Daniel Munro is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto. He encourages students to explore philosophical themes using digital media.
Which of your courses get students out of the classroom? What project(s) do your students do?
In my recent “Minds and Machines” course, I offered students the option to design a creative “public philosophy project” instead of writing a traditional term paper. The course covered a range of topics, and students could choose to do projects on any of them—from foundational topics in philosophy of mind, to philosophical questions about the possibility of artificial intelligence, to the ethical and social dimensions of AI research. The aim was to produce a project that could engage a general, non-specialist audience in some philosophical theme(s) from the course.
Give an example of a successful project.
Students submitted projects in a wide variety of media, including a computer game, an illustrated essay, an interview with a visual artist, and even a series of songs. One of my favourites was my student Muhammad Abdurrahman’s philosophical video review of the film Her, a film about a man who develops a romantic relationship with an AI program. Muhammad’s video uses philosophical theories about the mind and AI to come to a deeper understanding of the film’s themes. He convincingly demonstrates how abstract philosophical ideas can help us better understand popular works of fiction. It’s an especially interesting project in that the film itself is at times quite ambiguous and hard to interpret. Muhammad’s video reveals how philosophically rigorous theorizing can help us pin down what the film is trying to say.
What do you think students gain from doing this public philosophy?
For one thing, projects like this make philosophy more accessible and relatable to students with a diverse array of background knowledge and skills. Some of our students may never be totally comfortable writing academic papers, but they may find themselves better able to connect with philosophical topics through some other medium.
As Muhammad’s video demonstrates, projects like this also show students the power of using philosophical tools to analyze topics outside of their particular course context. They give students the chance to practice using philosophy to help them better understand their favourite works of art, current events, and the like.
I also hope that encouraging students to make their work accessible to a general audience is one way of encouraging them to develop a deeper grasp of course materials themselves. In order to explain complex ideas to nonspecialists, one must first have a good grasp of those ideas. Projects like this encourage students to develop this deeper understanding.
What does the public philosophy project offer to wider communities?
These projects can offer low-barrier ways for nonspecialist audiences to engage with philosophical ideas. They allow students to present these ideas in a medium that’s more accessible than an academic essay. And many students choose to relate philosophical ideas to topics that already interest the general public, such as popular films. While I don’t require it, I strongly encourage my students to make their projects public (by posting videos to YouTube, sharing their projects with friends and family on social media, granting me permission to share them, etc.). I hope that my students can inspire someone outside of the course to think philosophically, even if just for a moment.
Why do you ask students to do these public projects?
Most assignments students produce in university are “disposable”: after students spend hours working on them, they’ll be viewed only by a TA or instructor and then “thrown away” by the student. Encouraging students to produce public-facing projects creates opportunities to broaden the impact of their work.
What has been students’ biggest obstacle in doing these public projects?
Projects of this sort can require more time and effort from students than writing a paper, since they involve designing a topic and the creative aspects of the project mostly from scratch. Students sometimes struggle with managing their time: Since they typically haven’t done a project like this before, it’s difficult for them to envision and map out the entire process in advance. To help mitigate this, I make sure to be very upfront with students about the extra time commitment they may face, while working with them to figure out the steps that will be necessary to implement their projects. I’m also quite flexible and forgiving when it comes to deadlines, since students may face roadblocks such as unexpected technical difficulties.
How do you evaluate projects students produce in diverse media?
It can also be a bit tricky to figure out how to grade these projects fairly, since it’s difficult to apply a single set of grading standards across a diverse set of projects. Inevitably, this requires some degree of grading each project on its own terms, rather than by how it compares to the work of other students in the course. To help set expectations, I ask students to send me project proposals in advance. In response, I provide a list of elements I’ll be looking for in their finished projects. Some of these are common to all students—for example, the project must contain some original philosophical work, rather than just explaining ideas from course texts. Others are more individualized—for example, if a student is working in a more poetic medium like songwriting, I ask them to submit a writeup with a more straightforward explanation of the philosophical ideas they intend to express.
How does the public project change your relationships with students?
I give students a lot of freedom in how to design their projects, leaving things relatively open-ended. I therefore also try to work more closely with each student than I would for a traditional term paper. I really value these opportunities for closer student mentorship: I get to witness students’ intellectual curiosity blossom as they exercise a lot of creativity and explore a topic about which they’re personally passionate.
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