Shanti Chu

Shanti Chu is an Assistant Professor and co-chair of the department of philosophy at the College of Lake County. She has published on applied philosophy topics relating to multiracial identity and food ethics. Shanti has been a guest on several podcasts relating to food, philosophy, education, and social justice. She is the founder and writer for ChiVeg, a food blog that explores the concept of “ethical eating” through featuring vegetarian/vegan recipes and plant-based options in the Chicago area. In addition to her blog, Shanti has written for several publications on food such as TimeOut, Eater, and ArtNews. More recently, dj’ing techno and experimental ambient music has become a creative outlet to express philosophical ideas that can be limited by language.

Which of your courses get students out of the classroom? What project(s) do your students do? (OR: What types of civic engagement work do your students engage in?)

I teach an Introductory to Ethics course that is half theory half application and my main pedagogical goal in this course is to encourage students to see the connections between ethics and everyday life. Philosophy can unfortunately have the reputation of being purely theoretical and “esoteric”, but I find this obviously to be a false assumption. In fact, I fell in love with philosophy through its real-world applications. Ethics in particular has an implicit connection with justice issues and I want to make that apparent to my students and the whole world! One way of making this connection apparent to my students is through their final project in my ethics course. For their final project, students have the opportunity to engage in an ethical behavioral change of their choice for about 2 weeks. This can include adopting an ethical theory (e.g. being a Kantian for two weeks) or changing a behavior (e.g. abstaining from social media or being vegetarian for two weeks). Students also have the option of explaining their journey/process through the format of a journal, video essay, blog post, podcast, etc. – whatever they feel is the most conducive to their creativity!

For my Introduction to Philosophy course, students participate in the annual Gender and Sexuality Fair. During this fair, they present their projects that bridges music/pop culture with philosophy. Students find a song with lyrics that connects to gender/sexuality and then make an explicit connection between the lyrics and assigned reading. Then students present this material through a powerpoint, prezi, video essay, journal, etc. on zoom or in-person for the Gender/Sexuality Fair that is hosted with faculty from other departments and the LGBTQ+ Resource Center. It’s a great way to get students to grapple with these topics outside of the classroom and to see how relevant philosophy can be when it comes to issues of identity. They can also see how their peers connected music and philosophy together and gain even more insight into how gender operates in pop culture.

Give an example of a successful project.

The final project for the ethics class I mentioned above is an example of a successful project because students make an ethical change that may seem overwhelming or intimidating to them at first, and then they realize that it’s not as hard as they first thought it would be. The applicability and relevance of ethics becomes apparent to them. By giving students options for the ethical change/behavioral change, they have more agency with their learning. By choosing the format for their final project (e.g. paper vs. video), they also have agency with how they want to creatively express themselves. Students present their projects during finals week so they can hear from their peers what the process was like and gain an even deeper appreciation for ethics. Some students continue the ethical change past the two-week trial period because they found that they/others benefitted from the behavioral change. It’s really beautiful to see students continue these changes after our class has formally ended because they are continuing to “do ethics” without it being tied to an assignment. This project is a springboard for living “ethically” and “authentically” in their everyday lives.

What do you think students gain from doing this civic engagement?

Students gain a deeper understanding of themselves and their communities through this project. Selfishly, they also develop an appreciation for philosophy and ethics from applying an ethical theory/behavior to their lives. They see that ethics, a branch of philosophy, can be applied outside of the classroom to their daily lives in a tangible, concrete way. It doesn’t have to be a decade long change that requires one to sacrifice everything they care about or radically change how they live. They learn that ethics is approachable and rooted in trying to live the “good life” in a way that helps themselves and others. Students learn that change can be gradual and that if they are really committed to that change, it can be less difficult to act on than if the change came from external pressure. This project helps students gain a deeper sense of agency in their lives as moral agents because they can understand how their thoughts, actions, and speech all impact themselves, their communities, and the larger ecosystem. It’s easy to feel like we don’t have power in our lives or we can’t do anything to address injustices, but this project can illustrate that in fact we do have power and can make an impact even if the changes are not drastic.

