Kaitlyn Creasy is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at California State University, San Bernardino. She works primarily on 19th century European philosophy, especially the work of Friedrich Nietzsche, but also has interests in moral psychology and environmental philosophy.
What excites you about philosophy?
Rather than trying to explain what excites me about philosophy generally, let me focus on a few provocative ideas and themes that have animated my work and thought over the years and continue to excite me.
I am exceptionally introspective and as a younger person, I was always very keen to present myself and others with an accurate account of my inner states (including affective states, motivations for acting, etc.). One idea that very much excited and provoked me (that I encountered in the thought of Friedrich Nietzsche) was the idea that introspection – that most trustworthy of capacities for self-knowledge – might distort more than it reveals. Understanding why and how this happens continues to provoke my thought. (For a compelling Nietzschean account of introspection’s distortion, see Mattia Riccardi’s excellent article on “inner opacity.”)
Currently, I am also very excited by questions about the structure and origins of an individual’s affective states. In particular, I am interested in the way in which affects are transpersonal, or mediated by one’s society and culture: though they are individually experienced, they are produced in part by the interaction between an individual and the world to which she belongs. Although we experience them as such, in some sense our feelings are rarely our own.
What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?
My favorite thing that I’ve written so far is my book, which is coming out this summer with Palgrave Macmillan: The Problem of Affective Nihilism in Nietzsche: Thinking Differently, Feeling Differently. In it, I offer an account of Nietzschean nihilism as an affective, or feeling-based, phenomenon and explain how the affective manifestations of nihilism interact with its cognitive and sociocultural components. At this point, I think my favorite parts of the book are the ones that continue to be most generative for me: both 1) my account of the transpersonal nature of affectivity and 2) the Nietzschean strategy of self-genealogy that one can employ in an attempt to both excavate and intervene in the social and cultural influences on our affective lives.
What are you working on right now?
At the moment, I’m working on two very different papers: one employing the theoretical tools Nietzsche has on offer to illuminate the affective dynamics of gender oppression and sexism and one that argues for Nietzsche’s proto-ecocentrism in Thus Spoke Zarathustra. The first paper is perhaps a surprising application of Nietzsche’s thought, given his overtly sexist remarks. But his account of the exhausting, obstructive affective impacts of internalizing harmful social norms proves to be an excellent conceptual resource for describing the uniquely profound harms of sexism and other forms of oppression.
What is your favorite book of all time? (Or top 3). Why? To whom would you recommend them?
Rather than choosing one all-time favorite or listing three favorites, I will say that I tend to like works of fiction with wry, ambivalent portrayals of characters that end up provoking sympathy for potentially unsympathetic figures (Smith’s On Beauty and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary come to mind) and non-fiction works brimming with mundane but moving descriptions of the natural world (such as Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac and Abbey’s Desert Solitaire). When it comes to accounts of the natural world, I find myself convinced by Ed Abbey’s assertion that “there is a kind of poetry… in simple fact.” I’m also a total sucker for 19thcentury Russian literature, especially Tolstoy. A few years ago, I read Tolstoy’s The Cossacks for the first time. There’s this incredible passage in which the protagonist gets a clear glimpse at the Caucasus mountains and finds his perspective on himself and his world totally transformed from that glimpse alone. Tolstoy describes that shift so beautifully and requires so few words to do so. It’s exquisite.
Where is your favorite place you have ever traveled and why?
One of my favorite places on Earth is New Mexico, where I lived for five or so years. I still remembering driving West on I-40 on my first cross-country drive from the East Coast and passing through the Sandia Mountains for the first time into Albuquerque. New Mexico’s official nickname is the “Land of Enchantment,” and there truly is something magical and totally unique about it. Exploring the vast, open wildernesses of northern and western New Mexico and hiking through endless National Forest lands turned me into an environmental philosopher.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
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.
I think it is kind of a human vanity to think we can be alienated from nature.. We are just as much a part of the natural world, wherever we are, even on the space station. Is a bird trapped inside a abandoned house, any less a bird, or part of nature?