Our Tea and Philosophy club formally began in the Spring of 2012. It sprang from regular, after-class discussions with some of my students. I suggested starting the club so that we could sit and drink tea and talk at leisure. We meet in an open (doorless) study lounge in the NYU Liberal Studies department space, every Friday afternoon. Weekly posts of online readings are shared on Facebook. Sessions run for 90 minutes, and for some students, an occasional spillover to a post-T&P party. We always close with a round-robin of “final thoughts”: sharing a one-sentence (if possible) take-away about what they learned. We always start with tea, as the name of our club indicates, because it takes some time and care to make tea, so there is no hard start-time, and there is a gradual lift off. In our meetings, some folks take advantage of the time at the beginning to finish (or even start) the reading during the session, and so no one actually feels late. We cultivate caring and sharing: some folks bring pastries or cookies and others order pizza for the after-party.
Every reading and topic we have discussed is on our Facebook page. Quite often we discuss topics such as consciousness, freedom, science, religion, knowledge, belief, morality, relativity, beauty, creativity, authenticity and mystery. We discuss short readings, mostly philosophical texts, some poetry and speculative literature. Topics are completely student-controlled. My actual participation as faculty moderator involves being always present to the flow, occasionally adding observations on what’s being said, or background info on technical concepts or histories that are unfamiliar. I avoid lecturing and being the focal point of discussion.
The club has been running continuously on a weekly basis, astonishingly, for nearly a full decade! Even during Covid, we Zoom-ed. How? Why? I don’t think that there is a formula for success and no instructions for exactly what to do, what topics to select, how to select them, etc. Nevertheless, here are some thoughts: I attribute the extensive continuity to having club presidents who have been passionate about ideas and are powerfully devoted to the process of inquiry. It is also important to recognize that students find topics for discussion in a variety of sources, including but going beyond classical philosophical issues. So our starting points for discussion involve writings from a variety of fields. A student club must be completely student-run. Faculty moderators should not be at the front of the room or be at the center of discussion — this is not a class so we don’t treat it like one at all. After students have been to classes week after week, additional classroom atmosphere is not what they crave. As the faculty moderator, my goal is to give students space for their opinions and thoughts.
The greatest benefits of our club are the emergence of camaraderie, sincerity, willingness to listen, share, investigate and discover one’s own ideas and feelings with the help of others engaged in the same pursuit. Exchanges often become very personal, resulting in trust and friendships among the members. I believe this is what kept the same students returning week after week and year after year. As I see it, my job as faculty moderator is to maintain this atmosphere of openness, the spirit of inquiry, and the general sense that there is something to be learned during each and every session. Part of my job, therefore, involves keeping the flow inclusive by inviting opinions from those who seem to have something to say but don’t speak, and to encourage restraint to those who may take up too much space.
I genuinely enjoy spending time with students. We are all there not to prove or disprove propositions or win arguments, but to understand ourselves and each other and to enjoy the release that comes from both activities. As a result of this, and the trust that builds over time, our meetings always involve LAUGHTER stimulated by the pleasure of understanding why we agree or disagree with some claim or other, and what we might find silly, absurd or nonsensical about it.
Finally, the following is an important point that gets to the core of what it means to have a club. There is no formal connection between the club and our formal classes. Sometimes, topics of discussion remind students of a text or point raised in a class. Occasionally a student will suggest a reading that they used in class at some point in the past. But in general, every club session is “stand-alone.” Our club doesn’t follow a syllabus, but is open to any topic at any time, as suggested by club members. Part of the virtue of a club is that it is precisely NOT an extension of their philosophy class, so the typical constraints to thought and expression are largely absent, and that is a great relief to everyone involved, including me. Classes are classes, and they are good. But as every student will tell you (as past club members have told me) they learn A LOT outside of the classroom. Clubs can provide that relatively unstructured space and time to feel, learn, make leaps, and enjoy trying out absurd analogies and notice strange similarities.
Farzad Mahootian
Farzad Mahootian (Ph.D. Philosophy, M.S. Chemistry) teaches the Global Liberal Studies core at New York University. He has taught philosophy, science, and humanities courses for over thirty years. His research centers on interactions between philosophy, science, technology and society. Of special interest: the relevance of rhetoric, myth and metaphor to the history of philosophy, science and technology. Recent publications include, "Kant, Cassirer, and the Idea of Chemical Element," in What Is A Chemical Element? (Oxford, 2020); "Metaphor in Chemistry: An Examination of Chemical Metaphor," in Philosophy of Chemistry: Growth of a New Discipline (Springer, 2015); “Paneth’s epistemology of chemical elements in light of Kant’s Opus postumum,” in Foundations of Chemistry, 15 (Springer 2013).
