Philosophy Undergraduates Present at CURO Symposium

Three undergraduate philosophy students participated in this year’s annual CURO Symposium, held April 3-4 at the Classic Center in downtown Athens:

Joshua Simon Track: "Resolving the Inconsistency in the Physical and Psychological Differences of the Natural Slave and Natural Master of Aristotle's Politics" (mentored by undergraduate coordinator Athanasios Samaras)

Jonas David Andrulonis (pictured at right): "Airpods, Everyday Aesthetics, and Subjective Well-Being" (mentored by department head Aaron Meskin) 

Rohini Bose (pictured below): "Ethics of Artificial Intelligence in the Discovery Process of Litigation" (mentored by assistant professor Jeremy Davis)

CURO offers UGA undergraduate students of all disciplines and levels an opportunity to present their research to a broader community in either poster or oral presentation formats. Awards are given for Best Paper, UGA Libraries Research, and CURO Research Mentoring. This year’s keynote speaker was Dr. Marisa Pagnattaro, UGA Vice President for Instruction and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor in the Terry College of Business.

"The CURO program and CURO Symposium are fabulous opportunities for undergraduates to get substantive experience doing and presenting independent research with the support of faculty mentors. We are proud of all of the philosophy students who are involved in the program and the three students who presented at this year's Symposium," says Department Head Aaron Meskin, who mentored Jonas David Andrulonis’ paper.

"Jonas is a first-year student who asked me last semester if he could contribute to my ongoing research project about the aesthetic dimension of social spaces and nightlife. He's been incredibly helpful in putting together an annotated bibliography for me, and—in the process of doing that—he came up with a fascinating idea about the everyday aesthetic activity of listening to music through headphones,” continues Meskin who will continue to work with Jonas as he seeks to get it published.

"I was impressed with Rohini's ability to identify and work through philosophical puzzles that arise at the intersection between artificial intelligence and the law,” says Davis of Rohini Bose’s paper. “Not much philosophical work has been written on this issue yet, which makes her project especially interesting. Rohini had the challenging task of bringing together ideas from a number of related topics and considering how they related to her question, and she did a fantastic job. It was great to see how many people came up to ask her about her project at the symposium—clearly a testament to the value and importance of her work."

Joshua Track’s paper was based on an essay written for Samaras’ Aristotle class last fall. “This was a well-argued paper which took into account the most important recent literature on the subject and Joshua even learned some Greek in order to write it!” notes Samaras.