Nora Hämäläinen (University of Helsinki)
Self-help, ethical renegotiation and pedagogical expertise

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81813506541
Meeting ID: 818 1350 6541
Live streamed from C3.15

This talk explores self-help as a site of active social and ethical renegotiation in dimensions of day-to-day life, such as self-care, relationships, personal boundaries, eating, exercise, work, and parenting. It discusses the ethical implications of these renegotiations, and how self-help’s conversational and antagonistic features are relevant for the uses of self-help – and related popularized therapeutic material – in educational settings. It also addresses the merging of forms of pedagogical and therapeutic expertise in such uses.

Nora Hämäläinen is a moral philosopher and works as University Researcher at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She is the author of The Making of the Good Person: Self-Help, Ethics and Philosophy (Routledge 2023), Descriptive Ethics: What Does Moral Philosophy Know about Morality? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) and Literature and Moral Theory (Bloomsbury, 2015). In Swedish and for a wider audience she has written the books Är Trump postmodern? En essä om postsanning och kunskapspopulism (Helsinki: Förlaget M, 2019) and Granhäcken. En essä om ensamheter (Helsinki: Förlaget M, 2024).

The reading for this talk is attached here. Chapter 5, pages 121-131, should be given priority. In chapter 3, the section The Consolidation of Psychological Expertise, pp. 71-75, offers useful background to some reflections on the role of educators/teachers in the circulation of therapeutic/psychological knowledge.

Note: all sessions this term will be in hybrid form. They will take place both face to face in a room at UCL IOE and on Zoom.

For further inquiries: Yuxin Su (yuxin.su.16@ucl.ac.uk).

Please note that this seminar series is run by academics on an entirely voluntary and unpaid basis, on top of existing teaching and other work commitments. While we endeavour to make these events as inclusive and welcoming as possible, we cannot undertake any extra work regarding the presentation, dissemination or planning of the talks or make adjustments to the existing programme.