ISEE Mentoring & Peer Networking Initiative

An initiative to support environmental philosophers

Simona Capisani, Secretary, Director, ISEE Mentoring & Peer Networking Initiative

Email: simona.capisani@durham.ac.uk

Bio: Simona Capisani is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Durham University in the UK and a former Climate Futures Initiative Post-Doctoral Research Associate at Princeton University in the University Center for Human Values and the High Meadows Environmental Institute. She specializes in political philosophy, ethics (normative and applied), and environmental philosophy with a focus on issues that intersect matters of climate justice, enviornmental governance and politics, philosophy of immigration, and feminist philosophy. Her current work addresses the moral, political, and governance challenges of “climate mobilities” including displacement, migration, and immobilities.

Marion Hourdequin, Vice-President, ISEE and Co-Coordinator, ISEE Mentoring Initiative

Email: mhourdequin@coloradocollege.edu

Bio: Marion Hourdequin (Professor, Philosophy Department) specializes in environmental philosophy. Her research and teaching interests also include ethics, philosophy of science, and comparative philosophy. Prof. Hourdequin’s current research focuses on climate ethics, climate justice, the social and ethical dimensions of solar geoengineering, and relational approaches to environmental ethics. She is the author of Environmental Ethics: From Theory to Practice (Bloomsbury, 2015) and editor, with David Havlick, of Restoring Layered Landscapes (Oxford, 2016).

What is the ISEE Mentoring and Peer Networking Initiative?

The ISEE Mentoring & Peer Networking Initiative grew out of conversations at the ISEE summer 2019 Annual Meeting at H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in Oregon.  

The initiative aims to support environmental philosophers at various career stages — from students to early career to later career teacher-scholars — by creating a space to share resources and provide support for professional development in a wide range of areas, including teaching, with particular attention to engaged and inclusive pedagogies; research and publishing; job applications; tenure and promotion reviews; and diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism.  

We seek to be responsive to ISEE members’ interests and needs, and to develop horizontal peer networks across career stages.  We recognize that later career scholars may learn from the innovative pedagogies of earlier career colleagues, for example, and that people across different institutions and career stages have diverse forms of expertise to share.  Thus, the Mentoring and Peer Networking Initiative does not presuppose a hierarchical model of “knowledge transfer” from later career to earlier career scholars and instead operates in the spirit of creating connections through which we can learn from one another. 

What do we do?

We maintain a repository of Teaching Resources, organize webinars, host informal meet-ups, and provide a platform for peer-to-peer conversation and mentoring on Slack.  In the future, we may help establish mentor pairings in focused areas, such as preparing job applications or tenure files.  

Webinars

Fall 2020: Teaching Environmental Philosophy: Engaged and Inclusive Pedagogies 

Fall 2021:Climate Ethics ‘in the Field’ — Integrating Philosophy, Science, Law, and Policy, Tuesday, Nov. 9, 2021, 4:30 pm Eastern – Event Video

Who’s involved?

We work with a team of organizers, the ISEE Mentoring and Peer Networking Committee to plan events and activities.

How do I get involved?

Our webinars and teaching resources are free and open to all.  

In order to join the Slack site, organizing committee, or Spatial Chat meetups, you must first be a registered ISEE member. Please join ISEE here and fill out this form.  If you only want to join the ISEE general mailing list or mentoring mailing list, you may also fill out the form.

If you have any questions or feedback please email Simona Capisani (simona.capisani@durham.ac.uk) or Marion Hourdequin (mhourdequin@coloradocollege.edu).

Commitment to Supporting Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-racism

We recognize that many groups — women, people of color, LGBTQIA people, and people with disabilities — are underrepresented in the discipline of philosophy, and that the dominant norms, texts, institutions, and cultures of academic philosophy have privileged certain groups and marginalized others.  As noted in ISEE’s Statement on Diversity, we are committed to building a more diverse, inclusive, and equitable community and to actively working discrimination, bias, and exclusion based on race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and disability.  We are also committed to working against systemic racism and violence, and we recognize the importance of integrating this commitment into ISEE’s programs and practices.