Dr Eileen John led a creative collaboration with the CRPLA (Centre for Research in Philosophy, Literature and the Arts), MAP (Minorities and Philosophy) and Food GRP (Global Research Priority), to produce a richly diverse, collective table-setting of dishes from across the world, to explore – and celebrate – the importance and communal benefits of people gathering to dine together, and the powerful memories that sharing food and favourite meals can evince. Over 30 place settings were designed and displayed to a wide audience. The Dinner Party took place in April 2022 as part of the University’s Resonate Festival. The initiative was inspired by Judy Chicago’s artwork The Dinner Party (1971), which set a table to commemorate women in history. Thank you to all the contributors who made the Warwick Dinner Party such a success!

https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/philosophy/research/researchcentres/phillit/currentevents/dinnerparty/

Keith Ansell-Pearson, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, has co-edited a new book with Paul S Loeb, Nietzsche’s ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ A Critical Guide, just published by Cambridge University Press. See here: https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/philosophy/nineteenth-century-philosophy/nietzsches-thus-spoke-zarathustra-critical-guide?format=HB#contentsTabAnchor

In ‘Ecce Homo’, Nietzsche writes that his book ‘ Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ is the ‘greatest gift’ humanity has ever received - the ‘most elevated book’ with a ‘voice that spans over millennia’. Despite this, anglophone Nietzsche scholars have been somewhat reluctant to engage with the work he took to be his true masterpiece. Nietzsche regarded ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’ as his most important philosophical contribution because it proposes solutions to the problems and questions he poses in his later books – for example, his cure for the human disposition to vengefulness and his creation of new values as the antidote to nihilism. It is also the only place where he elaborates his concepts of the superhuman and the eternal recurrence of the same. In this Critical Guide, an international group of distinguished scholars analyse the philosophical ideas in ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’, discussing a range of topics that include literary parody as philosophical critique, philosophy as a way of life, the meaning of human life, philosophical naturalism, fatalism, radical flux, human passions and virtues, great politics, transhumanism, and ecological conscience. The volume will be invaluable for philosophers, scholas and students interested in Nietzsche’s thought.

Professor Quassim Cassam has designed a website on professional virtues in modern medicine (Professional Virtues in Modern Medicine) which has been adopted as a training module by the Royal College of General Practitioners. There are many difficult questions about the nature of general practice, and thinking about and exploring generalist virtues has helped GPs to clarify the idea of it. Professor Cassam has also organised annual training days for trainee GPs, in addition to delivering several conferences and workshops for groups over 40 General Practitioners.

Professor Cassam says: “I've always been interested in medicine, and this led me to think about the virtues of a good GP. My work has two aims: to identify the key virtues of excellent general practice and help GPs to cultivate these virtues. Most GPs have little or no philosophical training, and it is a major challenge to convince them that philosophy has anything to contribute to their professional toolkit. GPs face enormous challenges, and anything that helps them to improve is worth doing. Most GPs who have attended the training days and workshops have given me positive feedback. For many, it is important to have time set aside for reflection on their professional practice. I approached the work with humility – I hope! I'm always hugely impressed by trainee GPs and would be delighted to have contributed to their thinking about what it is to be a good GP. The beauty of this work is that GPs and philosophers have so much to learn from each other. I couldn't imagine a better environment in which to continue develop such a project, with its direct philosophical impact, than here at Warwick”.

 Web link: https://warwick.ac.uk/research/ref/stories/philosophical-thinking-to-help-gps/

 Read more from Professor QuassimLink opens in a new window [Link to full case study] 

Peter Poellner, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy, has a new book published by Oxford University Press. In Value in Modernity, The Philosophy of Existential Modernism in Nietzsche, Scheler, Sartre, and Musil (OUP, April 2022), Professor Poellner presents an original and innovative reconstruction of a strand of philosophical modernism previously overlooked, and explores new interpretations of Nietzsche and Sartre and their ethical thought. Professor Poellner’s text also offers the first in depth interpretation in English of the philosophical centre of Musil’s The Man Without Qualities.

Value in Modernity - Peter Poellner - Oxford University Press (oup.com)

Professor Stephen Houlgate was a guest on an edition of ‘In Our Time’ with Melvyn Bragg, broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 26^th May 2022. The topic for discussion was Hegel's Philosophy of History. Other speakers were Sally Sedgwick (Boston University) and Robert Stern (University of Sheffield).

A link to the programme is here: In Our Time - Hegel's Philosophy of History - BBC Sounds