Places of Insurrection, Liberation, and Joy in Everyday Life: An Interview with Dominic T. Moulden

Alex Stehn: Hello, my name is Alex Stehn, and I'm the chair of this year's Coss Dialogue Committee, whose other members include Aaron Stoller and Erin Tarver. It's my pleasure and privilege to introduce the 2025 Coss Dialogue. These annual dialogues are funded by an endowment provided by the estates of Herbert W. Schneider and his friend Albert G. Redpath, both of whom were students of John J. Coss at Columbia University. That the fund was given to the Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy is singularly appropriate since it contains royalties from Professor Schneider's landmark work, A History of American Philosophy,2 and also because Professor Schneider encouraged the founding of this society. We are grateful to the executors of both estates for entrusting it to us, and to Dr. Schneider in particular for his help in designing and establishing the program.These dialogues are intended to promote communication between philosophers in the “classic” American tradition and specialists in other fields, to serve as bridges across boundaries–whether those be disciplinary, cultural, or geographic, or those that separate us as professional philosophers from the general public. We view such boundaries not as barriers, but as challenges to shared inquiry. We hope to encourage joint inquiry in topics of common interest and exploration of the mutual import of different frames of reference.Part of the Coss program is to make these dialogues available to a wider public and thereby encourage further discussion and inquiry. To this end, they are being audio recorded for transcription and publication in The Pluralist.That was my assigned script, but I'll give you a tiny bit of the backstory. There's a tradition of the Coss Dialogue format being a lecture, and then everyone goes to lunch, and then afterward, there is a panel of respondents. But what we wanted to do this year was make the Coss presentation itself more of a dialogue—to turn the Coss lecture into a lively dialogical exchange. And that is what we will offer today.Our featured Coss speaker this year is Dominic T. Moulden of the Elephant Free School. Dominic is a native of Baltimore. He earned a BA in Philosophy and a Master of Theological Studies and found his vocation as a community organizer, thinker, and advocate for racial and economic justice. As one of the founders of Organizing Neighborhood Equity (ONE DC), he has played a pivotal role in advancing equitable development, affordable housing, and tenant rights in Washington, DC, for over three decades.Dominic's work is deeply rooted in the principles of popular education, participatory democracy, and the incubation of economic alternatives. But he's equally passionate about the role of art and storytelling in social movements and community-led power building. At the Maryland Institute College of Art, he teaches courses that fuse art making, critical theory, and community organizing strategies. Some of his recent publications include “Housing Spaces Are the Commons,”3 “Is Gentrification a Municipal Crime?,”4 “What Does Community Control of Land Mean to You?,”5 and “A Method for Making the Just City: Housing, Gentrification and Health.”6Dominic also founded the Elephant Free School, a Black-centered laboratory of imagination and freedom. It operates across the United States as a floating academy that offers and in community development, affordable housing, development, shared democracy, and is the and work he The Elephant Free School. 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