This series of Student Reflections is based on interviews conducted by Elyse Purcell and Sarah Horne during the APA’s 2019 Central Division Meeting in Denver, Colorado. Heather Stewart is currently a Philosophy PhD Candidate at Western University in London, Ontario, Canada. Her research highlights the intersection of feminist philosophy, political philosophy, and bioethics, with a special interest in the philosophy of microagressions.
What inspired you to pursue a graduate degree in philosophy?
When I discovered philosophy in university, I realized I would not be content doing anything else – likely to the confusion, and perhaps dismay, of my parents and mentors!
When I first moved to Louisville, Kentucky to attend the University of Louisville, I assumed that I would become a pediatrician. As a first-generation college student who grew up on the lower end of working class, having the opportunity to attend college at all was somewhat of a pipedream (one that a combination of scholarships, grants, and student loans made possible). Knowing that I was the first in my family to have that opportunity – and also reckoning with the fact that I had to put myself into fairly substantial debt to do so – meant that the obvious choice (or, the only choice) would be to pursue a career that would lead me toward long-term financial stability. The only such possibilities I could really envision were medical school and law school, though, having spent a lot of time with pediatricians dealing with my own chronic illness as a child, I was fairly quickly compelled in that direction. I began doing all of the right things – taking natural science-filled semesters to complete the pre-med curriculum, studying incessantly, and volunteering at the local children’s hospital in my (wildly limited) spare time. I was on the track I always assumed I would be on. But over time, my courses began to bore me – they were heavy on memorization of facts without an interrogation of those “facts,” or indeed, even a good understanding of them. At about the same time, I was shadowing in pediatric emergency and began to grapple with the many contradictions of health care delivery under the American system. Fairly quickly, I became more interested in health care policy, and the ethical questions that play out in real time in the clinic.
About that time, I had enrolled in an introductory philosophy course to fulfill a general education requirement. I had no idea what philosophy was (my high school didn’t offer it), but the course had “Literature and Film” in the title, and I have always loved both, so I took a gamble. Long story short, I was very quickly hooked. The professor of that course, Dr. John Gibson, recommended that I take “Medical Ethics” with Dr. Osborne Wiggins, given my interest in the ethical and political questions around medical practice and health care distribution. I followed his advice and enrolled in that course (thanks John!). It was excellent, and I was ecstatic to find that there was a whole discipline where people were asking the sorts of questions I was beginning to ask, and challenging the largely unquestioned assumptions that filled my natural science textbooks and the medical clinics I spent time in. Fast forward a few more courses, and I (quite ambitiously) decided to add a philosophy major to my biology major at the eleventh hour. I ended up taking a ridiculous course load (21 hours a term for multiple terms) to complete both degrees. As things progressed, I continued to follow my heart. Ultimately, my heart unapologetically led me to jump ship on medical school and begin to pursue philosophy in a more serious way, first in a Bioethics MA and then a Philosophy MA before landing into my current PhD program. It has not been an easy road to say the least, but I couldn’t imagine doing anything else and I feel so lucky to get to write and teach philosophy for a living (a modest living, but a living nonetheless!)
Which branch of philosophy do you study?
My primary research interests fall into the areas of bioethics, social and political philosophy, feminist philosophy and queer theories. What that means in the most general sense is that I am interested in how we structure our social and political lives, and how we (as embodied, socially-located individuals) interact with the institutions that frame our lives (whether medical, academic, legal, or so on). Right now, some of the specific things that I am working on involve the recent and ongoing “free speech” debates, particularly as they tend to manifest on university campuses, and related phenomena such as “no platforming.” The question for me is whether it is in fact the case that all speech ought to be protected (or welcomed) in certain settings, or, to the contrary, whether we might identify certain types of speech which we can reasonably and justifiably restrict on the basis of the harms they cause to individuals and groups (and particularly those individuals and groups which have been structurally oppressed and historically marginalized). I focus my research fairly heavily on three types of speech that, I argue, we are morally justified in restricting in the social domain and within our institutions: microaggressions, slurs, and hate speech.
With respect to microaggressions in particular, I have been collaborating for a few years now with Lauren Freeman (Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Louisville). Together, we are developing a novel way of thinking about and categorizing microaggressions that deviates from the standard model operative in the field of psychology (and which has also been generally accepted by philosophers who are working on microaggressions). Our work there aims to shift the focus of microaggressions research and advocacy to a model that centers targets – those most likely to experience microaggressions – and the harms that microaggressions impose on them. We situate our discussion and analysis of microaggressions and their harms within the background context of clinical medicine, and thus are also aiming to bring greater awareness to the phenomenon of microaggressions within medical practice in particular. To that end, we are currently co-writing a book, Microaggressions in Medicine, which both conceptualizes microaggressions (building off our recent article in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal), but also aims to offer practical guidance for health care professionals on how to recognize (and ultimately avoid) microaggressions.
What interests you most about this branch?
