Introduction to the Series “Reports from Abroad”

“La philosophie est une réflexion pour qui toute matière étrangère est bonne, et nous dirions volontiers pour qui toute bonne matière est étrangère.”

“Philosophy is a reflection for which all foreign matter is good, and we could gladly say, for which all good matter is foreign.”

— Georges Canguilhem, The Normal and the Pathological

Hello, everyone. My name is André M. Penna-Firme, and I’m the new series editor for the series Reports from Abroad.

The idea that a blog dedicated to showcasing the work being done by the members of the American Philosophical Association should have a series dedicated to scholars and researchers working outside U.S. borders could seem, at first glance, somewhat unusual. What is the interest in creating a space specifically for people outside the American research environment, in a discipline that has been, since its beginnings in Ancient Greece, a search for universality and the underlying truth beneath our plural and ephemeral experience? What difference does it make?

In the end, one should ask oneself, what does “abroad” mean, in the face of universality?

This series sets out from a simple premise: that philosophy happens all over the world, and that where it happens matters. Philosophical inquiry is shaped by local histories, institutional frameworks, political urgencies, linguistic traditions, historical oppressions, and social normativity. In an era where former European and North American colonies are beginning to free themselves from not only political and military coercion, but also from cultural and linguistic oppressions, often more subtle and imperceptible than the former, philosophy starts to change. In different regions, what counts as a pressing problem, a valid method, or even a “philosophical” question can vary widely. Yet often, philosophical discourse—especially in Anglophone and especially American settings—assumes a kind of universality that floats free of these differences.

We hear the word “philosophy” and imagine a shared endeavor, conducted on neutral ground, speaking to universal reason. But there is no view from nowhere. If philosophy seeks the universal, it always does so from within particular landscapes—intellectual, cultural, and political. And those landscapes are not uniform. This series is an invitation to see philosophy not only as a global discipline but also as a pluriversal one: a field marked by diversity not just of topic, but of form, function, and focus.

There is something deeply appropriate in beginning a series titled Reports from Abroad with a reflection on the “foreign” itself. Canguilhem’s observation, written in 1974 in France, at the height of the post-modern and linguistic shift, reminds us that philosophy has never been insulated from difference, contingency, or distance. To philosophize is, in part, to allow what is strange, external, or other to interrupt what is familiar. And this is true not only of philosophical content—the concepts and questions that challenge our settled assumptions—but also of philosophical contexts, the places and positions from which philosophy is practiced.

What are the goals of this series?

Reports from Abroad will showcase philosophical work being done outside the United States—often in non-Anglophone contexts and emerging from different institutional and intellectual conditions. It will prioritize research and approaches that have become, one way or another, foreign to the intellectual mainstream of Western and especially Anglophone circles of validation. Some entries will be interviews with scholars whose research opens new avenues for thought; others will be reflections on pedagogical models, book reviews, or essays that situate philosophical problems in specific sociocultural worlds.

This is not simply a series “about philosophy elsewhere.” It is about how the elsewhere is already inside philosophy itself, how every philosophy, from Plato until today, carries always the sense of wonder, always a view from abroad.

Canguilhem’s insight reminds us that philosophical vitality depends on openness to what is “foreign”—whether that means conceptual disruptions, methodological alternatives, or regional traditions that unsettle what dominant academic frameworks take for granted. That said, if in 1974, Canguilhem—watching Foucault’s philosophical discoveries in the social sciences and Lacan’s and Guattari’s psychoanalytical incursions in the realms of philosophical thinking—stated what he did, we could say, opening up the scope of our lenses, that he held up the tradition of the Brazilian philosopher and Poet Oswald de Andrade, who, in 1928, in his Anthropophagic Manifesto, stated that “I am only interested in what isn’t mine. Law of man. Law of the anthropophagous.”

From abroad, Andrade reminded us then that foreignness was never an obstacle to universal insight; it is the path to it.

