On Friday 28^th October from 4:30pm to 5:30pm in the Anatomy Museum, KCL Minorities and Philosophy is hosting a panel on Diversity and Inclusion in Academic Philosophy!

We will be joined by current members of the department Dr Jessica Leech, Dr James Stazicker, Dr Alexander Franklin and GTA Chiara Zucchelli, along with KCL Alumnus Naomi Snow and anti-racist activist Annabelle Woghiren. Dr Jessica Leech is the Arts and Humanities Diversity and Inclusion Representative, and Dr Alexander Franklin teaches the ‘Philosophy of Race’ Module, assisted by Chiara, who founded the Phi Magazine in 2018. Naomi was funded to write a research project on ‘decolonising the Philosophy curriculum’ whilst an undergraduate, and Annabelle has consulted with social enterprises and public institutions on race equality, along with maintaining an education and community platform of over 115,000 on social media.

We’ll be asking questions like, ‘why is diversity important to academic philosophy, other than equal opportunity?’ and ‘why does diversity among Philosophy students dip at graduate level?’

Register your interest here! We hope to see you there.

About this event

Is it right to save your friend over a stranger? If the bedrock of morality is impartiality and love is essential partial (and favouring) – is Love immoral? When you are dreaming are you also sleeping? What if you are lucidly dreaming – aware that you are in a dreamworld and communicating with a sleep scientist in the ‘real’ world – are you dreaming and awake? Solve the puzzles with an expert guide – book your seat today.

*Book your seat on Eventbrite today*

How to participate (and get your portrait painted):

(1) Choose one of two puzzles ‘Is Love Moral’ or ‘Awake or Dreaming?’

(2) Sit back and relax while we map you to your perfect expert and portrait artist.

(3) Come to Bush House, read a 5 minute primer and then meet your expert to unpack the puzzle for 15 minutes….while your artist captures your a-ha moment.

Find out more

Join us – Friday, 7 October 2022, 6.30 – 7.45 pm, Sainsbury Wing of The National Gallery

(booking essential)

What is ‘euphoria’ and, perhaps more intriguingly, what is it for? On one account it is a sense of perfect harmony, individuality, and purity, accompanied by a feeling of extreme wellbeing that connects us to the heavenly realm. On another, it’s an exquisite dissimulation of the self.

But what does this really mean and how might the paintings in the National Gallery help us understand it and its relevance to our lives today? And how are artists representing euphoria in contemporary work? 

Philosopher, journalist and the author of over 20 books Julian Baggini is joined by Joachim Aufderheide, Reader in Philosophy, King’s College London; Vanessa Brassey, co-director of the Centre for Philosophy and Art; Siobhán Jolley, the Ahmanson Fellow in Religion and Art at the National Gallery; and artist Sikelela Owen to debate these questions.

Book your FREE Tickets here

Information on previous events and films is here

Speakers

Joachim Aufderheide is a Reader in the Philosophy Department at King’s College London. He specialises in ancient Greek philosophy, but has a serious side-interest in Buddhist philosophy. Two questions in particular have held his attention: What role does pleasure play in a good life? And what contribution does contemplation make to a life lived well? He has published on Plato’s and Aristotle’s answers to these questions, but also enjoys tracing them through the history of philosophy. 

Dr Julian Baggini is the author, co-author or editor of over 20 books including ‘The Godless Gospel’, ‘How The World Thinks’, ‘The Virtues of the Table’ and ‘The Ego Trick’ (all Granta), ‘The Edge of Reason’ (Yale University Press) and, most recently, ‘The Great Guide: What David Hume Can Teach Us about Being Human and Living Well’ (Princeton University Press). He has been Academic Director of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Kent.

Vanessa Brassey is co-Director of the Centre for Philosophy and Art at Kings College London. The Centre is a major multi-disciplinary initiative whose aim is to bring together academics, artists, curators and gallerists to explore the connections between philosophy, theory and the visual arts. As well as an academic philosopher, she is a figurative painter whose work explores emotion and perception. 

Siobhán Jolley is the Ahmanson Fellow in Religion and Art at the National Gallery. She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in 2021. Her broad research interests include the work of female artists, the reception of biblical women and the New Testament, and feminist approaches. She has taught at the University of Manchester, Liverpool Hope University and Cliff College in Religions and Theology and Art History and Cultural Practices. 

Sikelela Owen is an artist who lives and works in London. Her work is made up predominately of loose figure paintings, drawings, and prints of friends, family, and people of interest. She holds a PG Diploma from the Royal Academy Schools and her work was featured in the 2015 Thames and Hudson publication ‘100 Painters of Tomorrow’. Owen has exhibited nationally and internationally, was an Abbey Fellow at the British School at Rome in 2019 and she has worked with the charity Hospital Rooms.

Information on previous events and films is here

Want your portrait done while you unpick a philosophy puzzle? Click here to book for A First Brush with Philosophy

King’s College London’s Department of Philosophy is very pleased to announce that recordings from the Mark Sainsbury Fest of the Annual Lecture by Dorothy Edgington (‘Two Kinds of Indeterminacy’) and of Mark’s Lecture (‘Boundarylessness’) are now available at the event webpage (https://marksainsburyfest.wixsite.com/event), as well as below:

You can also see photos of the event by photographer Victoria Goodman in this previous post!

Check out the latest from the Agora, “What is behind a successful academic hoax?” by Costica Bradatan!

Costica Bradatan is Professor of Humanities at Texas Tech University. He is the author of In Praise of Failure: Four Lessons in Humility.

This article is part of the Agora series, a collaboration between the New Statesman and Aaron James Wendland. Wendland is Vision Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College, London and a Senior Research Fellow at Massey College, Toronto. He tweets @aj_wendland.

Check out the latest from the Agora, “Does the rise of the metaverse mean the decline of cities?” by Max Hayward.

Max Khan Hayward is a lecturer in ethics and political philosophy at the University of Sheffield.

This article is part of the Agora series, a collaboration between the New Statesman and Aaron James Wendland. Wendland is Vision Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College, London and a Senior Research Fellow at Massey College, Toronto. He tweets @aj_wendland.

Read the latest piece of public philosophy from Aaron Wendland (@aj_wendland), reporting on civilian life for the Canadian and International press!:

“Jokes from the bomb shelter: Ukrainian comedians show power of humour amid wartime horror”

Aaron James Wendland is Vision Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College London and a Senior Research Fellow at Massey College in the University of Toronto. He is the editor of the New Statesman’s philosophy series, Agora, and he tweets @aj_wendland.

Check out Kieran Setiya’s interview of our very own Aaron Wendland, Vision Fellow in Public Philosophy at King’s College London and Senior Research Fellow at Massey College, Toronto: https://anchor.fm/kieran-setiya/episodes/Aaron-Wendland-e1fvvts/a-a7jvpub

Professor Kieran Setiya (MIT) works mainly in ethics, epistemology, and the philosophy of mind, and is the author of  Life is Hard, Midlife: A Philosophical Guide, Practical Knowledge, Reasons without Rationalism, and Knowing Right From Wrong. In his Five Questions podcast, he asks philosophers 5 questions about themselves.

Dr. Aaron James Wendland (@aj_wendland) launched and runs the philosophy column in The New Statesman called Agora, which is a space for academics to address contemporary social, political and cultural issues from a philosophical point of view. He is currently in Ukraine doing in-depth reporting on civilian life for the Canadian and International press. You can read our blog post on his recent article “How ought civilians act in a war zone?” for The Toronto Star.