Posted on Thursday, August 13, 2020

Curry, Schmidt, & Jarvis Join SOPHIA Leadership

SOPHIA Board of Trustees unanimously elects new members to leadership team

Dr. Kenneth Stikkers

SOPHIA has been enormously fortunate to have had Dr. Ken Stikkers serve as Trustee and our Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees. Dr. Stikkers has been an active participant in SOPHIA’s work and a constant champion of our mission. We are so grateful for his efforts and thank him for his long service to the organization. With his recent request to step down from SOPHIA’s leadership team, we undertook efforts to select and elect a new member of our Board of Trustees.

Dr. Tommy J. Curry

Philosophers so often disagree that it is wonderful to celebrate our unanimous decision to elect Dr. Tommy J. Curry as a Trustee of SOPHIA. Dr. Curry holds a Personal (Distinguished) Chair in Africana Philosophy and Black Male Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. He won a 2018 American Book Award for The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood. He participated as an outstanding facilitator in our 2013 SOPHIA symposium at the University of Mississippi on the question: “Should Everyone Go to College?” He has given several papers on SOPHIA panels over the years and collaborated with Dr. Gwenetta Curry on the 2018 publication of a paper in a SOPHIA led panel of articles in Dewey Studies. In addition, he was a guest early on the Philosophy Bakes Bread podcast about The Man-Not, in episode 9, “Studying Black Men.” He joined us again on the show in episode 32, after he received many death threats for his important publicly engaged work, yielding one of our most downloaded episodes, “The Public Philosopher and the Gadfly,” concerning especially the challenges for Black public philosophers. Dr. Curry has been an inspirational leader of the Philosophy Born of Struggle community. He is a prolific scholar with many articles and a growing number of books published. We look forward to the rich contributions that we anticipate from him as a Trustee for the future of SOPHIA!

Dr. Sergia Hay

SOPHIA has also long needed to grow our leadership team of officers. We are grateful to Dr. Sergia Hay, who for years has served as our Membership and Chapter Development Officer. She has grown a SOPHIA chapter beautifully in Tacoma, Washington. We recognized that the job of chapter development and membership should be split up into its two parts. SOPHIA is pleased to announce therefore that we have also unanimously elected Ph.D. student Heidi Schmidt to the position of Chapter Development Officer and Lexington SOPHIA Chapter President Erik Jarvis to the position of Membership Officer.

Heidi Schmidt

Heidi Schmidt is one of the founders of SOPHIA’s Roanoke Chapter, as well as a doctoral student in the University of Kentucky’s Ph.D. in Educational Sciences’ Philosophical and Cultural Inquiry track. She is an author and has worked as a librarian. She is also a Becker Fellow and is a leader in the Philosophers for Sustainability group. She produced the Civic Connections podcast and has participated both in leading our Roanoke Chapter and in meetings with our Lexington SOPHIA Chapter. We are excited to welcome her to the position of Chapter Development Officer!

SOPHIA leaders established our goal of launching local chapters in 2015 and began planning how they would work in the time since. While we have offered seed grants to help start local chapters, we have yet to determine the best ways of sharing information about our chapters online. Planning and deliberation with Schmidt is among our highly anticipated developments. Exciting efforts are on their way.

Erik Jarvis

Erik Jarvis has participated in the Lexington SOPHIA Chapter since its very first meeting in early 2018. He serves as a Senior Facilities Information Services Administrator in the Office of Information Technology Services at the University of Kentucky. He was elected President of the Lexington SOPHIA Chapter and is energetic and a terrific facilitator of SOPHIA conversations. In addition, he has participated in drafts and revision of SOPHIA One-Sheets in planning for chapter meetings. His expertise in information technology is a welcome boon for SOPHIA as well. We are eager to work with him moving forward on our first concerted membership initiative, aiming to grow our membership and our ties with members. We welcome him to the position of Membership Officer!

If you have any questions about this announcement or about SOPHIA activities, reach out to our Executive Director, Dr. Eric Thomas Weber by email at philosophersinamerica@gmail.com.

Posted on Friday, March 29, 2019

088: Ep84 – Feminism and Peace: Jane Addams’s Legacy

Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show & podcast

In episode 84 of Philosophy Bakes Bread, Eric Thomas Weber and Anthony Cashio interview Dr. Patricia Shields on “Feminism and Peace: Jane Addams’s Legacy.”

