Scholarship,  Teaching

Join the Mellon Philosophy as a Way of Life Project! (UPDATED Deadline January 15)

I am very excited to announce the Mellon Philosophy as a Way of Life Project, a new initiative to help scholars effectively teach philosophy as a way of life! I am delighted to be serving as one of the Lead Faculty Advisors.  If you teach philosophy at a post-secondary institution and are interested at all, please check out our website: philife.nd.edu and consider submitting a letter of intent. We are less than a week away from the January 15 deadline for applying for the first cohort.
We are putting together a network of interested scholars to share resources and to participate in a week-long workshop we will be running at Notre Dame for members, each of the next three summers. You can apply for travel funding and we also have seed grants for undergraduate peer mentorship programs. We are also building up a digital portal to share experiences, teaching materials, and research in this area.
Anyone who teaches philosophical texts should consider applying. We want our network to feature a number of different approaches to philosophy, a wide variety of teaching institutions, and diverse backgrounds among participants. Part of the project also involves considering the spectrum of views on what teaching philosophy as a way of life is, from Pierre Hadot-influenced approaches to effective altruism-inspired courses and many others besides.
We also want to share the many different ways of incorporating philosophy as a way of life: from students role-playing members of philosophical schools, to trying practical exercises and reflecting on them, to actually doing geometry to understand why Plato values it, to writing your own philosophical apology, to class projects that aim to make the world a better place, and many more.
 You do not have to be teaching (or be scheduled to teach) a philosophy as a way of life course. The workshop and portal will have resource for incorporating philosophy as a way of life ideas and exercises into various types of courses, including Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Ethics, and Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy. The workshops will definitely feature exercises and sessions related to ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, as well as a number of other periods and cultures.
Everyone who teaches at a post-secondary institution (adjunct, tenure-track, and tenured philosophy teachers) is eligible to apply. To apply, please submit a letter of interest outlining your experience with teaching philosophy as a way of life and your reasons for wanting to participate in the network. If you wish to be considered for travel funding for the conference, your letter should also outline your level of need for this funding. Letters of interest for the first cohort are due Jan 15, 2019 and should be sent to philife@nd.edu.  The subject line should include “Letter of Interest: NAME INSTITUTION”.  The deadline for applying for the first cohort is January 15.  Network members commit to attending at least one of the summer workshops and to sharing teaching resources from their courses with other members on the upcoming PhiLife portal. Funded participants are expected to attend each of the three annual weekly summer workshops and either develop or expand a “way of life” course at their institution.  If you have any questions, you can contact me or the PhiLife team. Thanks!

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