Penn State’s Philosophy Department was awarded a $236,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Scholarly Communications and Information Technology program last week. The grant is to aid in the development of The Public Philosophy Journal, a joint project between Penn State’s Philosophy Department and Matrix, the Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences, at Michigan State.

The purpose of the project is to create a digital publication with an open peer review system. Basically, the Journal will search the web for potential content and offer the authors a part in the review process. The Public Philosophy Journal is also intended for graduate students both at Penn State and Michigan State to create a virtual community of scholarship.

“The Public Philosophy Journal is designed to re-envision the relationship between the academy and everyday life by creating a public space for accessible but rigorous scholarly discourse on issues of public concern,” said Christopher Long, Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts.

The Mellon Grant will fund the last leg of the project, in which the Journal will be launched. Dean Long hopes that the launch of the Public Philosophy Journal will bring the often isolated field of philosophy into the modern age. The grant will also sustain the Journal for years to come, so future students will have this resource as well.

Congratulations to Dean Long, the Philosophy Department, and everyone involved in producing the PPJ.