Before each biweekly Stapledon Colloquium, the University of Liverpool Philosophy department hosts an Insights Session. This forum gives MA students the opportunity to question the visiting speaker in a discussion chaired by one of their peers. The session is designed to deepen student engagement with the speaker’s research while providing practical experience in chairing philosophical discussions. Current MA student and PGT representative Jacob Bowden reflects on his experience chairing these sessions.
The 'Stapledon Colloquium' is UoL's fortnightly philosophy seminar at which a visiting philosopher presents a paper, presentation, or talk on a topic they have been or are currently working on. 'Insights' sessions are 1-hour talks directly preceding each Stapledon seminar and are an opportunity for MA Philosophy students here at Liverpool to learn about the work and career narrative of the day's speaker.
At the time of writing, I have chaired two of these insights sessions - one with Prof Simon Kirchin at the start of semester 1 (2025-6), and one with Dr Anneli Jefferson at the start of semester 2. Chairing involves preparing an introduction to the speaker, some informed questions to ask at the start, and managing audience Q&A which ensues after this initial course of questions. To prepare, I researched into the career history and corpus of philosophical writing of the visitor, in order to offer a complimentary and importantly accurate introduction, as well as questions which both guest and audience alike would find relevant, interesting, and insightful. Then, all that was left to do was to deliver these in a confident and timely manner, as well as engage with the Stapledon talk and attend the complimentary dinner which chairs are invited to as a reward for their work.
Admittedly, delivering prepared chairing materials was no easy feat. Managing nerves as well as time so that everyone feels stimulated and engaged for the whole hour was a challenge. Nevertheless, this meant that I left each chairing session with invaluable experience speaking publicly and facilitating an academic talk, as well as invaluable information on the basis of which to improve on these scores into the future. I left each session feeling proud of what I had accomplished that day, and I received compliments on my work on both occasions.
The insights sessions are a brilliant opportunity both to learn about being an academic philosopher and about the national and international philosophical community, and to develop invaluable skills and insight engaging with and/or facilitating an academic talk. The dinner afterwards is an approachable opportunity to get to know your department better and to learn about the academic philosophical community in Liverpool and beyond. I feel very grateful to be part of an MA Philosophy course which offers an opportunity such as this one, and would recommend engaging with it as much as possible to those who are or are considering joining the MA Philosophy community here.