Anna Gotlib is an associate professor in the Philosophy Department at Brooklyn College. Her public philosophy creates connection—across life circumstance, profession, medium, ideas, humanity—and opens spaces for minds to grow and maybe change.
What types of public philosophy do you do?
My public philosophy comes in a variety of in-person and more distanced (especially now!) commitments. Specifically, I give informal talks to student groups and general lay public groups (Night of Philosophy & Ideas; Brooklyn Public Philosophers Lecture Series; and so on) on issues in bioethics/medical ethics, moral and legal questions raised by our political climate, how language can impact our treatment of people, and other topics. I am currently working on several general-audience philosophical essays on issues that seem pretty central right now. The first piece, on trauma, is coming out (soon, I hope!) from Aeon, and addresses what trauma is generally, how we experience it, what it does to us—and the possible ways to live with it (instead of denying it or trying to avoid it).
Less formally, I have participated in general interest philosophy podcasts, “Ask a Philosopher” on Facebook Live, and have contributed to the online feminist bioethics blog https://www.ijfab.org/blog/. And I post on Facebook—a lot. A large percentage of my posts has to do with politics, medicine, and social policy (as well as the occasional OMG the world is burning down comment—or a picture of my giant bunny, Snufkin). Although I know that a lot of people view Facebook as a place of the banal, the vitriolic, the dangerous, or the unenlightening, I think that it can also be a place for discussion, debate, and yes—even where minds could be changed….or at least nudged.
Give an example of a successful project.
One of the ways I have connected with non-philosophers was through my work with the Lyceum Program—a lecture series sponsored by Binghamton University (SUNY) for older adults who wanted to engage with experts in a number of fields. As someone who specializes in medical ethics, law, and moral psychology (and as a refugee from the Soviet Union), I wanted to offer talks that would be broad, engaging, and not limited only to a small part of my research. Thus, we discussed everything from “Public Health, Pandemics, and Public Policy,” to “Identity, Memory, and Nostalgia,” to “Russia and its Neighbors.” My audiences were eager to dive into these topics in ways that often surprised me: they amazed me with their interest, their knowledge, and their desire for more.
In what ways does your public philosophy inform your research (or vice-versa)?
My research is grounded in the idea that narratives form the foundation of our moral sense, our mutual understandings (or their lack), our politics and public policies, and our social practices. Public philosophy takes seriously the idea that in sharing our narratives—especially with those who are not a part of our small professional networks—we can create the kind of shared moral spaces that can change not only opinions, but lives.
Thus, my research requires connections to the worlds outside of academic philosophy that make it possible to say something meaningful, something true, and something that is heard beyond the classroom, the academic conference, or the specialized journal.
In what ways does the work inform your teaching (or vice-versa)?
Teaching at a place like Brooklyn College CUNY keeps you honest—about why you are teaching, about why it matters, about who you are. My students do not come from privileged backgrounds—in fact, many of them come from some of the most marginalized, most oppressed groups—and so the question of why philosophy matters, and how it matters, is something that they ask and wish to explore through their own education. When I teach, I am always aware that the kinds of questions that are raised in class are no mere parlor games or exercises in academic prowess. What we discuss has to be understood as mattering to the realities that they face once they leave the classroom.
If someone wanted to take on public philosophy like yours, what steps or resources would you recommend?
Ask your colleagues. Look online for podcasts, blogs, or public lecture opportunities. Ask yourself what questions you could begin to address that are relevant to non-specialist audiences. Too often, professional philosophers talk mostly to other professional philosophers. The demands for such insider-outsider divisions begin early in graduate school, when so many of us are told—sometimes explicitly, but more often implicitly, through approval or disapproval from those whose approval we desire—that some questions, ways of writing, ways of thinking are simply not philosophical enough. What I recommend instead is to stop and ask yourself: Why are you a philosopher? What questions matter to you? And is there a way to make what matters to you philosophically matter to those who do not share your discipline, but do share your humanity? And then talk to them about what you think matters. And make yourself understood so that it might also matter to them.
What do you think is the biggest mistake you have made doing public philosophy?
I waited a bit too long before becoming engaged in public philosophy. My professional myopia had me worried about writing the right things, placing them in the “right” publications, making the “right” impression, and so on. Now, I tell philosophy graduate students not to wait, not to be shy. Philosophers have important contributions to make to a number of different areas of human concern, and their last worry should be whether they will be viewed as legitimate philosophers by self-appointed disciplinary tastemakers who still hold on to philosophical border-policing that will not age well.
If you had to pick a “theme song” for your public philosophy work, what would it be? Why?
Great question! Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” comes to mind because I often hear it in my head when I am afraid to do something new, something that my inner critic tends to reject. With public philosophy, you have to commit—you have to dive in and not be afraid of the “what ifs” that you will encounter on your way. All of those “you should be working on your book/peer-reviewed article/journal editing/etc.” guilt-trips. All of those concerns about being a dilettante, a person with not much to say; all of those imposter-syndrome fears that never quite go away. So you just lose yourself—and throw yourself out there.
What is your favorite quote and why?
I do not have a single favorite quote, but one of my favorites is from a children’s book (but not really just children’s), Comet In Moominland by the Finnish author Tove Jansson. A character notes, “It’s funny about paths and rivers […] You see them go by, and suddenly you feel upset and want to be somewhere else—wherever the path or the river is going, perhaps.” My life has never been anything like a straight path from anything or to anything, and so many of the choices that I made were the result of being moved by someone or by something—to be elsewhere, to do this other thing with this other person, to follow the weird and unfamiliar curve in the road. And to see what comes next. Perhaps this is because I am a terrible planner. But I have been, and am, so often moved by odd synchronicities and strong emotions and unsatisfied curiosities. I am not sure how else to be, I suppose.
What gets you out of bed in the morning? What is your passion?
I am going to let E.M. Forster say it much better: “Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect…” —E.M. Forster, Howards End
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