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Faculty-Student Working Groups

Working groups provide a casual, semi-structured space to work with faculty in an extracurricular setting.

The Philosophy as a Way of Life Group provides faculty and students from all disciplines the opportunity to investigate what it is to adopt philosophy as a way of life. Topics and readings are decided by members of the group at the start of each semester. Examples of topics include virtue, friendship, love, attention, how best to relate to one’s emotions, what it is to value or care about something, and what is required to live a meaningful or valuable life. Members of the group discuss the readings and then devise experiments in living to try out or test the ideas from them. The group also aims to develop research projects on topics related to living philosophically.

If you are interested in joining this group, or have any questions about it, please contact Jacob Stump (Jacob.stump@northeastern.edu), Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy.

The Indigenous Studies Circle is dedicated to exploring the history, culture, and thought of Indigenous traditions from around the globe. The ISC has read through portions of Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States and listening to episodes from the All My Relations and This Land podcasts. The aim is to provide us with the necessary grounding in historical and legal predicament of Indigenous groups in the United States of America. From here the group plans to move beyond this context to consider Canada and the Americas more generally. Group members dictate the topics and subjects we discuss. The ISC also has at least one field trip a semester. In time, and with group interest, we will begin to shift our focus to building ties to local Indigenous organizations and work to break down the barrier between the academy and the wider community in which we are a part.

For more information on the ISC, contact Getty Lustila (g.lustila@northeastern.edu), Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy and Religion.

The Democracy and Social Choice Group studies issues at the intersection of social choice theory and democratic practice. The focus of the group is the way in which democratic processes aggregate citizen preferences to reach decisions in elections and referendum. The group reads fundamental research on social choice and democratic theory, it studies actual cases and systems of democratic decision-making, and it explores alternative social choice mechanisms by developing and implementing different preference solicitation and aggregation approaches.
If you are interested in joining this group, or have any questions about it, inquiries should be directed to Rory Smead (r.smead@northeastern.edu), Associate Professor of Philosophy and Rossetti Professor for the Humanities.
More information about the group can be found here – Democracy and Social Choice Group Website

The Environment Philosophy Working Group provides faculty and students from all disciplines the opportunity to study and discuss current research in environmental philosophy and ethics, with a focus on issues related to biodiversity and nonhuman animals. Topics, readings, projects and speakers are decided upon by group members on an ongoing basis. Examples of topics include conservation philosophy, wild animal welfare, the ethics of conservation biotechnology, the concept of ‘naturalness’, and the moral status of liminal animals. The group aims to encourage and develop research projects and collaborations by its members.

If you are interested in joining this group, or have any questions about it, inquiries should be directed to Ronald Sandler (r.sandler@northeastern.edu), Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Ethics Institute, or Mark Wells (m.wells@northeastern.edu), Assistant Teaching Professor of Philosophy.

The Rossetti Research Group was founded in Spring 2018 as part of the Rossetti Family Program for the Advancement of the Humanities. This group provides students from all disciplines the opportunity to work closely with faculty in studying topics within the humanities and social sciences. The aim of this group is to facilitate in-depth student projects on ideas and influential thinkers that they may not be exposed to otherwise. Each term the Rossetti Research Group selects a new topic to provide the focus for reading group meetings, student research projects and discussion groups. Research topics will be of interest to students in many disciplines ranging from philosophy to economics to mathematics and the natural sciences. Students from any discipline are encouraged to join the group.
If you are interested in joining this group, or have any questions about it, inquiries should be directed to Rory Smead (r.smead@northeastern.edu), Associate Professor of Philosophy and Rossetti Professor for the Humanities.

The AI and Data Ethics Group provides faculty and students from all disciplines the opportunity to study and discuss emerging issues and current research related to information, data, computing and AI ethics. Topics, readings and speakers are decided upon by members of the group on an ongoing basis. Examples of topics include justice and fairness in machine learning, the form and extent of rights to information and technology access, the appropriate roles of institutions to prevent dissemination of misinformation, the responsible collection and sharing of data, AI research oversight models, and the moral status of artificial intelligences. The group also aims to encourage and develop information ethics research projects and collaborations by its members. Students and faculty from any discipline are encouraged to join.

If you are interested in joining this group, or have any questions about it, inquiries should be directed to John Basl (j.basl@northeastern.edu), Associate Professor of Philosophy.