Michele Moody-Adams
Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory in Columbia University
Alicehank Winham writes on Moody-Adam’s work, and provides ways for us to engage with her writing.
Biography
Professor Michele Moody-Adam’s commitment to making room for access to education and dialogue for living in multicultural democracies is evident in her life work, whether that be her academic positions, interviews, or the contents and methods of her writing. She is currently the Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory in the Philosophy Department at Columbia University, NY, USA, and notably was the first female and first Black Dean of Columbia College – a position she held for 2 years from 2009-2011 alongside VP for Undergraduate Education. Her focus on and taking responsibility for institutional pedagogy runs throughout her career: she previously held positions as Vice Provost for Undergraduates at Cornell University alongside directing a programme on Ethics & Public life that she initiated in 1987, and before that positions at Wellesley College, University of Rochester, and Indiana University. She has two BA’s: one from Wellesley College and another from Oxford University. Her M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy are from Harvard University. She has also been a British Marshall Scholar, an NEH Fellow, and is a lifetime Honorary Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford.
Her aforementioned commitment is apparent in her history of teaching philosophy in an array of disciplines and topics –from engineering to food science to history– alongside her deanships and other roles, of promoting the inclusion of electives and non-Western cultural representation in the Columbia core curriculum that all undergraduates must take, of producing renowned books such as Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture and Philosophy & Renewing Democracy, and an upcoming book on the history of USA Civil Rights activism with a focus on non-violence and MLK Jr, and of pedagogical practices of clearly asserting her ideas in a way that invites critical engagement and room for disagreement. If we intersect these last two listed practices, her strength of critiqueable nuance arises evident her dilineating her understanding of non-violence, what she sees as importance of non-violence in making room for the possibility of reconciliation and autonomous co-participatory transformation amidst the real possibility of violence in protest, alongside the insistence that violence may at times be necessary for justice and framed differently depending on context. She thus allows for a deeper and more particularly applicable discussion of the use of (non)violence in promoting group autonomy than often found in popular discussion where the two are frequently opposed as necessarily conflicting. In her philosophical discussions she therefore portrays historical figures who make contextualised choices as agents while promoting continued agential reflection and participation amidst difference and fluctuating life circumstances. Whether or not one agrees with all her premises and judgments, this methodology fosters the multicultural and ethical academic space that she claims to value. It might be unsurprising then to hear the further descriptions of her specialisations and work as covering: academic freedom, gender, equality and social justice, moral psychology and the virtues, race, equal educational opportunity, democratic disagreement, and political culture for justice. She shows time after time how philosophy directly shapes the way we live and the societies we create.
For further engagement
A piece of casual engagement (video interview, podcast, etc.): Protesting Police and Policing Protest video – Professor Moody-Adams alongside other prominent philosophers and thinkers in a zoom panel on June 17th, supported by organisations dedicated to “the value of philosophy in public life”
A philosophy paper: Chp. 7: 'What's so Special About Academic Freedom?' in Bilgrami and Cole’s Who’s Afraid of Academic Freedom?, & a review of the book
A link to further information: an interview: The Current's 'Politics, Activism, & the Modern College Campus' by Ethan Herenstein, for more on the history of college protests
Her talk: video ‘Repairing the Raft and Staying Afloat: Philosophy, Race and Gender’ as part of a 2019 Black Women Philosophers Conference at CUNY, NYC, USA, alongside a ranger of other speakers
Reflections
Engaging with Prof Moody-Adam’s pieces reveals important meta-considerations we all must take towards the framing of arguments and discussions. Let us look at two examples.
(1) Interrogating how we think about reasoning: such as how we convince a community to (& to what extent) transform standards of ‘reason’ and ‘reasonableness,’ if not to escape assumptions then at least to begin to visualise and articulate them. Her work notes that academics have a responsibility to show how what they choose to include, exclude, and prioritize in their teaching and curricula must be established by clearly demonstrated connections of relevance between contents and actions through currently recognised standards for disciplinary argument or ones shown to be more reasonable than the current. Yet if this process of showing (being seen by group recognition as convincing) is also limited to current standards of sanctioned reasoning then transformational possibilities are limited by these parameters – the meta-standards of judgment remain the same and always the arbiters of any argument for change. The question remains open of how we can transcend potentially problematic rules of reasoning (when we attempt to convince a group of more reasonable practices) rather than remain in modified versions of hypostatized (because theoretically inescapable) general reasoning rules. The clarity present in her work enables readers to ask important questions about what she does not address, as her style and effort willingly act as a basis for collaborative discussion and critique. She demonstrates a pedagogy oriented towards accessibility and interactive engagement.
(2) Responsibly critically investigating received historical narratives ourselves: when we say XYZ group(s) did or did not create a particular legacy, as Prof Moody-Adams sometimes does, or attribute ABC effects to one or more people, we must must ask ourselves if such stories are faithful to those folks’ actions, or might instead obfuscate, as a tool of those who dominate, benefit from, and perpetuate uncritically the access to and telling of selected ‘evidence.’ Recent work demonstrates how easily vulnerable and exposed we are to histories that erase and also how recoverable alternative tellings are upon investigation: whether that be rediscovering the use of extreme and often violent measures by the womxn suffragettes in England in the early 20th century or calling out the American media’s warped criminalisation of ‘Native American culture’ as the culprit for the food insecurity health issues they experience due to diet as a mode of strategic USA colonial violence that neglects to tell the story of Native American creative resistance using the limited rations offered to them on reservations (which American culture also co-opted retrospectively for profit). Given consideration of these examples, Prof. Moody-Adams’ clearly stated theorizing that activists create their legacies allows a discussant to discern where she may disagree with the professor’s premises, to suggest an alternative such as that activists might not intend the legacies they received or even deserve them; once again, this dynamic fosters a valuable and open discussion that clarifies different folks’ thoughts and positions, as well as reveals that informed debate is not purely partisan, tribalist, or absolutist and requires critical engagement for participatory responsibility.