Dr. Shields is editor of editor of Jane Addams: Progressive Pioneer of Peace, Philosophy, Sociology, Social Work, and Public Administration, published in 2017. She is also Professor of Political Science at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Armed Forces and Society, the leading peer-reviewed journal on civil-military relations. In addition, Pat has received many awards for excellence in teaching such as the National Association for Schools of Public Affairs and Administration, Leslie A. Whittington Excellence in Teaching Award (2002), The Texas State Presidential Award for Excellence in Teaching (2001), the Texas State Faculty Senate, Everette Swinney Teaching Award (2010) as well as the Professor of the Year Award from the Central Texas Chapter of the American Society for Public Administration (2006).

Listen for our “You Tell Me!” questions and for some jokes in one of our concluding segments, called “Philosophunnies.” Reach out to us on Facebook @PhilosophyBakesBread and on Twitter @PhilosophyBB; email us at philosophybakesbread@gmail.com; or call and record a voicemail that we play on the show, at 859.257.1849. Philosophy Bakes Bread is a production of the Society of Philosophers in America (SOPHIA). Check us out online at PhilosophyBakesBread.com and check out SOPHIA at PhilosophersInAmerica.com.

(1 hr, 4 mins)

Click here for a list of all the episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread.

Subscribe to the podcast!

We’re on iTunes and Google Play, and we’ve got a regular RSS feed too!

Notes

Patricia Shields’s book on Jane Addams.
YouTube video sponsored by the Journal of Public Integrity on Jane Addams’s social ethics.
Addams, J. (1880). Bread Givers. Rockford Daily Register.
Addams, J. (1902). Democracy and Social Ethics. New York: MacMillan.
Addams, J. (1907). Newer Ideals of Peace. New York: MacMillan.
Addams, J. (1913). If men were seeking the franchise. Ladies Home Journal, vol. 30 (June).
Addams, J. (1922). Peace and Bread in Times of War. New York: MacMillan.
Addams, L. Balch, E. G., & Hanilton, A. (1915/2003) Women at the Hague: The International Congress of Women and its Results. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Hamington, M. (2009). The Social Philosophy of Jane Addams. Champaign, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Haslanger, S. (2017). Jane Addams’s “Women and Public Housekeeping. In Schliesser, E. (Ed.) Ten Neglected Classics of Philosophy. Cambridge: Oxford University Press.
Rissler, G. and Shields, Patricia (2018). Positive Peace – a necessary touchstone for Public Administration, Administrative Theory and Praxis. https://doi.org/10.1080/10841806.2018.1479549.
Seigfried, C. (1996). Pragmatism and feminism: Reweaving the Social Fabric. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Shields, P., & Soeters, J. (2017). Peaceweaving: Jane Addams, positive peace, and Public Administration. American Review of Public Administration, 47(3), 323–339.
Shields, P. (ed.) (2017). Jane Addams: Progressive Pioneer of Peace, Philosophy Sociology, Social Work and Public Administration. New York: Springer.
Shields, P. (2017). Limits of Negative Peace, Faces of Positive Peace. Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, 47(3), 1–12.
Shields, P. (2006). Democracy and the Social Ethics of Jane Addams: A Vision for Public Administration. Administrative Theory and Praxis, 28, 418–443.
YouTube video on Jane Addams and her Social Ethics, sponsored by the journal Public Integrity, and filmed in March 2018.

You Tell Me!

For our future “You Tell Me!” segments, Pat asked the following question in this episode:

“How do you suggest that we move to a world with less rigid belief structures so that we can resolve our differences?”

Let us know what you think! Via Twitter, Facebook, Email, or by commenting here below.

Posted on Friday, October 12, 2018

SOPHIA 2018 Chapter Seed Grants

Call for Applications!

SOPHIA is excited to launch our second round of chapter seed grants, for up to $600 of support to start or grow local or online SOPHIA Chapters. The timeline has changed slightly this year. We have decided to accept applications on a rolling basis, but will give priority to applications submitted by November 15th. Groups that cannot meet that deadline are still encouraged to consider creating a chapter and applying for a seed grant.