One thing I enjoy about the sorts of philosophical questions I work on are that they are fundamentally applied, and thus, have tangible consequences for how we live our lives, design our policies, and so forth. For example, the work I do with Lauren Freeman on microaggressions has allowed us to present directly to health care providers, and we recently wrote an article that will be disseminated to medical students and current providers in Louisville. In this way, this sort of work lends itself to making direct interventions and starting dialogues with the very people who have the power to implement our theoretical work directly. Similarly, I think there is potential for my work on “free speech” to influence university-level decision making with respect to such policies on campuses. These are just a few examples, but in general, I find it exciting to do work that is fundamentally applied, interdisciplinary, and which extends beyond academic philosophy.
For me, being able to see that the work I am doing has the possibility to contribute to real and important change, in areas that I care deeply about, makes the long hours and hard work that go into it worth it. It also keeps the work fresh and exciting.
Who is your favorite philosopher and why?
My first favorite philosopher was Iris Marion Young. Her 1980 essay on embodied phenomenology, “Throwing Like a Girl: A Phenomenology of Feminine Body Comportment, Motility, and Spatiality,” was the first piece of philosophy that I read and had the experience of thinking “Oh my goodness – this resonates with me.” It was the first time I really recognized the unique capacity of a good philosopher to really tap into important, and often overlooked, dimensions of human experience. Many of her other works have been influential for my thinking as well. Her books, Justice and the Politics of Difference, Inclusion and Democracy, and her posthumously published Responsibility for Justice are each core texts that feature prominently in my thinking and writing. I think her “social connection model of responsibility” is the best explanation for responsibility for structural injustice that we have, and I think it was integral for moving discussions about moral and political responsibility into more productive terrain. And it probably goes without saying, but her work on the concept of “oppression” has been utterly invaluable for my thinking in feminist philosophy.
More recently, I have a handful of favorites among the ranks of contemporary philosophers. Specifically, I am in awe of the brilliance and radical thinking of thinkers such as Kate Manne, Rebecca Kukla, Myisha Cherry, and Rachel McKinnon, among others. The discipline of philosophy is made much better and far, far more interesting by their respective contributions.
Relatedly, I am endlessly inspired by all of the diverse and awesome graduate students that I know that are overworked and underpaid but still manage to write compelling pieces of philosophy and still find time to be supportive to other folks on this journey. That is a special thing; community is incredibly important in this process, which can at times feel isolating and alienating. That said – read the work of graduate students!
And finally, I love Aristotle and I am not ashamed to say it. Moving on…
What do you plan to do with your degree once you graduate? If you are choosing to do something outside of a faculty position, please explain what it is and why.
Not unlike most people who put themselves through the seemingly never-ending (and at times entirely mentally exhausting) process of pursuing a PhD, my ultimate goal upon completing it is (no surprises here…) to end up in academia. My passion has been researching and writing philosophy since I first discovered that that was a thing people did, and I began learning how to do so in a meaningful way. As frustrating as elements of professional philosophy can be at times, I think it has a lot of potential, and there are a number of things that suggest to me that the discipline is growing and changing in important ways (I look at, for example, the brilliant and diverse undergraduate students I worked with as part of the PIKSI program at MIT, or the standing-room-only feminist philosophy panels at the APA). More than anything, I want to be part of those changes, and the growing tide of new voices and perspectives entering the field, asking new questions in new ways, and changing what it means to do philosophy professionally.
I do, however, have goals outside of the academy, which generally involve using my expertise to do work in applied areas, such as bioethics and health policy. I also harbor a fairly strong interest in being involved in state level politics down the line…but we will see how things go. If not, I will remain involved in activism and advocacy in other ways, and I think graduate level education in philosophy is incredibly useful for applying to social justice movements and political movements more generally.
Overall, I think what is most important to me is that I find ways to use philosophy, and not just do philosophy in the traditional sense. In other words, my aim is to take the skills that I have developed through graduate training in philosophy and use them to make the world better. That doesn’t necessarily mean finding and implementing some grand solution that makes the world better in one fell swoop. Rather, I think movements towards justice are slower, and more incremental, and every little bit – every action, every conversation – matters. Every interaction with a stranger, or on social media, or whatever it is, offers an opportunity to probe thought, to ask questions, to listen, to have a constructive conversation, and to be a light, or a positive influence. That is how I try to use philosophy in my daily life: to encourage those around me to question their own thinking and underlying assumptions, to encourage respectful and productive dialogue about difficult issues across our many differences, and to help people think through the nuances and complexities of the many issues that we collectively face – especially from perspectives or standpoints they may never have considered. I genuinely believe that philosophy (and thus, philosophers!) are uniquely situated to open up these intensely important (but often incredibly difficult) conversations. As such, I think we philosophers are tasked with doing so – we have a responsibility to make sure that the philosophy that we do extends beyond the narrow realm of the academy and prestigious-but-totally-inaccessible journal publications, and reaches outward to the communities around us, finding ways to involve multiple voices in the process of philosophy in substantive ways. I think that is my largest goal as a developing philosopher, and one I hope never to lose clear sight of.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to share student reflections on APA meetings. We’d love for you to be a part of it. If you’re a student and would like to submit a reflection, contact Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall at sabrinamisirhiralall@apaonline.org.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
