In this episode, we explore how the imagination is used in developing rhetorical strategies. We talk about how rhetoric is based on our values and our ability to think about future possibilities. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Carolyn Commer, Associate Professor in the Department of English at Virginia Tech and Director of the Rhetoric and Writing PhD program.

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Carolyn Commer is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at Virginia Tech where she researches the rhetoric of higher education policy, histories of rhetoric, and writing pedagogy. She is also the ⁠Director of the Rhetoric and Writing PhD program⁠.

She has her M.A. in Liberal Arts from ⁠St. John’s College, Annapolis⁠, and her Ph.D. in Rhetoric at ⁠Carnegie Mellon University⁠. She currently teach courses in the Department of English at ⁠Virginia Tech⁠ on ancient and modern histories of rhetoric, critical theory, and professional and technical writing. Her book, ⁠Championing a Public Good: A Call to Advocate for Higher Education⁠, draws from the public record to demonstrate a common set of arguments, metaphors, and rhetorical frames that higher education leaders can use to champion the public value of universities and colleges.

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While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination and rhetoric:

Commer, C. D. (2024). Championing a Public Good: A Call to Advocate for Higher Education. Penn State Press.

Commer, C. D. (2023). Rhetorical Histories in Motu: On Teaching the Octalogs. Journal for the History of Rhetoric, 26(2), 255-266.

Commer, C. D. (2021). Rivaling the rhetoric of accountability: dissociation as an advocacy strategy in US higher education policy. Argumentation and Advocacy, 57(1), 18-36.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠VT Publishing⁠⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we explore the role of imagination in social movements and the ongoing fight for justice. We investigate both how the imagination helps us think of how the world might be better and identify the problems of the moment. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Michele Moody-Adams, Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia University.

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Michele Moody-Adams is Joseph Straus Professor of Political Philosophy and Legal Theory at Columbia University, where she served as Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education from 2009-2011. Before Columbia, she taught at Cornell University, where she was Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education and Director of the Program on Ethics and Public Life. She has also taught at Wellesley College, the University of Rochester, and Indiana University, where she served as Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education. 

She has published on equality and social justice, moral psychology and the virtues, moral objectivity and moral relativism, and the philosophical implications of gender and race.  She is the author of Making Space for Justice: Social Movements, Collective Imagination and Political Hope, published in 2022.  She is also the author of a widely cited book on moral relativism, Fieldwork in Familiar Places: Morality, Culture and Philosophy, and a co-author on the multi-author work Against Happiness (May 2023).  Her current work also includes articles on academic freedom, equal educational opportunity, democratic disagreement, and what constitutes an epistemically and morally defensible understanding of history. A special focus of her work on democracy is the connection between democracy and the civic art and architecture of remembrance.

---While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination and justice:

Moody-Adams, M. (2022). Making Space for Justice: Social Movements, Collective Imagination, and Political Hope. Columbia University Press.

Moody-Adams, M. (2015). The enigma of forgiveness. The Journal of Value Inquiry, 49, 161-180.

Moody-Adams, M. M. (2018). Democratic conflict and the political morality of compromise. Nomos, 59, 186-219.

Moody-Adams, M. M. (2017). Moral progress and human agency. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 20, 153-168.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠ and ⁠VT Publishing⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we look into how our imagination develops over the course of our lives, starting as children. This includes thinking through how education influences our imaginative capacity. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Paul Harris, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Education at Harvard University.

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Dr. Paul Harris is interested in the early development of cognition, emotion, and imagination. After studying psychology at the University of Sussex and the University of Oxford, he taught at the University of Lancaster, the Free University of Amsterdam, and the London School of Economics. In 1980, he moved to Oxford where he became a professor of developmental psychology and fellow of St John's College.

