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Northeast Workshop to Learn About Multicultural Philosophy (NEWLAMP)

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The goal of NEWLAMP is to equip philosophy teachers with multicultural competency, not only by teaching them about the underrepresented area in question, but also by helping them design new modules and integrate these into their courses. Hundreds of undergraduate students will get to read and discuss philosophical work in African/Africana social and political philosophy, which their teachers would otherwise not have included in their courses. Within just a few years, thousands of undergraduate students will have benefited from the Workshop.

Most undergraduate students in North America and Europe only read and discuss “Western,” Anglo-European philosophy in their social and political philosophy courses. The problem is not that philosophy professors are unwilling to teach traditionally underrepresented areas such as African, Latin American, Indigenous, East Asian/South Asian, and Islamic philosophy. Rather, the problem is that they are not familiar with, and so cannot competently teach, philosophical work in these areas. The Northeast Workshop to Learn About Multicultural Philosophy (NEWLAMP) is a yearly week-long summer institute that aims to fix this problem, by inviting experts to teach philosophy teachers about a given underrepresented area, so that they can then teach it in their general undergraduate courses. Each year, NEWLAMP will focus on a different area, starting with African/Africana philosophy at Northeastern University in Summer 2022.

Collaborators and Funders

  • Matthew Kopec, Associate Director of the Ethics Institute
  • Cora Lundgren, Project and Research Assistant of the Ethics Institute; Candidate for a BS in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics with a Concentration in Environmental and Energy Policy, with a minor in Criminal Justice
  • Alex Guerrero, Rutgers University
  • Gina Schouten, Harvard University
  • Helena de Bres, Wellesley University
  • Erin Kelly, Tufts University
  • American Philosophical Association
  • New England Humanities Consortium
  • Marc Sanders Foundation
  • Northeastern University, College of Social Sciences and Humanities
  • Northeastern University Ethics Institute
  • Northeastern University Humanities Center
  • Rutgers University
  • Wellesley College
  • Harvard University

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