A Call for Writers: The Gadfly and the Agora

Disrupt the Classroom and the Public Square

Created with OpenAI

**The Gadfly and the Agora* is a new publication created as part of The Gadfly Initiative at Eastern Washington University. The aim of this publication is to provide a site — a kind of virtual agora* — for philosophy instructors, public philosophers, and classicists to share their stories about teaching and practicing philosophy outside of the box. Following in the footsteps of Socrates — the original gadfly of Athens — the goal is help restore some of philosophy’s sting as both social critique and as practical a way of life.

We are especially interested in stories about teaching, facilitating, or staging philosophy in ways that question established norms, provoke critical inquiry, or tear down boundaries between academia and civic life.

We’re looking for experiments in philosophy, especially those sharing it in public spaces. This might include:

· role-playing or other dramatic performances

· discussion groups in public spaces (libraries, museums, cafes, podcasts, or online platforms)

· Using AI as a foil, interlocutor, or gadfly in teaching philosophy

· Creative interpretations of classical texts/ideas to confront modern life-problems

· Reflective failures of such practices — what didn’t work and why

This is a publication for anyone who believes philosophy has a social function as well as an intellectual one, that teaching is a philosophical practice, and that public philosophy is not simply outreach.

We’re especially interested in hearing from… philosophy faculty, instructors, graduate students, public philosophers, independent scholars working outside traditional academic settings, or anyone else experimenting with form, venue, and audience.

Interested contributors should check out our acceptance criteria page for more information.