During the 1980s, his research focused primarily on children’s understanding of mental states, including emotion. The findings were gathered together in a book published in 1989, Children and Emotion (translated into seven European languages) as well as two edited volumes (Developing Theories of Mind and Children’s Understanding of Emotion). In the 1990s, he studied the development of pretend play and imagination, culminating in a book, The Work of the Imagination, published in 2000 and an edited volume (Imagining the Impossible: Magical, Scientific and Religious thinking in Children). In 2001, he migrated to Harvard University, where he holds the Victor S. Thomas Professorship of Education

Currently, he is studying how far children rely on their own first-hand observation or, alternatively, trust what other people tell them—especially when they try to understand a domain of knowledge in which first-hand observation is difficult. His latest book, Trusting What You’re Told: How Children Learn from Others, synthesizes a broad range of findings on this topic. It has received the Eleanor Maccoby Book Award from the American Psychological Association and the Cognitive Development Society Book Award.

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While his full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic of imagination:

Harris, P. L. (2000). The work of the imagination. Blackwell Publishing.

Harris, P. L. (2022). Children's imagination. Cambridge University Press.

Harris, P. L. (2021). Early constraints on the imagination: The realism of young children. Child Development, 92(2), 466-483.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠ and ⁠VT Publishing⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we focus on how our imaginations are essential to moral decision-making and help us evaluate the possible outcomes of our actions. As part of this, we also discuss the shortcomings of rigid moral systems and the necessity of maintaining humility. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Mark Johnson, Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Philip H. Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Emeritus at the University of Oregon.

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Dr. Mark L. Johnson is currently Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Philip H. Knight Professor of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Emeritus. Johnson has authored numerous articles and book chapters on a broad range of topics including philosophy of language, metaphor theory, aesthetics, recent moral theory, ethical naturalism, philosophy and cognitive science, embodied cognition, philosophical psychology, and American pragmatist philosophy.

Some of his notable publications include Mind in Nature: John Dewey, Cognitive Science, and a Naturalistic Philosophy for Living (MIT Press, 2023) and, with George Lakoff, of Metaphors We Live By (University of Chicago Press, [1980] 2003). Notably for our study of imagination are his books Moral Imagination: Implications of Cognitive Science for Ethics (1993), and The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason (1987).

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While his full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic of imagination:

Johnson, M. (1993). Moral imagination : implications of cognitive science for ethics. University of Chicago Press.

Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. University of Chicago Press. 

Johnson, M. (2015). Morality for Humans: Ethical Understanding from the Perspective of Cognitive Science. The University of Chicago Press. Copy citation to clipboard

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠ and ⁠VT Publishing⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we focus on how the narrative imagination helps us make sense of the world. Additionally, we dig into the connection between story and imagination. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Richard Kearney, Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College

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Richard Kearney holds the Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy at Boston College and has served as a Visiting Professor at University College Dublin, the University of Paris (Sorbonne), the Australian Catholic University and the University of Nice.

He is the author of over 26 books on European philosophy and literature (including three novels and a volume of poetry) and has edited or co-edited 23 more. His most recent publications include Anatheism (2012), Reimagining the Sacred (2015), Carnal Hermeneutics (2015), Twinsome Minds: An Act of Double Remembrance (2018), Touch: Recovering Our Most Vital Sense (2021), Thinking Film: Philosophy at the Movies (ed. Richard Kearney and M.E. Littlejohn) (2023).

He was formerly a member of the Arts Council of Ireland, the Higher Education Authority of Ireland and chairman of the Irish School of Film at University College Dublin. He is also a member of the Royal Irish Academy.

As a public intellectual in Ireland, he was involved in drafting a number of proposals for a Northern Irish peace agreement (1983, 1993, 1995).

He has presented five series on culture and philosophy for Irish and British television and broadcast extensively on the European media.

He is currently international director of the Guestbook Project–Hosting the Stranger: Between Hostility and Hospitality.

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While his full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to his scholarship addressing the topic of imagination:

Kearney, R. (2002). The wake of imagination. Routledge.

Kearney, R. (2002). On stories. Routledge.

Littlejohn, M. E. (Ed.). (2020). Imagination Now: A Richard Kearney Reader. Rowman & Littlefield.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠ and ⁠VT Publishing⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: purple-planet.com

In this episode, we look into how we can learn from intentionally guiding our imagination while also looking into how much of the imagination operates outside of our conscious control. We also continue to explore the limits of imagination and how it can be used for both good and ill. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Tamar Gendler, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at Yale University.

