Engaged Philosophy and the Public Philosophy Network are partnering to present a special interview series that highlights the work of public philosophers who will be presenting at the 2019 PPN Conference Oct 17-19, 2019.
Perry Zurn is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at American University. His often-collaborative work in curiosity studies, critical prison studies, and trans philosophy crosses university-community boundaries as well as disciplines.
1. What gets you out of bed in the morning? What is your passion?
The promise of silence in my ears, the bitter heat of coffee in my mouth, and the thrum of words in my blood. Recently reading Ocean Vuong’s On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, I paused here: “I am writing because they told me never to start a sentence with because. But I wasn’t trying to make a sentence—I was trying to break free.” Writing has always been a space of freedom for me. A place where the world slacks, where rules bend and break, and where thick room oozes from thin air. When I can’t write a word, I listen for them.
2. What type(s) of public philosophy do you do?
Public philosophy involves at least three things: doing philosophical work that is relevant to a broader public, doing philosophical work with a broader public, and allowing a broader public to change how philosophy is done. I enjoy, first of all, collaborating with people in different disciplines—anthropology, educational theory, neuroscience, political theory, and psychology—to write about contemporary questions facing all of us (e.g., punishment, gender, and curiosity). I also enjoy engaging in philosophical reflection with non-academics, whether it’s middle schoolers, K-12 educators, activists, or community leaders. Thinking about our collective values and practices is really something better done together (surprise!). Finally, I steadily involve myself in university “diversity work”—that is, recruiting and supporting people from underrepresented groups. I see diversity work as a way of injecting counterpublics into the very heart of philosophy itself, and the academy beyond it.
3. Give an example of a successful project.
As much of my research attests, I’m really inspired by Michel Foucault’s work with the Prisons Information Group (GIP) in the 1970s. To me, the GIP is an exemplar of publicly engaged, social-justice-inspired work, committed to changing what problems get recognized and which voices get heard. In this spirit, I have most recently taken up two threads of public philosophy: first, the politics and ethics of curiosity and, second, the history and future of trans philosophy.
First, in conjunction with my forthcoming edited collection, Curiosity Studies: A New Ecology of Knowledge (University of Minnesota Press, Spring 2020), which I co-edited with Arjun Shankar, I am collaborating with local radio host Lynn Borton on a 12-episode series for the Choose to be Curious podcast interviewing Curiosity Studies contributors. The book is a philosophically rich, interdisciplinary exploration of what curiosity is and why it’s important for human and ecological flourishing. The podcast, as an extension of the book, aims to bring people from all walks of life into the discussion. I’m so excited to see where the conversation goes! Lynn is also part of the Curiosity, Mindfulness, and Education (CME) working group I co-direct with Asia Ferrin. This university-community collaborative (just a great group of folks) aspires to enhance the learning process, for all ages and in all settings, through the synergy of curiosity and mindfulness practices. Right now, we are exploring a curiosity that is mindful of our social location and a mindfulness that is curious about the histories of inequality that saturate our bodyminds.
Second, with Andrea Pitts, and a real family of trans philosophers, I co-direct the Trans Philosophy Project (TPP). This project—which organizes conferences, pedagogical resources, and an ongoing bibliography—aims to support philosophical work that is accountable to and illuminative of transgender experiences, histories, cultural production, and politics. Closer to home, I direct the AU Trans Experience: Then and Now project, which is an archival and oral history project aiming to explore and celebrate transgender experience at American University over the past several decades. These projects not only underscore the necessity of unearthing subjugated knowledges but they provide a platform through which those of us involved are co-building histories (and presents) of wisdom and belonging.
4. How do you motivate yourself to do public philosophy in times of political or personal struggle?
Personal and political stakes play an energizing role in my public philosophy work. As a kid, I was raised to be a transdisciplinary, transhumanist thinker (with a healthy dash of rebel). To this day, I am troubled by gatekeeping, academic siloes, and the ivory tower itself. If we can’t talk to each other and appreciate what each brings, how are we going to understand, care for, and celebrate one another and our world? How are we going to meet the incredible challenges of climate change and tenacious racism?
I also grew up viscerally aware of the effects of inequality. When you see or know suffering, it produces “a legitimate and unavoidable impatience,” as Martin Luther King put it. If not me and if not now, who will do it, and when? My professional and public conversations about social and environmental justice are fueled by this felt need for things to be different than they are or have been. For me, studying curiosity, for example, is inseparable from re-imagining curiosity for underserved and/or neurodiverse learners.
5. What benefits does doing public philosophy offer to the public(s) you engage?
The benefits of public philosophy are not simply benefits to the public. They are also benefits to philosophy. Public conversation can be changed through the facilitation of argumentative analysis, assessment of stakes and implications, identification of assumptions, and contextualization within a history of ideas (and policies, and problems). But, philosophy, too, can be changed and challenged. Philosophy can be humbled and reinvigorated, sharpened against the real needs and knots we collectively face. Thinking is never easy, but thinking accountably is the hardest, most rewarding thing of all.
6. What has been your biggest obstacle in doing public philosophy?
I’m quiet, in the Susan Cain sense. Doing public philosophy can feel like an awkward romance between a snail and a bullhorn. Annie Dillard once wrote, “The line of words fingers your own heart. It invades arteries and enters the heart on a flood of breath.” The trick is to find space to breathe.
EngagedPhilosophy readers: If you’d like to nominate yourself or someone else for an interview, email us at info@engagedphilosophy.com.
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