In addition, this year we now have three resources available or well established. We have established, for instance,

That MeetUp.com is an excellent tool for growing local communities of philosophical conversation. No group is required to use that platform, but groups are encouraged to consider it. Its costs at just under $200 per year can be covered by SOPHIA grant funding, among other things.
We have created a Meeting Resources page, which is meant to make organizing your first or next meeting easy and simple. Note that the list of “one-sheets” at the bottom of the page is intended to grow rapidly, in time offering a wide variety of important and fun topics to talk about easily with the help of the sheet for easy facilitation.
SOPHIA has also created and published our very first Chapter Handbook here. The tool is meant as a guide for introducing people to what it could mean to launch as well as how to build and maintain a successful SOPHIA Chapter. We are in early planning stages, furthermore, of organizing online meetings featuring the leaders of our first chapters who might make themselves available to talk with prospective chapter leaders or the officers or members of existing new chapters.

Application document with instructions: in MS Word format or in Adobe PDF format

Application-only files: in MS Word format or in Adobe PDF format

Applications should be emailed to us at PhilosophersInAmerica@gmail.com, preferably in Adobe PDF format. While applications will now be accepted on a rolling basis, applications received by November 15th, 2018 will be given priority in this funding cycle. We are happy to answer questions in advance, sent to the same email address.

Posted on Saturday, September 29, 2018

078: Ep74 – Outdoor Education

Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show & podcast

This 74th episode of Philosophy Bakes Bread was recorded on Apeiron Expeditions‘ Philosophy Bakes Bread canoe trip, which ran from July 29th to August 1st of 2018, and in it Eric Thomas Weber and Anthony Cashio interview Ben Vockley, Seth Walton, and Dr. Alejandro Strong about “Outdoor Education.”

Ben is an instructor with Outward Bound. Seth is a high school teacher and a registered Maine guide. And Alex runs Apeiron Expeditions. Ben, Seth, and Alex have a lot of experience with outdoor education and in this episode they are representing only their own points of view, not

(1 hr 8 mins)

Click here for a list of all the episodes of Philosophy Bakes Bread.

Photo Gallery From Our Trip

: Anthony and Eric smiling early on, by the river.

: Anthony paddling on a gorgeous day.

: Alex baking some philosophical bread. Actually, it was a delicious calzone, baked in a dutch oven.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: Some guys deep in thought by the river resting and thinking together after lunch.

: The crew hanging out and chatting before dinner.

: Anthony and Eric smiling in anticipation of a nice dinner of Alex’s great cooking.

: Alex baking some philosophical bread for dinner before another day of paddling.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: The canoes set by the river for the night.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: Anthony after a swim drying off by the river.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine.

: The upper West branch of the Penobscot River, in Maine, with mountains in the

: Ben taking a second to enjoy the beauty of the river and relieve and itch on the river.

: Alex looking deep in thought on the river.

: Anthony and Seth in their canoe.

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We’re on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Stitcher, and even now on YouTube, and we’ve got a regular RSS feed too!

Notes

Map featuring the Penobscot River in Maine.

Apeiron Expeditions and the AE PBB Canoe trip.
Outward Bound.
Northland College‘s outdoor education program.
Registered Maine guides.
Alex Hutchinson, “How Trees Calm Us Down,” The New Yorker, July 23, 2015.
Florence Williams and Aeon, “Why Fractals Are So Soothing,” The Atlantic, January 26, 2017.
Peter Lambrou, “Fun with Fractals? Why Nature Can Be Calming,” Psychology Today, September 7, 2012.
Situational Ethics.
Astronaut and U.S. Navy Commander Reid Wiseman’s missive about expeditionary behavior.

You Tell Me!

For our future “You Tell Me!” segments, Ben, Alex, and Seth asked the following questions, respectively, in this episode:

“What was the most impactful experience you’ve had in the outdoors?”

“What makes a good road trip partner?”

“Do you want to come up to Maine and talk about fractals together in a beautiful natural environment?”

Let us know what you think! Via Twitter, Facebook, Email, or by commenting here below.

Posted on Saturday, September 1, 2018

075: Ep71 – The Not So Golden Rule

Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show & podcast

In this 71st episode of the Philosophy Bakes Bread radio show and podcast, Eric Thomas Weber and Anthony Cashio interview Dan Flores on “The Not So Golden Rule,” the title of an essay that Dan published in Philosophy Now magazine.

Dan is a Professor of Philosophy and also the Director of the Northwest Honors College at Houston community college. His interests are within the realm of metaphysics and philosophy of science, specifically causation and explanation; also philosophy of religion and logic. Daniel has a passion for teaching logic. He is also involved with the New Mexico Texas Philosophical Society having served as the Society’s President, Secretary, and Editor-In-Chief of the Society’s peer reviewed journal, Southwest Philosophical Studies.