The Political Economy of Policing. Commenced in January of 2024, the project aims to situate policing in the United States from the perspective political economy, i.e., as a phenomenon whose economic components (spending/budgeting, misconduct settlements, and so forth) must be seen in the context of broader political currents. Phase 1 of the project will aim to compile comprehensive, aggregate, and national data around police misconduct payouts in the United States. Additional phases will include theoretical work and policy recommendations around this data. [Track: Critical Theory]
Logics of Exclusion. Societies oftentimes produces logics of exclusion that target particular segments of their population for exclusion or marginalization. For example, we see how recently instances of and claims about antisemitism are on the rise and in the news. Yet, antisemitism has a long history, both in the United States and in the Western world; relatedly, it is an evolving phenomenon that has strong analogs to (and also important distinctions from) anti-Black racism and Islamophobia, two other mainstays of exclusion in the contemporary world. The aim of this project is approach such logics as structural phenomena, studying them in tandem in order to deepen our understanding. The guiding assumption is that exploring them together—seeing how they function socially, politically, and economically; how they arise and persist; how they shift and develop—will yield greater insight than studying them in isolation. The project is especially interested in developing practical as much as theoretical insights about such logics. It will commence in the fall of 2025 with a project on antisemitism; additional phases are envisioned for other logics. [Track: Critical Theory]
Reading and Writing as a Spiritual Practice. This project aims to explore reading and writing as a spiritual practice, where that term is understood in the sense in which, Pierre Hadot, the scholar of ancient philosophy used it: a practice or concept capable of changing and/or transforming the self (it is not thereby exclusively linked to religion or spirituality as it is commonly understood). The project is especially responding to the rise of immediacy in the contemporary world, locating reading and writing as a potential bulwark–a site of deep mediation–against such broader trends. The first phase of this project will consist in writing workshops with experts. Later phases may include extended reading and writing groups and other public events. Commencing in Fall of 2025 or Spring of 2026. [Track: Philosophy]