Why “abroad”—and for whom?

Of course, “abroad” is a relative term. To write from Brazil, Senegal, the Philippines, or Finland is to write from somewhere. What counts as “abroad” depends on your vantage point. This series takes the U.S.—and, by extension, the U.S.-centric (but also European) philosophical mainstream—as its implicit center, not in order to reinforce that centrality, and less so to discredit the importance of the philosophy being done there, but to, in a way, expand it. To treat the U.S. context as one among many is already to shift the terms of the philosophical conversation.

The goal of the series will be to showcase that every philosopher, in one way or another, talks from “abroad”.

In this sense, Reports from Abroad is not addressed only to U.S. philosophers, students, and laypeople interested in philosophical matters. It is also addressed to anyone, anywhere, who wants to reflect on what it means to philosophize in this broad world. Readers may find here not only new content, but new conditions for thinking: how migration, colonial legacies, language politics, aboriginal cosmologies, popular spiritualities, institutional constraints, or alternative visions of modernity shape what kind of thinking becomes possible or urgent.

What inspired your interest in this topic, and why others should be interested?

My own philosophical work has always felt the mark of being done “abroad,” rooted in this tension between the effort of universalization and the reality of particularity. Trained across different languages and traditions, I have long been struck by how quickly even our most abstract concepts—freedom, justice, the self, nature—take on different contours depending on where and how they are used. As a Ph.D. student located in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, every time I write something, I am writing from abroad.

My work started in my first master’s, where I studied the relationship between the works of German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and the Brazilian writer Lima Barreto. Lima Barreto was foreign to philosophical studies not due to his social condition (being both Brazilian and black), but also due to the fact that he was a novelist and a journalist, commenting and discussing with philosophers. Already in this first step of my years-long research, I stepped upon the fact that philosophy was never (and could never) be enclosed in a scholarly discipline or a geographical location.

My subsequent work, tracing the relations between aesthetics, scientific discourse, poetical resources, and philosophical thinking, led me to understand philosophy as a way of approaching reality that is always, inevitably, anthropophagic. I’ve spent two years in Paris, where my research on the relationship between Nietzsche and literary and poetic thought significantly expanded. Even if today, I am currently investigating the works of Nietzsche and Diderot, it is impossible for me to disregard the fact that here—from a Brazilian and Latin-American perspective—the sought-after universality sounds so different.

But this series is not about me. It is about others: other places, other voices, other ways of thinking. I hope it will serve as a platform not only for translation (in the broadest sense), but also for encounter—encounter with intellectual traditions unfamiliar to many readers, and with problems that arise when thought takes root in different soil.

What kind of contributions will you find here?

In the coming entries, this series will feature reflections on philosophical work shaped by local contexts—whether in response to political crises, ecological urgencies, or lived experiences that fall outside dominant narratives. Contributors may offer insight into how philosophy is taught, practiced, or institutionalized in places far removed from the academic mainstream, revealing how these settings influence the priorities and vocabulary of thought.

The series will also explore how language, translation, and cultural embeddedness affect the very form of philosophical inquiry. Whether focusing on overlooked texts, decolonial movements, or hybrid modes of theorizing that draw from philosophy’s neighboring disciplines, each contribution will be an invitation to rethink what philosophy can be and where it can come from.

An invitation

If you’re reading this and thinking, “There’s something I’d like to contribute,” please do. If you’ve read or written something that captures what it is to philosophize from “abroad,” or if you want to reflect on your own experience studying, teaching, or researching outside the usual centers of philosophical gravity, I want to hear from you. Philosophy, in the best sense, is a collaborative enterprise. May this series be a space where that kind of exchange can happen.

Welcome to Reports from Abroad.

The Reports from Abroad series of the APA Blog aims to share philosophical perspectives and insights about Philosophical Approaches around the world. If you would like to contribute to this series, email apennafirme@gmail.com.