez-Stokas join Cara and Derek to reflect on the theme of the 2023 North Eastern Philosophy of Education Society (NEPES), which was held on October 7th. Relatedly, the Southeast Philosophy of Education Society will meet in February 2024; their call is here, submission deadline Nov. 15. For Ariana's recent book, click here. And for some of Cristina's recent work, click here and here.

Meira Levinson and Harry Brighouse join Cara and Derek to talk about their work in clarifying "equity" as it appears in policy documents and popular discourse -- the conversation ranges across the role of analytic philosophy in educational discussions, the nature and purpose of normative case studies, and whether we should just go ahead and drop the "practical implications" question we routinely ask our guests. To read the paper at the center of our discussion, click here. For more of Meira's work on normative case studies, click here and here. For more of Harry's work on the responsibilities of philosophy and education, click here and here.

Annie Schultz and LeAnn Holland join us to discuss education in its ecological valence, which includes conversations about anthropocentrism and animality, aesthetics, the weather, and the crucial issue of whether Timothy Morton's work counts as "accessible" philosophy. For more of LeAnn's work, click here and here. For more of Annie's work, click here and here. Here is the form to recommend future guests and topics!

Jen Logue and Sarah Stitzlein join Cara and Derek to talk about the theme of the 2024 PES conference, to be held in Salt Lake City, March 7th-11th. See the conference website and submit a session or paper here. Submission deadline is November 1st, 2023. Meanwhile, for more of Sarah's work, see her website. And Jen's work is similarly findable on her website, as well. To recommend guests or topics for future episodes, please use this form!

Samantha Deane and Bryan Warnick sit down with Cara and Derek to discuss the manifold overlap between schools, violence, and guns, which opens up onto the manifold ways that education reflects, reinforces, and potentially alters the way that we live with objects and with one another. For more of Sam's work, click here and here. For more of Bryan's work, click here, here, and here. As always, please use this form to suggest future episodes and guests (including yourself!)

Thea Abu El-Haj and Carla Shalaby sit down with Cara and Derek to discuss, in broad terms, what models of community-building might look like that do not strive to identify and accommodate exceptions to some presumed norm, but are rather oriented toward the various needs of all; and what efforts to imagine and practice such community building might teach us about our concepts of freedom and belonging; and--most importantly, perhaps--what we might learn from children in these regards. For more of Thea's work, please click here, here, and here. For more of Carla's work, please click here, here, and here. As always, please use this form to suggest guests or topics for future shows! We are getting our transcription issues solved and will have this and back episodes up soon!

Sarah Campbell and Doris Santoro join us to talk about philosophy's place in the lives of working teachers, the kinds and origins of pressures that make thoughtful practice and reflection difficult, and the importance of creating and maintaining the space necessary to stop and think. For more of Sarah's work, click here. For Doris's book, click here.