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Dr. Tamar Szabó Gendler is Yale’s Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Vincent J. Scully Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science. She holds a BA summa cum laude with Distinction in Humanities and in Mathematics-&-Philosophy from Yale University (1987) and a PhD in Philosophy from Harvard University (1996). After teaching at Syracuse and Cornell Universities for nearly a decade, she returned to Yale in 2006 as Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Cognitive Science Program. In 2009-10, supported by the Mellon Foundation’s New Directions program, she spent a year as a full-time student at Yale doing coursework in psychology, neuroscience, and statistics. In 2010, she was appointed Chair of the Yale philosophy department, becoming the first woman chair in the department’s two-century history. In 2013, she was appointed Deputy Provost for Humanities and Initiatives, a position she held until she assumed her current role in 2014. As FAS Dean, Gendler has focused on building excellence and collaboration within and across traditional disciplinary boundaries throughout the divisions in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and across the university more broadly.

Gendler’s academic research brings together the techniques of traditional Anglo-American philosophy with empirical work from psychology and other social sciences; her interests include the relation between imagination and belief, the contrast between rational and non-rational persuasion, and the role of habits in shaping behavior and judgment. Many of these issues are explored in her Open Yale course, Philosophy and the Science of Human Nature. She also has interests in education policy and practice, and worked for several years after she graduated from Yale as an education policy analyst at the RAND Corporation.

Gendler is the author of Intuition, Imagination, and Philosophical Methodology (Oxford, 2013), Thought Experiments: On the Powers and Limits of Imaginary Cases (Routledge, 2000), and co-editor of The Elements of Philosophy (Oxford 2008), Perceptual Experience (Oxford, 2006), Conceivability and Possibility (Oxford 2002), and the Oxford Handbook of Philosophical Methodology (Oxford 2016).

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While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination:

Gendler, T. S. (2014). Thought experiment: On the powers and limits of imaginary cases. Routledge.

Gendler, T. S. (2000). The puzzle of imaginative resistance. The Journal of Philosophy, 97(2), 55-81.

Gendler, T. S., & Hawthorne, J. (Eds.). (2002). Conceivability and possibility. Clarendon Press.

Liao, S. Y., & Gendler, T. (2019). Imagination. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: purple-planet.com

As we continue our exploration, we spend some time this week thinking about how we use our imaginations and what limits we might place upon them. We also delve into whether we should think of our imagination as a skill. Our guest scholar in this episode is Dr. Amy Kind, Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy & Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies at Claremont McKenna College.

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Dr. Amy Kind, the Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy, joined the Claremont McKenna College faculty in 1997. Currently the Director of the Gould Center for Humanistic Studies, she has previously served as Chair of the Department of Philosophy (2009 - 2012) and Associate Dean of the Faculty (2005 - 2008). At CMC, she teaches classes in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, and logic. Her research interests lie broadly in the philosophy of mind, though most of her published work has concerned issues relating either to imagination or to phenomenal consciousness.  Her most recent publications include What is Consciousness? A Debate (co-authored with Daniel Stoljar) and Imagination and Creative Thinking.  She has edited or co-edited four volumes: Epistemic Uses of Imagination (co-edited with Christopher Badura), Knowledge Through Imagination (co-edited with Peter Kung), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination, and Philosophy of Mind in the Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries. In 2023-4, she will serve as Vice President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, to be followed by a term as President in 2024-5.

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While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination:

Kind, A. (2016). The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Imagination (1st ed.). Routledge.

Kind, A. (2016). Imagining under constraints. Knowledge through imagination, 145-59.

Kind, A. (2018). How imagination gives rise to knowledge. Perceptual imagination and perceptual memory, 227-46.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: Purple-planet.com

As we embark on our exploration of the imagination, we start by exploring just how we should conceptualize and talk about this phenomenon. We also begin to think through just how useful the imagination is. Our guest scholar this episode is Dr. Anna Abraham, E. Paul Torrance Professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia and the Director of the Torrance Center for Creativity and Talent Development, who guides us through these first steps on our journey.

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Dr. Anna Abraham studies the psychological and neurophysiological basis of creativity and other aspects of the human imagination. Her educational and professional training has been within the disciplines of psychology and neuroscience, and she has worked across a diverse range of academic institutions and departments the world over, all of which have informed her multidisciplinary focus. She is the Founding Editor of the Cambridge Elements in Creativity and Imagination, an innovative academic short book series from Cambridge University Press.

