The Department of Philosophy are starting a new collaborative project titled ‘The Pandemic Philosophy Project’
This film project is an inquiry based learning creative project in which participants work, individually, or in groups, to create a short video that imaginatively engages with the philosophical problem of how to live in these times, drawing on an tradition that emphasises ethics as providing a practical guide on how to live (e.g. stoicism, Buddhism, epicureanism, existentialism, Confucianism). It will involve a weekly discussion of philosophical topics, and a weekly show-and-tell of ideas for engaging the medium.
Dr Graeme A. Forbes, Lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, says: “For many people, lockdown has given them a lot of time to reflect, and to ask questions about their lives that they perhaps wouldn’t ordinarily ask. But it’s also given them an urge to do something. This project aims to get some students engaging with classical schools of thought that had advice on how to live, and with each other, to create a meaningful personal response to the pandemic.”
“Philosophy isn’t just a matter of studying what some other people thought. Studying ancient ideas on how we ought to live, can, we hope, inform how we live now. The project puts the students at the heart of this investigation: it is their project, just as it is their lives that they are reflecting upon.”
Contact Graeme A. Forbes for more details: g.a.forbes@kent.ac.uk