Dr Laura D’Olimpio

Dr Laura D'Olimpio

School of Education
Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education
Director of Postgraduate Research

Contact details

Telephone
+44 (0)121 415 8148
Email
l.dolimpio@bham.ac.uk
View my research portal
Address
School of Education
University of Birmingham
Edgbaston, Birmingham
B15 2TT, United Kingdom

Dr Laura D’Olimpio is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Education at the University of Birmingham, UK. Prior to taking up this position in 2019, Laura was Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at The University of Notre Dame Australia. 

Laura completed her PhD ‘The Moral Possibilities of Mass Art’ at The University of Western Australia. She is co-founder and co-editor of the open access Journal of Philosophy in Schools. She is also a regular contributor to The Conversation, Philosophy Now magazine, The Ethics Centre, and ABC Radio National’s Philosopher’s Zone and The Minefield. Laura’s first book, Media and Moral Education: a philosophy of critical engagement (London, Routledge, 2018) won the 2018 PESA (Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia) Annual Book Award. 

Laura is currently working on her second book, The Necessity of Aesthetic Education: The Place of the Arts on the Curriculum, which is due to be published with Bloomsbury in 2021. 

Laura is the Director of Postgraduate Research for the School of Education

Qualifications

  • PhD in Philosophy, University of Western Australia (UWA)
  • Bachelor of Arts with Honours in Philosophy, UWA

Teaching

Postgraduate supervision

Laura D'Olimpio supervises postgraduate research students working in the fields of philosophy and philosophy of education. 

She has particular expertise in the following areas:

  • Moral education
  • Moral philosophy and applied ethics
  • Aesthetics; particularly aesthetics and ethics
  • Philosophy in schools
  • Media, mass art, technology and digital literacy
  • Philosophy of film and literature
  • Virtue ethics and character education
  • Public philosophy

For more information on research degrees, please visit the Postgraduate Research pages.

Research

Laura’s first book, Media and Moral Education: a philosophy of critical engagement (London, Routledge, 2018), claims that philosophical thinking skills support the adoption of an attitude she calls ‘critical perspectivism’. Critical perspectivism gives citizens the ability to engage with multiple perspectives, particularly those received via online media, in a critical and compassionate manner. This monograph won the 2018 PESA (Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia) Annual Book Award.

She is currently writing her second book, The Necessity of Aesthetic Education: The Place of the Arts on the Curriculum, which defends the necessity of arts education for all school-aged students on the basis of its distinctive value. This monograph is due to be published with Bloomsbury in 2021.

Laura is also collaborating with Michael Hand on a project on education against extremism. The project will explore conceptual and definitional questions pertaining to extremism, along with whether and why it is objectionable, and whether and how schools should equip children to resist it. Laura’s first article on this theme will be entitled ‘Educating the rational emotions: an affective response to extremism’ and will be published in Educational Theory in early 2023.

Laura is co-authoring a monograph with Dr Jane Gatley, entitled ‘Philosophy of Education’, which will be published in the Palgrave Philosophy Today book series in 2023.

Together with Dr Panos Paris and Aidan Thompson, Laura is co-editing an edited book called Educating Character Through the Arts. Laura’s chapter for the collection is ‘Heroines and Sexy Victims: what we learn from female protagonists’. This will be published by Routledge in 2022.

Publications

Recent publications

Book

D'Olimpio, L 2017, Media and Moral Education: A philosophy of critical engagement. Routledge International Studies in the Philosophy of Education, 1 edn, Routledge, London. <https://www.routledge.com/Media-and-Moral-Education-A-Philosophy-of-Critical-Engagement/DOlimpio/p/book/9781138291423>

Article

D'Olimpio, L 2021, 'Critical perspectivism: educating for a moral response to media', Journal of Moral Education, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 92-103. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2020.1772213

D’olimpio, L 2021, 'Defending aesthetic education', British Journal of Educational Studies, pp. 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2021.1960267

D’Olimpio, L 2020, 'When good art is bad: Educating the critical viewer', Theory and Research in Education, vol. 18, no. 2, pp. 137-150. https://doi.org/10.1177/1477878520947024

Arndt, S, Asher, G, Knox, J, Ford, DR, Hayes, S, Lăzăroiu, G, Jackson, L, Contreras, JM, Buchanan, R, D’olimpio, L, Smith, M, Suoranta, J, Pyyhtinen, O, Ryberg, T, Davidsen, J, Steketee, A, Mihăilă, R, Stewart, G, Dawson, M, Sinclair, C & Peters, MA 2019, 'Between the Blabbering Noise of Individuals or the Silent Dialogue of Many: A Collective Response to ‵Postdigital Science and Education′ (Jandrić et al. 2018)', Postdigital Science and Education, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 446-474. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-019-00037-y

D’Olimpio, L 2019, 'Moral education within the social contract: whose contract is it anyway?', Journal of Moral Education, vol. 48, no. 4, pp. 515-528. https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2019.1580565

D'Olimpio, L & Levine, MP 2019, 'Reluctant heroes and itchy capes: the ineluctable desire to be the savior', Journal of Aesthetic Education, vol. 53, no. 4, pp. 71-85. <https://muse.jhu.edu/article/738239>

D’olimpio, L 2018, 'Post-postmodernism: A call to optimism', Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 50, no. 14, pp. 1378-1379. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2018.1461422

D’Olimpio, L 2017, 'Against value in the arts and education', British Journal of Educational Studies, vol. 65, no. 4. https://doi.org/10.1080/00071005.2017.1354535

D’Olimpio, L & Teschers, C 2017, 'Playing with philosophy: Gestures, life-performance, P4C and an art of living', Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 49, no. 13, pp. 1257-1266. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2017.1294974

D'Olimpio, L & Teschers, C 2016, 'Philosophy for children meets the art of living: a holistic approach to an education for life', Philosophical Inquiry in Education, vol. 23, no. 2, pp. 114-124. <http://journals.sfu.ca/pie/index.php/pie/article/view/422>

D'Olimpio, L 2016, 'Trust as a virtue in education', Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 50, no. 2, pp. 193-202. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2016.1194737

D’Olimpio, L 2015, 'Thoughts on film: critically engaging with both Adorno and Benjamin', Educational Philosophy and Theory, vol. 47, no. 6, pp. 622-637. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2014.964161

View all publications in research portal

Media experience

Laura was the top contributor to The Conversation for the University of Notre Dame Australia (2014-2018). She has written for public philosophy publications such as Philosophy Now magazine, ABC’s Religion and Ethics website, and is currently writing for The Ethics Centre. 

She is often interviewed on the Australian Broadcasting Association (ABC) and is a regular contributor to their Radio National programmes, including Philosopher’s Zone and The Minefield.  Laura is a member of the Media Committee for the Australasian Association of Philosophy (AAP). 

Selected public philosophy publications: 

Articles 

Radio interviews