Shay Welch, "The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)
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What is the introduction and purpose of the episode with Shay Welch?
Thank you.
Hello and welcome to New Books and Philosophy, a podcast channel with New Books Network. I'm Alexis McLeod, Associate Professor of Philosophy in Asian and Asian American Studies at the University of Connecticut. I'm co-host of this channel along with Robert Talese, Carrie Figdor, and Sarah Tyson. I'm joined today by Shea Welsh, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Spelman College. She's here to discuss her new book, The Phenomenology of a Performative Knowledge System, Dancing with Native American Epistemology. So thanks for joining me today to talk about your book. Also, congratulations on the book. It's a really great book. I really enjoyed it a lot. I think it's doing really important work that not enough philosophers are doing.
So thank you.
Thanks.
So first I wanted to ask you how you got into philosophy in general and how you came to the topic of this book in particular.
Yikes. I don't know. I got into philosophy like in one of those mystical divine, right. Sort of things. And so far as like, I took, I took an intro to ethics class. I don't know,
maybe when I was a
sophomore and, uh, I failed it. And, um, I blame this 90% on the teacher though. To this day, I still look back and think, God damn man, what were you doing? Um, but I swore that I would never take philosophy again. And it was the dumbest thing on earth. And, you know, why did I have to take this class for
a
requirement? And then, like, my graduating semester, I still had one humanities requirement to take, and the only one that was available was another intro to ethics class that was taught by a different guy. Much better teacher, much less personality. And I don't know if it was... that he actually was teaching it or that I just was ready. Um, I mean, I don't, I don't know, but it was just like within a week, it just absolutely changed my life. I just couldn't, I just couldn't imagine there being anything better in the world than, than that. And, um, I was graduating and I remember saying to somebody, Like, oh, I wish people could still grow up and be philosophers. Wouldn't that be neat? Because I didn't know there were still like actual philosophers in the world.
And he was like, oh, you can be a philosopher. You just have to go to graduate school. And I was like, what's graduate school? And I mean, to be fair, like I'm first generation. And I, you know, I was just fumbling through college and, you know, just just minimally surviving. And so I kind of looked it up. And I was like, holy shit, I can be a philosopher. That sounds fancy. And I stuck around an extra year and I did like the whole major in a year. And and actually I got a 4.0 the whole year. That was like the first time I never made A's ever in college. And I was like, whoa, I was like, this is for me. And so I decided to take a year off and go party in Tokyo just to give myself a break and get some life,
you
know, some some experiences and
How did Shay Welch become interested in philosophy and Native American epistemology?
And while I was there, I studied for the GRE and read a bunch of philosophy on my own. Like, I went to the bookstore and got some Japanese philosophy books and stuff. And I applied to grad school from there. And I got in on some affirmative action shit because the – I'm sorry. I swear a lot. That's okay. Because the school that I went to was just, like, no women. Like, none at all. And the only way that I knew how to apply to graduate school was, like, by where the weather was good.
Right.
I
went to the entirely wrong graduate program on the first attempt um but I got in and that's all that mattered and then I mean that was just it that was that was I mean for me I've always felt like it was it was my calling I felt like it is it is the meaning in my life um so I'm I'm pretty emotionally attached to my projects. And so when, when people say something like, Oh, your book is really good and I really like it and it really does something for me, or it really helps me think about things in different ways. I feel like, you know, that's the reason why I'm alive, which might seem like, might seem like a little over the top, but you know, when we're all looking for a reason to be here, like that, that kind of helps me make sense of it
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Chapters
4 chapters
1
What is the introduction and purpose of the episode with Shay Welch?
0:02–3:26
2
How did Shay Welch become interested in philosophy and Native American epistemology?
3:26–8:23
3
What motivated Shay to shift graduate programs and focus on feminist political philosophy?
8:23–45:59
4
How does the book explain the connection between dance, movement, and meaning?
45:59–1:02:31
Speakers
3 identifiedMore from New Books in Philosophy
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PJ DiPietro, "Sideways Selves Travesti and Jotería, "Struggles Across the Américas" (U Texas Press, 2025)