It is with great pleasure that I announce Nathan Eckstrand’s appointment as Editor-in-Chief of the Blog of the APA, starting July 1st, 2020. Nathan has been part of the team since soon after the blog launched over four years ago, and has been an integral part of the Blog’s success.
Nathan is an excellent editor who has worked with hundreds of contributors to the Blog. He has also managed multiple series including Early Career Researcher interviews, New Book Spotlights, and has worked in collaboration with series editors on Black Issues in Philosophy and Women in Philosophy, and others. Nathan has lots of fresh ideas for the Blog and I am excited to see how it develops with his leadership.
In addition to his role on the Blog, Nathan is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Fort Hays State University. He was previously a Visiting Assistant Professor at Marian University and a Merton Teaching Fellow at Mercyhurst University. Nathan is co-editor of Philosophy and the Return of Violence: Essays from this Widening Gyre, and has published articles on Deleuze, Foucault, Fanon, and Said. In addition to articles about race, Marxism, and social contract theory, Nathan is looking at ways direct action could be relevant to humanities advocacy. He recently finished a book manuscript on the question of how to conceive of revolution and resistance without making revolution advocate for one type of political state. In the future he plans to use this research to explore ways systems theory can address questions in social and political philosophy. Nathan received his PhD from Duquesne University, his MA from Boston College, and his BA from Earlham College. He is on Twitter @NathanEckstrand.
I am very pleased with what we’ve accomplished with the Blog over the past 5 years, how we have grown, and the ideas we have been able to publish and discuss. I am incredibly grateful to the editorial team, the APA, and the hundreds of authors who have contributed articles to the Blog. I look forward to continuing to support and advise the editorial team as Nathan leads the Blog into this next exciting phase.
Please join me in warmly congratulating Nathan on his appointment!
Skye C. Cleary PhD MBA is a philosopher and author of How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment (2022), Existentialism and Romantic Love (2015) and co-editor of How to Live a Good Life (2020). She was a MacDowell Fellow (2021), awarded the 2021 Stanford Calderwood Fellowship, and won a New Philosopher magazine Writers’ Award (2017). She teaches at Columbia University and the City College of New York and is former Editor-in-Chief of the APA Blog.
This is exciting news in such trying times. Nathan has been an incredible editor to work with since 2017 with my APA Blog contributions. He is infinitely patient, extraordinarily kind, insightful, and a philosopher of the future. I can still recall some of our early days in the DU grad program where it was apparent he was carving his own path without interfering with others. He is sure to help advance the Blog further in the most excellent and creative of ways. Exciting!
Hey, that’s great. I’ve been gone from the blog for awhile and was under the impression Nathan had moved on to other adventures. Whether he’s always been here, or now is back, either way that’s good.
I can report that Nathan has shown above and beyond the call of duty patience with this poster, which is admittedly not always the easiest of assignments. I’m working on making it easier though, promise.
As perhaps I’ve already expressed too many times, the lack of engagement between members on this blog is not a good sign. It seems APA members are not too interested in each other’s posts, and that troubling phenomena would perhaps be ripe territory for a new series. If members can’t connect with each other here on their own group blog, connecting with the broader public is likely to be problematic. Isn’t such connection with the public key to keeping the funding for academic philosophy rolling?
I will hereby renew, as always, a request that the blog focus much more attention on our relationship with knowledge, which seems an entirely appropriate topic for philosophers to examine. We can’t count on scientists, politicians or journalists to lead such investigations, so if not philosophers, who then?
In my opinion, our relationship with knowledge is the key issue of the 21st century. Our simplistic “more is better” relationship with knowledge is an outdated philosophical relic of the 19th century, and if we can’t figure out how to update that relationship, and do so pretty quickly, the other issues addressed by this blog are likely to be swept away by the tide of history.
Congrats Nathan, here’s wishing you much success.