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.
Ron Sundstrom is professor of philosophy and African American studies at the University of San Francisco. As co-convener of the Black Philosophy Consortium, Vice-President of the Philosophy of the City Research Group, and Humanities Advisor to the SF Urban Film Fest, his public philosophical work ranges deeply and widely.
What type(s) of public philosophy do you do?
The primary way I engage with the public as a professional philosopher is in my role as the “humanities advisor” for the SF Urban Film Fest. I contribute to the organization by drawing connections between the themes of the film fest and related ideas, questions, and problems in philosophy and in the humanities in general. I do so during the planning of the annual programs, the vetting of the film entries, and my participation in the panels and discussions that follow the screenings during the fest.
Likewise, I occasionally address community groups about my research, such as my work in race theory or political philosophy on urban and public affairs. Insofar as my public work relates to and influences my scholarship on justice and urban policy and affairs, I consider my scholarship to be public because it is in conversation with publics outside of the usual academic philosophical forums.
I’m currently working on a book, Just Shelter: Integration, Gentrification, and Racial Equality, and in it I take on not just core normative questions about justice and equality but also matters concerning public and urban policy. Every step of the way I have learned from and been influenced by everyday people, policy experts and professionals, and local activists that I have had the privilege of listening to in conversations, interviews, or other interactions. This public work magnifies my work and adds an extra dimension to my life as professor of philosophy and citizen.
Give an example of a successful project
My engagement with the SF Urban Film Fest is the primary way I engage the public outside of my role as a professor and a participant in academic philosophy. This sort of work we, as academics, categorize as service, but while it takes work, it is more than work because it provides me with a way of contributing to my community, a way for me to listen and learn from the wider community—or at least those who pass through the film fest’s programs—and to contribute precisely as a philosopher, as someone who can communicate with my partners in the film fest and the community about how the ideas and issues we discuss and illustrate in the films we curate resonate with larger themes and ideas from the history of philosophy and the humanities. This engagement isn’t just “service” either, because the idea of service sells short the mutuality and relations of required with this sort of community engagement, so “engagement” is the word that I’ve settled on because it is an example of my engagement, relation, and mutual cooperation with folks who also are engaged in the film fest as curators, producers, audience members, and other participants. It is that network of engagement and relation, and the engagement and relation itself, that I would call a success.
Recently the SF Urban Film Fest has been named a fellow of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts YBCA 100 fellowship. That honor is a material example of the success of the film fest and is a testament to the film fest’s role in the San Francisco Bay Area’s arts community and as a locale for public discussion about what it means to be a resident and citizen of this urban area.
What benefits does doing public philosophy offer to the public(s) you engage? What benefits does it offer you?
This work with a public film fest benefits me greatly by exposing me to currents of ideas and debates around urban and public policy, such as urban planning, transportation, and affordable housing. I have learned much from talking to and working with community partners that intersect with the film fest. I have learned that much of the academic discussion about urban policy and justice issues misses the finer points about what is going on in the streets and neighborhoods, that public perspective of the issues discussed, such as gentrification and homelessness are rarely as straight-forward or ideologically dug-in as social and political theorists represent them. There is a lot going on the local level and on the street level, and insofar as we philosophers are going to opine about integration or gentrification or homelessness, we better be informed about the data and the range of opinions, perspectives, and feelings that circulate in the streets about these issues. And what do I bring? I suppose that I contribute to those discussions by introducing into them related ideas and connections that arise from moral philosophy, social and political philosophy, and intellectual trends and histories. My answers to the other questions touch on the issue of what I bring, and I think my biggest contribution is my awareness and ability to talk about the resonance of the issues being discussed and debated with the intellectual history of ideas.
What role does the PPN play in your philosophical work? What role do you play in the PPN?
I have been and remain a participant in PPN’s conferences and a supporter of its mission to support and encourage public philosophy.
In what ways does your public philosophy inform your work intended for a specialist audience (or vice versa)?
I am in interested in how philosophical ideas and debates over them relate—or don’t—to everyday lives and public affairs. This focus has increased the pragmatism of my work and my sensitivity to non-ideal conditions that challenge and limit philosophic adventures into abstract ideas and ideal theories. My public work very much has inspired a pragmatic approach in my work on ethical theory and political theory on urban issues. For example, in my forthcoming book, Just Shelter, I take on the debate in political philosophy around segregation and whether we ought to favor, if you will, pro-integration or pro-desegregation policies. Well, my work with the film fest and talking to community members has highlighted for me how little they care or talk about “integration” as such. What I hear are demands for equity, fairness, opportunity, and local political power.
What’s the philosophical grounding of your public philosophy?
Three shades of the liberal tradition ground my approach. First, liberal-egalitarian theories of justice and social equality capture my approach to normative and public policy issues. Secondly, the African American political tradition, especially as embodied in the lives and work of early figures such as Frederick Douglass and Ida B. Wells-Barnett, pushes and pulls against my basic liberal-egalitarian framework. And, finally, a skeptical liberalism, as seen in Frederick Douglass’s scorching irony. I call on all three of these facets of my in my discussions with my partners in the film fest as we curate the festival and in our public discussions.
If you had to pick a “theme song” for your public philosophy, what would it be? Why?
El Michels Affair’s cover of “Hung up on My Baby” originally by Isaac Hayes. The song is on the band’s album Sounding Out the City. Why? Listen to it and you should understand, if you don’t then I can’t help you.
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