Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A nice little story about my philifesophy

Thanks to Jamie Oberdick for putting together this short podcast on my philifesophy. I am so grateful for the opportunity to speak about what I've been up to on Youtube, this blog, and in my classrooms. And thanks, too, to Chris, Bryn, Jason, and Michael for their input!

You can find a link to the podcast here:

http://tlt.its.psu.edu/about/news/2011/tlt-newsletter-podcast-philosophy-grad-student-discusses-philifesophy-via-social-media

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3 comments:

  1. AnonymousNovember 30, 2011 at 5:43 PM

    cw, can you give an example of when/how a student's classroom participation changed your research?

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  2. Cori WongDecember 3, 2011 at 5:24 PM

    I've had lots and lots of moments with my students over the years that have really helped me think further about some key topics that I keep in my head. For instance, in my first semester of teaching, one student swore up and down about not being homophobic but then his physical reactions to certain conversations we were having indicated that he was deeply bothered. This was a particularly significant example of affective reactions that planted the seeds for the development of my dissertation.

    I was waiting until the end of the week to respond to your question because I had a feeling something would come out of this week's lectures and discussions. Sure enough, this Friday we were finishing up our time on Alison Jaggar's essay about outlaw emotions. One student asked if my suggestion to wait and frustrate the impulse to act was itself an "outlaw emotion." I hadn't yet thought of it that way, but I think that it is. And that will be something I mention in my first chapter.

    But since I'm only formally writing on these topic, other classroom experiences don't seem to directly shape my "research," even though they clearly shape my thinking. For example, the ideas in my post about teaching against evolution came directly out of the conversations in my summer class. I can't count the number of times that I thought in class, "Oh, this is very interesting and new!" Often it is not something that is directly stated by one of my students, but in the course of talking with them and thinking along with them, I am struck with new ideas that probably wouldn't have occurred otherwise.

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  3. AnonymousDecember 6, 2011 at 10:10 AM

    thanks, this might be one of the ways in which philosophical reflection/work is different from the give and take of daily conversation (not as extreme as Heidegger's Thinking vs gossip but still a difference that makes a difference). Richard Rorty rightly pointed out that it is our critterly human way to make use of things/people/experiences and while many people cringe at such a characterization I think that you have given us some nice examples of how this works in an academic setting, not the utopian ideal of some who would seek democracy thru flattening everything but well within what Jane Addams, John Dewey, and others had in mind, have you read any of Addams' work?

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