Welcome to New Public Philosophy Editor Ashley Bohrer

The Blog of the APA is proud to welcome Ashley Bohrer as the new Public Philosophy editor. Ashley is an Assistant Professor of Gender and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. Ashley has written for and spoken to the public on many times before, and is well-versed in public philosophy. To introduce her life and work to the Blog‘s readers, she took the time to answer a few questions.

Welcome to the APA Blog staff! Tell us a little about yourself (Where did you do your degree? What are your philosophical interests?)?

Hi everyone! I’m a scholar-activist based in Chicago. Right now, I’m Assistant Professor of Gender and Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame. The Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies there is a really interdisciplinary program, and it’s a great place to think about philosophy with and beyond the discipline. Before that, I was the Truax Postdoctoral Fellow in Public Philosophy at Hamilton College in New York. I got a BA in Philosophy at The George Washington University, and an MA/PhD at DePaul University. Broadly, my work is in political philosophy, especially in the domains of anti-capitalism, decolonial and Latin American philosophy, and critical philosophies of race, gender, and sexuality. My first book, Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class, and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism is about how we should thinking about the relationship between oppression and exploitation. I’m also the translator for Françoise Vergès’s A Decolonial Feminism, which is coming out with Pluto Press in April 2021. You can find more of my work here.

I’m also really invested in the project of re-thinking how the classroom can be a venue for social justice and social change work. I’m the co-host of the Pedagogies for Peace podcast with my wonderful colleague in Native Studies, Justin De Leon. We really talk about how to bring radical, feminist, decolonial, anti-racist approaches to teaching in the classroom. Season 1 launched a few weeks ago and really focuses on how to bring these pedagogies into the COVID-19 era classroom.

What attracts you to public philosophy? How would you like to see the Public Philosophy beat develop during your tenure as editor?

My relationship to philosophy changed a lot when I became an activist. It changed the content focus of my work (aesthetics to political philosophy), but more than that, it really changed my approach to philosophy and my understanding of what philosophy is. I think theory is here to serve the work of liberation. How can we understand ourselves and the world better so we can mobilize and change it? In this sense, I really think about my work as taking up Karl Marx’s 11^th thesis in Theses on Feuerbach: “Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the point is to change it.” I think my question is always: ‘how can philosophers interpret the world in order to change it?’ When I was newer in professional philosophy, I faced a lot of pressure to choose between being an activist or being a scholar, and I think what attracts me most to public philosophy is that it’s a domain where I can fully and exuberantly be both at the same time.

I hope that during my tenure, I can build on the work others have done to really stake out this terrain of powerful and transformative relationships between being philosophers and being all of the other things that we are. Sometimes public philosophy means professional philosophers commenting on issues of public concern; but I think that it also means looking at the ways non-academics are already doing philosophy in a lot of ways. Philosophers have a lot to learn about philosophy from folks who are doing art, media, activism, science, K-12 education, political work, care work, and other projects. My goal as Public Philosophy Editor is to highlight the amazing work that folks are doing on both fronts, and hopefully, to bring both halves of the public philosophy project closer together than they often are.

I’m also really passionate about making philosophy more accessible (in the multiple meanings of that word!). I want philosophy to be accessible to folks without formal training, but I also think philosophy has a long, long, long way to go in being accessible to disabled folks like myself. If you have ideas for posts and projects on the blog that speak to accessibility in either one of these senses (or both at the same time!), I would love to hear from you!

What are your non-academic interests? How do you explore them in your spare time?

I’ve already talked a lot about being activist, and I spend a lot of my time in movement spaces, especially in the Palestine Liberation and the immigrant rights movements. But beyond that, I’m low-key obsessed with food, and I do a LOT of cooking and baking. My new year’s resolution was to cook at least 52 new recipes from my (admittedly too large) cookbook collection, because I often just read them cover to cover rather than cooking from them; I easily cleared this number,  I’m super excited to do this again in 2021, perhaps with a new goal of 100 new recipes. I love gardening and growing as much of my own food as possible (which is admittedly, not much in my 1 bedroom Chicago apartment!). I also especially love fermenting projects; right now I have cranberries fermenting in raw honey, sparkling ginger wine, and salt-packed limes going; my sourdough starter is the baby of one started in 1847 (I’ve had it since before the Pandemic Sourdough Craze of 2020).  Now that it’s colder out, I might start the months-long process of making my own Gochuchang. I’m also a huge food history nerd, and I think a lot about how food (both what we eat and how we eat) has changed through capitalism and colonization.

I’m a big podcast fan, I also love bad television (the worse the better, really). You’re always welcome to add a podcast or bad TV recommendation to your pitches to me!!

Is there anything else you’d like to share with readers?

I really think about public philosophy as a community project, so even if your idea doesn’t totally line up with how I have talked about my approach here, pitch me anyway!! I always want to stretch my own understanding of what’s possible and to hear about all of the exciting projects folks are doing. So please: pitch away!