An introduction to the Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics and Ethics (CAPPE) by the Director, Professor Mark Devenney
CAPPE was founded in 2005. In the years since then, we have worked with colleagues across the world to understand the challenges presented to our political, philosophical and ethical assumptions by the world around us.
In those years, CAPPE researchers have explored critical theory in its many variants; just war theories; the politics of terror and terrorism after 9/11; the relationships between sex, gender and social reproduction; key debates in ontology, epistemology and ethics; the challenge presented by populisms to liberal democracy; how we conceptualise and practice equality.
We work with partners and colleagues from the local to the global and aim to extend the public role of philosophy and politics, with no respect for accepted truth or established powers. Our collaborative work and partnerships extend from Brighton to Stockholm, Buenos Aires, Ghent, Johannesburg and San Francisco to Verona and Kyoto.
Every year, CAPPE hosts many conferences and workshops both online and in person. We edit two book series for Roman and Littlefield International; mount public lecture series; organise a full academic programme for doctoral students; run regular reading groups, workshops, and seminars; host an annual conference that addresses key critical philosophical questions and host funded research projects that support our research.
Our annual highlight is the publication of the PhD-led journal INTERFERE, which publishes interviews and articles from colleague and theorists around the world. In the opening decades of the twenty-first century, philosophy has finally addressed its own complicity in longer histories of colonisation, environmental destruction and sexist politics. In the decade to come CAPPE will remain a centre where the challenges posed by the world we live in animate all that we do.
As researchers we are committed to thinking philosophically but also practically about how to intervene in our world. Our researchers rethink social democracy for the twenty-first century; intervene to decolonise our own practices and the colonial logics inscribed in our cities and histories; develop critical theoretical understanding of the societies we live in and their limits and imagine better futures committed to the equality of all.
Contact us if you would like to participate in our work, run a project together, or complete a PhD at CAPPE by applying for funded research projects; details can be found on our 'Join us for study, work or visit' pages.
Professor Mark Devenney