Within the Department of Educational Psychology, Professor Abraham serves as a primary faculty member in the Gifted & Creative Education program and as an affiliated faculty member in the Applied Cognition & Development program and the School Psychology program. She advises graduate students across all these three programs. She also collaborates on research projects with faculty and students in the Quantitative Methodology program.

Professor Abraham also directs the CREATIVITY & IMAGINATION LAB at UGA. Prospective students and collaborators can find information on current studies and opportunities within the detailed lab webpage.

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While her full catalog of articles and books is far too long to list here, the publications below provide a useful introduction to her scholarship addressing the topic of imagination:

Abraham, A., & Bubic, A. (2015). Semantic memory as the root of imagination. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 325–325.

Abraham, A. (2020). The Cambridge Handbook of the Imagination. Cambridge University Press.

Abraham, A. (2024). The Creative Brain: Myths and Truths. MIT Press.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: Purple-planet.com

Join cohosts Amin Farzaneh and Brad Stephens as they explore the imagination as both a fascinating phenomenon/concept and an absolute necessity for social change. They will talk with some of the leading scholars in the field to explore the nuances of this most human of abilities.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the ⁠Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance⁠ and ⁠VT Publishing⁠ intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: Purple-planet.com

In this special bonus episode, we seek to bring together the subjects of our first two arcs, trust and power, and look at how they might concretely manifest in the bid to create social change. We are guided through this discussion by Dr. Lawrence Susskind, Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Dr. Susskind shares how both trust and power play out in his work to build collaborative problem-solving processes and how he approaches both concepts.

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Dr. Lawrence Susskind is the Ford Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning and his research interests focus on the theory and practice of negotiation and dispute resolution, the practice of public engagement in local decision-making, cybersecurity for critical urban infrastructure, entrepreneurial negotiation, global environmental treaty-making, the resolution of science-intensive policy disputes, renewable energy policy, water equity in older American cities, climate change adaptation, socially-responsible real estate development and the land claims of Indigenous Peoples. Professor Susskind is the author or co-author of twenty books including, most recently, Environmental Problem-Solving (Anthem), Managing Climate Risks in Coastal Communities: Strategies for Engagement, Readiness and Adaptation (Anthem), the second edition of Environmental Diplomacy (Oxford Press), Good for You, Great for Me (Public Affairs Press), Water Diplomacy (Resources for the Future), Built to Win (Harvard Business School Publishing), Multiparty Negotiation (Sage), Breaking Robert's Rules (Oxford), The Consensus Building Handbook (Sage), and Dealing with An Angry Public (Free Press).

Professor Susskind is Director of the MIT Science Impact Collaborative (scienceimpact.mit.edu). He is Founder of the Consensus Building Institute, a Cambridge-based not-for-profit company that provides mediation services in complex resource management disputes around the world. He also was one of the Co-founders of the interuniversity Program on Negotiation at Harvard Law School, where he now directs the MIT-Harvard Public Disputes Program, serves as Vice Chair for Instruction, and leads PON’s Master Classes in Negotiation. He is the recipient of ACSP’s prestigious Educator of the Year Award and recipient of MIT’s Award for Digital Instruction. MIT Administration recently named Professor Susskind as MIT's representative to the New America Foundation's Public Interest Technology University Network (PIT-UN).

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While Dr. Susskind's CV is beyond extensive, these pieces might help the reader understand how he grapples with trust and power:

Susskind, L., & Field, P. (1996). Dealing with an angry public: The mutual gains approach to resolving disputes. Simon and Schuster.

Susskind, L. E., McKearnen, S., & Thomas-Lamar, J. (1999). The consensus building handbook: A comprehensive guide to reaching agreement. Sage publications.

Susskind, L. E., & Ali, S. H. (2014). Environmental diplomacy: Negotiating more effective global agreements. Oxford University Press.

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The Social Science for Public Good Podcast is a project of the Virginia Tech Institute for Policy and Governance and VT Publishing intended to make social science theories accessible and available to individuals and organizations seeking to promote social change.

Music: Purple-planet.com