Week Five - Philosophy and play

Tony Gaskew, Ph.D., is Professor of Criminal Justice, Affiliate Faculty of Africana Studies, Director of the Criminal Justice Program, and Founding Director of the nationally recognized Prison Education Program at the University of Pittsburgh, Bradford. As a critical race theorist, his research examines the oppressive nature of policing within the Black diaspora in America, the Black Power Movement, and the Black radical tradition

Mechthild Nagel is professor of philosophy & Africana Studies and Director of the Center for Ethics, Peace, and Social Justice at the State University of New York, College at Cortland, USA. Dr. Nagel is also a visiting professor at Fulda University, Germany and Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain. She is author of seven books: Masking the Abject: A Genealogy of Play (Lexington, 2002), co-editor of Race, Class, and Community Identity (Humanities, 2000), The Hydropolitics of Africa: A Contem

I’m an accidental philosopher and a magpie. I play with shiny ideas that turn upside down our habitual ways of understanding the world. Once you start really thinking with these concepts, things will never be the same again. But that’s philosophy. So, if we understand life as relational – nothing pre-exists, everything is in a continual state of becoming through encounters – then how can play be freely chosen or personally directed? And where does that leave us in terms of ethical practice?

With a background in event organisation and management, behavioural sciences and playwork, Angus Gorrie has been working in the education sector for 12 years. Currently working as the Educational Leader at Camp Hill Outside School Hours Care, and speaker/presenter at The Outsiders Play Advocates, Angus and his team have a passion for proactive childhood development incorporating playwork into their everyday program, and are dedicated to help others advocate to so the same.