What does the civic engagement project offer to wider communities?

Students realize that their decisions not only impact themselves, but they also impact their communities through making daily changes. They can see the direct impact of their actions through these concrete changes. Change does not always have to be experienced on a vast, grand scale. Students can see how they can inevitably impact people in their everyday lives, which then of course spreads through different mediums such as activism, changing their habits of consumption, and even having challenging conversations with one’s family/friends. Through this project, students can see themselves more as agents of change because they have experienced the process of changing a behavior to be in line with an ethical principle of their choice.

Why do you choose to ask students to do civic engagement projects?

Most of my students are not philosophy majors and as I mentioned before, philosophy has an esoteric reputation. My hope is for students to use philosophy in ways that will benefit them in their lives, relationships, and careers. I want to help students see the daily relevance of philosophy and an ethics course really lends itself well to this type of project. In ethics, we are exploring what it means to be “good” or to do “good” actions – so how can we take this a step further and apply this to our lives outside of the classroom? I think that’s where the real magic happens. Students tell me about how they have fun and/or heated conversations about these topics with their families/friends, which illustrates just how applicable philosophy is. These conversations are not tied to assignments but happen organically outside of the classroom. To take these conversations a step further and encourage students to take action is a means of truly exploring how ethics can be experienced outside of the classroom. And by taking ethics outside of the classroom, students are able to explicitly see how philosophy can impact their lives and their communities. I want to make philosophy “fun” and “interesting” for non-philosophy majors! I truly believe philosophy can be used as a “public good”, and I think civic engagement projects are a direct illustration of this.

It also helps to understand how I initially got into philosophy. I first became interested through an ethics course I had to take as an undergraduate. At that point I was just majoring in psychology and felt that philosophy had no relevance for social justice even though it was an interesting discipline. It was through my ethics course at Marquette University taught by Dr. Theresa Tobin, when I realized that philosophy can be used to understand and come up with solutions for social justice issues. I remember being perplexed about cultural relativism in ethics because I was coming from a moral objectivist perspective. It felt like a real-world puzzle that I intuitively connected with which is when I became enamored with philosophy. I then decided to major in philosophy with a focus on political/social philosophy, which is inherently applicable and relevant to people from all walks of life. I take that applicability with me into all of my philosophy courses and my pedagogical approach.

What is your favorite quote and why?

“What I seek now is no longer a home, but perhaps a lighthouse that might illuminate this place in which I live, for myself as much as for others.” – Linda Alcoff

I love this quote not only for its relatability as a multiracial philosopher but because it encapsulates the notion of having multiple selves and multiple identities that cannot be neatly tied together. Instead of yearning for a home or a “stable” or “fixed” identity, I have come to accept and embrace that otherness and multiplicity through the lighthouse metaphor. It’s not solely just accepting that multiplicity but embracing and “seeking” it as Alcoff states. The lighthouse gives one a unique epistemological insight that a sturdy house may not necessarily provide. Being able to occupy this lighthouse does not only pertain to one’s relationship with one’s self but also one’s relationship to and with others. I believe it’s important to recognize the limits of our perspective and our knowledge in order to work towards a deeper understanding and connection with others.

What gets you out of bed in the morning? What is your passion?

Love, compassion, creativity, and community get me out of bed in the morning – I attempt to weave these elements of my existence together to make the world a “better place”. So many people I know have jobs that they are not passionate about or are not fulfilled by as it is merely a means to an end on the capitalist treadmill. I feel incredibly privileged and lucky to be able to do what I am passionate about every day, which is encouraging others to recognize their own agency in life through examining themselves, assessing their principles, and considering what they want their mark on the world to be. We don’t live in a society that encourages critical and free thought so to be able to encourage students to do this through philosophy is an important privilege. By being more thoughtful and examining our lives, I believe the world will be a more compassionate and loving place. Ultimately, I am passionate about making the world a better place through making fulfilling opportunities more accessible and cultivating compassion and less violence/harm in the world.

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