Perspectives Volume 9: "Social Philosophy" (Winter 2021, Special Issue)
Editorial excerpt:
About Perspectives
Perspectives: UCD Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy is an annual, double blind, peer-reviewed journal of philosophy edited and published by postgraduate students of the School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Ireland. Perspectives features articles, symposium and conference papers, book reviews, interviews, and artistic contributions by postgraduate students and recent graduates on a broad range of topics and approaches in philosophy and its related disciplines. The journal publishes works across philosophical traditions—including the history of philosophy, analytic and continental philosophy, as well as underrepresented traditions—as part of its commitment to the pluralist ethos that is the hallmark of UCD School of Philosophy. The journal is published both online and in print.
About this Issue
We are delighted to introduce to you the 9th Volume of Perspectives, a special issue on the theme of “Social Philosophy”. The issue picks up from the theme of the first of the “PhD Philosophy Symposium” series at the UCD School of Philosophy, held online in February 2021, and where selected symposium papers published in this issue were first presented.
Several elements mark the singularity of the 2021 issue of the journal, the first of which is the change in the journal title from Perspectives: International Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy to Perspectives: UCD Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy. This is to reflect the home institution of the journal as well as its pride and confidence in its history of internationally publishing cutting edge works in philosophy by postgraduate students world-wide since the journal’s inauguration in 2008.
The next significant transition that the journal underwent is its return to the UCD School of Philosophy website after having been hosted by De Gruyter Open for several years. This move aligns with the revision of the School website in 2020 and with the interest in efficiently facilitating the transition between editorial boards. We thank Professor Brian O’Connor (former Head of School, 2019-2021) for approving our request to bring the journal back to the School, and Professor Christopher Cowley and Helena McCann for helping us set up and manage the Perspectives webpage.
A third feature of this volume is the reanimation of its cover art with the introduction of the Cover Art Prize for Perspectives. The cover art competition is aimed at giving the journal a fresh new look, but it is also the journal’s first gesture of welcoming artistic philosophical contributions in its pages as part of its recognition of the diverse forms of philosophizing, as well as the linkage between art and philosophy as socially reflexive practices. The prize consisted in a “One4All” voucher worth 100 Euros and expresses our commitment to recognize and reward art work as work. For this issue, we are also publishing the shortlisted artworks submitted to us for the Cover Art Prize. These artworks will visually mark the divisions of the different sections of the volume. We wish to congratulate Amy Turnbull for winning the Cover Art Prize with her artwork "Cult Object". We thank Patrick McKay for the layout of the cover and contents of the issue, and Gillian Johnston (UCD School of Philosophy’s Manager) for helping us facilitate the financial aspects of the art prize, layout, and overall publication of the issue.
Fourth, a consistent feature of the journal has been the publication of interviews with established philosophers who have delivered keynote addresses in past philosophy conferences co-organized by graduate students in UCD and Trinity College Dublin (TCD). Volume 9 integrates in its publication interviews carried out by members of the UCD Minorities and Philosophy (MAP) Chapter established in 2020 and now also involves interviews with early career scholars from minoritized backgrounds. MAP is an international, graduate-student-led initiative in English-speaking philosophy departments that aims to examine and address issues of minority participation in academic philosophy. This is part of the journal’s commitment to actively promoting the works and ideas of philosophers from minority and underrepresented groups in Philosophy. This year, we have interviewed Professor Regina Rini about her work on the Ethics of Microaggression (2020) and Abeba Birhane about her doctoral research on AI ethics and human ambiguity.
Last but not the least, the 2021 issue is dedicated to our late friend and colleague, Jean Hogan, MA in Renaissance Literature and Culture (2014); MA in Philosophy (2021, awarded posthumously). For the School of Philosophy’s staff and students, Jean’s resilience and admirable dedication for scholarship represented an example of philosophical life, and her premature passing is an immense loss. Those of us who had the opportunity to philosophize with Jean know how excellent and sincere she was as a thinker, writer, and person. The issue features her essay “The Rumble of a Dream” with a preface by the current Head of School, Professor Maeve Cooke.
