Sarah Scott, Ph.D., and Matthew Schule at the APA meeting.
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Manhattan University senior, Matthew Schule, got the chance to present his eleven-month long research at the American Philosophical Association’s (APA) annual conference of their eastern division in Manhattan from Jan. 8-11.
Schule’s research project, “Allegory of the Three Temporal Ekstasis,” was inspired by the ideas of Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre, two prominent philosophers who were best known for their ideas of totalitarianism and existentialism.
After taking a roots philosophy class with Sarah Scott, Ph.D., and learning more about of the ideas of Arendt and Sartre, Schule felt especially inspired to submit a proposal for research to the Branigan Scholars Grant, which aims to, “promote undergraduate research in the humanities by awarding several grants per year in excess of $3000 each for student-initiated projects,” according to manhattan.edu.
Brian Chalk, Ph.D., along with five other faculty members, is on the committee of the Branigan Grant. He and the other members review these proposals and award students with the grant according to specific guidelines.
“We look for a researchable question, meaning a question that the student is asking needs to be sufficiently attuned to what’s going on in their chosen field,” Chalk said. “This is to make the contribution part of a scholarly conversation that’s taking place, while also being a unique contribution in that discourse.”
Schule’s research explores the relationship between art, reality and time, using a triptych format to represent past, present and future. He was particularly interested in Arendt’s idea of “the life of the mind” and Sartre’s take on nothingness. Fusing them together, he created the basis of his proposal.
“She [Arendt] calls it the realm of the thinking ego, when you’re sort of in your head, you’re pretty much nowhere,” Schule said. “Like when you’re lost in thought, you’re not really anywhere. It’s sort of this timeless place. Using that infusion with Sartre’s ideas of nothingness and how, pretty much self consciousness is a nothingness, I was seeing how there were parallels between the two authors.”
In order to get this idea across, Schule took a somewhat unconventional route. As an art history minor and an artist himself, Schule used his usual medium of pen and paper to convey his ideas rather than the traditional essay that is written for a research project. From there, he was able to settle on the idea of time.
“I kind of knew that I wanted to do a triptych, which is three works of art connected as one,” Schule said. “From there, I just went into thinking about different sets of three. And I kind of settled on things like past, present [and] future. I was just very interested in time and how art relates to [the parallels].”
The triptych features three pieces of art, with a chart on the bottom further conveying the points that each drawing is making.
As for the APA meeting, Schule explained to The Quadrangle that presenting his work to a group of professional philosophers was a validating experience to his project.
“Some professors at the APA didn’t even read the paper, but just from talking with me and looking at my poster, they were able to ask questions that were so in depth that gave me the chance to really talk about the project,” Schule said. “In a way that was like, ‘Oh my gosh. This [project] wasn’t just a waste of time.’”
Scott explained in an email to The Quadrangle how this reflects the caliber of MU’s philosophical studies.
“In terms of the impact of the presentation on our reputation, this helps to give the sense that MU is among the better places to study philosophy in the country,” Scott wrote. “[It] isn’t just about the number of prestige or professors but more about our care for students and support of undergraduate research versus larger places that focus only on graduate research.”