Thought Stories: philosophy for a young audience

LSE Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method Literary Festival discussion

Literature is a successful medium to introduce philosophy to school children. Our panel features a children’s author whose books contain philosophical themes, a philosopher who has published extensively for the philosophy curriculum in schools, and a philosopher who is developing an ethics curriculum for schools based on short stories in world literature.

Luc Bovens (@LucBovens) is Head of the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE.  Luc Bovens joined LSE in 2004 from the University of Colorado at Boulder (1990-2003) having previously completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota (1990). He is coordinator of the MSc Philosophy and Public Policy.

Anne Fine is one of Britain’s most distinguished writers for both adults and children. She has twice been voted Children’s Author of the Year. The BBC have screened adaptations of several of her books, and her novel Madame Doubtfire was transformed into a Hollywood film starring Robin Williams in 1993. Anne was Children’s Laureate from 2001-3, during which time she set up www.myhomelibrary.org, a website that continues to offer a host of freshly designed and freely downloadable modern bookplates to enthuse children to form their own home libraries from the second hand books around them. She also published three classic anthologies of poetry for different ages, called A Shame to Miss 1, 2 & 3. She has published eight highly acclaimed black comedies for adults, and her work has been translated into forty-five languages. In 2003 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and awarded an OBE.

Peter Worley (@the_if_man) is Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of The Philosophy Foundation (@philosophyfound). He is President of SOPHIA, the European Foundation for the advancement of doing philosophy with children and a Visiting Research Associate at King’s College London. He is a multi-award winning author for Bloomsbury Education and author and editor for Crown House Publishing on The Philosophy Foundation Series of books. A BBC series adapted from The If Machine was nominated for a Children’s BAFTA in 2013.

Emma Worley (@rosiecoaching) is Co-Founder & Chief Operating Officer of The Philosophy Foundation. She has worked as an drama educator for schools and regularly works with children’s charity Scene and Heard as both an actor, director and dramaturg.

The Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method at LSE (@LSEPhilosophy) is internationally renowned for a type of philosophy that is both continuous with the sciences and socially relevant.

This event forms part of the LSE Space for Thought Literary Festival 2015, taking place from Monday 23 – Saturday 28 February 2015, with the theme ‘Foundations’.

Suggested hashtag for this event for Twitter users: #LSElitfest