Perspectives Volume 9, Special Issue on “Social Philosophy” is the largest volume of the journal thus far. It opens with Jean Hogan’s essay, followed by nine research articles, three symposium papers, and two M.A.P.-Perspectives joint interviews, and it closes up with five book reviews. Each section is opened by an artwork from the five shortlisted entries from the Cover Art Prize competition. The editorial board considers this as a milestone given the challenges we had to confront due to the uncertainties and transitions from in-person to online and now hybrid modes of learning, teaching, and research.
Such challenges primarily include difficulties in finding reviewers, all of whom were extremely busy and still navigating the transitions demanded by the COVID-19 pandemic. In light of this, we would like to reiterate our appreciation for the work and effort of our international board of reviewers who have generously shared their invaluable time and expertise to make the publication of this volume possible: Melanie Altanian, Maria Baghramian, Craig Browne, Joseph Cohen, Maeve Cooke, Christopher Cowley, Noelle Leslie Dela Cruz, Jean-Philippe Deranty, Esa Díaz-León, Luna Dolezal, Brian Flanagan, Katherine Furmann, Peter Hallward, Samia Hesni, James Ingram, Joseph Lacey, John Maguire, Timothy Mooney, Brian O’Connor, Katherine O’Donnell, James O’Shea, Danielle Petherbridge, William Scheuerman, Guilel Treiber, and Dylan Trigg. We are beyond grateful for their generosity.
In addition, we would like to acknowledge the patience of the contributors: Kelly Agra, Martin Beckstein, Pascal Bernhard, Abeba Birhane, Lorenzo Buti, Shelley Campbell, Julien Delhez, Michael Dover, Killian Favier, Enrique Benjamin Fernando III, Samuel Ferns, Paraskevi (Evie) Filea, Cathrin Fischer, Tanay Gandhi, Simon Graf, Alessandro Guardascione, Jean Hogan, Denise Kelly, Ankita Kushwaha, Yue-Zhen Li, Benjamin Modarres, Caoimhe Murphy, Anton Heinrich Rennesland, Professor Regina Rini, Clémence Saintemarie, Alix Stéphan, Daan Tielenburg, Amy Turnbull, and Jonathan Wren. We thank you for your consideration as we worked through the expected delays in review and editing turnaround times.
In pre-selecting and editing the contributions, the editorial board committed to an open and encouraging editorial policy which meant allocating greater time to further develop the papers and providing constructive feedback and editing suggestions. We additionally thank Ranier Abengaña and Aidan Rolf for assisting us in the language editing of the final submissions.
Finally, we acknowledge the journal’s funding source—the Head of School of Philosophy Support Account R18287 held by Professor Maria Baghramian. We are especially grateful to Professor Baghramian for her continued support for the journal and for her untiring guidance throughout the editorial process.
Patricia Hill Collins once wrote, “as social conditions change, so must the knowledge and practices designed to resist them” (Collins, 1990). As aspiring social philosophers in the UCD School of Philosophy, the ninth volume of the journal represents our intellectual activism against intellectual traditions and academic publication practices that remain unmoved by the plurality of critical forces and imaginative energies surrounding philosophical thought today. Our reanimation and expansion of the genres and forms of academic writing that now see print in our journal’s pages mark our commitment to social and epistemic change aimed at resisting the stagnation of the streams of reason, imagination, and sensibilities. We wish to acknowledge past and present efforts along these lines that inspired us to venture on this path, and pass on the courage we have inherited in daring existing and future postgraduate editors not to waver on initiatives that seek to cross the boundaries of academic praxes. It is contrary to logic and being to assume that there is only one way or one form of thinking, writing, and publishing. Persevering in that which is not expected will bring knowledges, and they will bring worlds—possibilities that otherwise would not be (Ahmed, 2017).
To transformative socio-philosophical critique, Perspectives Volume 9 (Winter 2021), Special Issue on “Social Philosophy” is both our challenge and our contribution. Bain sult as do léamh!
The 2021 Editors,
Kelly Agra
Benjamin Modarres
Clémence Saintemarie,
Alix Stéphan
Jonathan Wren
Perspectives: UCD Postgraduate Journal of Philosophy website: https://www.ucd.ie/philosophy/research/perspectives/
Comments