The American Philosophical Association is pleased to announce that it will provide grants to eight philosophy-related projects for 2017–2018. For more information on these programs, visit the previously funded projects page of our website.
Small Grant Program
Each year, the APA Eastern Division provides $25,000 for the APA’s Small Grant Program. This year’s grant application process was quite competitive, with twenty-four proposals requesting a total of $103,052 from our $25,000 grant fund. The following six programs will receive funding:
2018 Iowa Lyceum
The Iowa Lyceum is a free five-day philosophy summer camp open to all Iowa high schoolers. The Iowa Lyceum gives these students a chance to engage in philosophy that is all-too rare for American high school students. The Iowa Lyceum divides into twenty 45-minute sessions, which include an introduction to logic and critical thinking, a session focused on a close textual reading and reconstruction of a well-known philosophical argument, and various other sessions related to the chosen theme for the year. The students create and deliver presentations on the final day of the Iowa Lyceum on a philosophical topic of their choosing, which gives them a chance to practice what we teach. The Iowa Lyceum provides free breakfast and lunch to participants, and gives students two gifts: a philosophical text and an Iowa Lyceum t-shirt. It is organized by graduate students in, and taught by members of, the University of Iowa philosophy department. The APA will fund this program at $500.
AAPT Teaching and Learning Summer Seminar
The American Association of Philosophy Teachers’ biennial Teaching and Learning Summer Seminar provides the highest level of teacher training available by and for philosophers. To maximize our impact, the Teaching and Learning Summer Seminar focuses on graduate students and early career faculty. We provide the participants with research-based best practices from the scholarship of teaching and learning and the science of learning. Guided by national award-winning philosophers who are experts in teaching and learning, participants become able to develop quickly and thoroughly into outstanding teachers. Supporting graduate students’ and early career philosophers’ ability to participate in this seminar is a central and essential way for the APA to meet the teaching component of its mission. The APA will fund this program at $5,000.
Beyond Borders: Bringing Latinx Undergraduates Into Philosophy
The underrepresentation of various groups in philosophy is well known, and the profession has developed a variety of programs to counteract this underrepresentation through, among other things, mentoring programs for undergraduate, graduate and early tenure-track members of the profession. One group that is significantly underrepresented is persons who identify as Latinx. Our program is aimed at correcting this underrepresentation. It will do so in two ways. First, by providing a mentoring program specifically directed at Latinx undergraduate students at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP), which is located at the border with Mexico. Second, by providing support for students to participate in and present their research at the Latinx Philosophy Conference at Rutgers University. It is noteworthy that there is no standalone program directed at undergraduate Latinx philosophers, and we take our proposed program to fill this gap. The APA will fund this program at $5,000.
Philosophy at HBCUs Conference on Race and Resistance
This project seeks to help promote diversity in the profession by holding a philosophy at HBCUs conference on race and resistance as part of our efforts in public philosophy. We are particularly interested in scholarly explorations of the role that philosophical inquiry, reasoning, and criticism play in the development of varied strategies of resistance among minoritized communities in America and abroad. Given the locale and context for the conference, we also plan to give preference to topics that explore these issues as they impact historically Black colleges and universities and their surrounding communities and will include community partners in each of our panels. In order to help encourage submissions and facilitate participation, especially from philosophers at HBCUs with often-limited resources, we are seeking support in order to provide each presenter with a small stipend to help offset their travel costs. The APA will fund this program at $5,000.
Seminar on Teaching and Learning Philosophy for High School Teachers
PLATO (Philosophy Learning and Teaching Organization) requested $4,500 to cover the travel costs for 15 high school teachers to attend the 2018 AAPT Summer Seminar on Teaching and Learning Philosophy. In 2014 and 2016, PLATO and AAPT hosted the inaugural joint High School Summer Seminar with generous support from the APA. Due to its enormous success and enthusiastic reports from the participating teachers and facilitators, the program will be offered again in 2018. At the Seminar, selected high school educators will discuss and share new approaches to engaging students with philosophy, and exchange ideas with each other and with university faculty attending the larger conference. Expanding the AAPT Summer Seminar to include high school teachers accomplishes two goals: it furthers PLATO’s mission of building a national support and resource-sharing network of all those committed to advancing pre-college philosophy, and helps ensure the high quality of pre-college philosophy instruction. The APA will fund this program at $4,500.
Trans Philosophy Project
Over the past two decades, with the publication of The Transgender Studies Reader 1 and 2 (2006; 2013) and TSQ: Transgender Studies Quarterly, transgender studies has quickly become a prominent interdisciplinary field. While disciplines such as history, literature, and visual arts have made significant contributions to this emerging field, philosophy has yet to clarify its role within transgender studies. The aim of this project will be to explore what might be called “trans philosophy”—that is, philosophical work that is accountable to and illuminative of transgender experiences, histories, cultural production, and politics. The affiliated conference will facilitate the development of such work within a broad range of philosophical projects (across metaphysics, epistemology, social/political philosophy, and ethics). In doing so, it will help to define the rich philosophical stakes within transgender studies. In this vein, trans people trained and/or working in philosophy will be encouraged to submit proposals. The APA will fund this program at $5,000.
Diversity and Inclusiveness Grants
The board of officers committed $20,000 for 2017–2018 to support one or two programs aiming to increase the presence and participation of women, racial and ethnic minorities, LGBTQ people, people with disabilities, people of low socioeconomic status, and other underrepresented groups in philosophy. Learn more. Out of twenty applications, the board chose to fund the following two projects for 2017–2018.
Summer Program for Women in Philosophy
The Summer Program for Women in Philosophy‘s goal is to address the significant gender imbalance in our discipline by means of an annual summer enrichment program for female undergraduate majors interested in graduate study. It is a two-week program for 14–16 participants consisting of two recurring seminars and workshops on the profession, graduate school, and applying to graduate school. Participants are selected according to philosophical promise, diversity of various kinds, and overcoming various kinds of adversity, including limited philosophical resources at their home institutions. The program introduces them to like-minded peers and to a network of supportive faculty and graduate students whom they may not have access to at their undergraduate programs. We collect survey responses from participants to measure the effectiveness of the program and improve its quality. The APA will fund this program at $10,000.
Supporting Diversity and Inclusiveness in the National High School Ethics Bowl
The National High School Ethics Bowl (NHSEB) is a program that promotes respectful, supportive, and in-depth discussion of ethics and philosophy among high school students. Teams from schools across the country examine ethical cases at Regional Bowls, and the winners then travel to University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for the National Bowl. Our aim is to provide high school students, especially students from underserved communities, with a forum in which they can learn and practice philosophy together. We employ a collaborative model that rewards students for the depth of their thought and the respect they show for the diverse perspectives of their peers. We want to begin a micro-grant program for Regional Bowls in underserved communities to direct focus on outreach to diverse high schools in their local area, as well as to strengthen the financial support we offer to qualifying teams traveling to attend the National Bowl. The APA will fund this program at $10,000.
