Students in the Department of Philosophy have teamed up to create Frontier, a digital magazine devoted to literature, creativity, politics, and culture. We caught up with Tadhg Kwasi and James Grant who launched the magazine.
What inspired you to create the magazine?
James: The magazine was inspired by literary publications that focus on longer-form writing. We realised there was a gap in creative and philosophical magazines for this form, as well as many which focussed specifically on one topic of interest, whether this was politics, news, art, philosophy et cetera. We wanted the magazine to create a more open space where we could exercise a mixture of both free speech, free thought, and debate to nurture more of a community readership that asks questions rather than provides singular and brief answers.
Tadhg: Well James put it well, but for me it was a platform for people to be inspired and to share creativity and ideas in dialogue with each other. A kind of community space where thoughts flourish and hopefully a community of people who can be confident in applying their creativity and critical thinking to spark change.
How do you hope the magazine will benefit staff and students at the university / readers of philosophy?
James: The magazine's topics of interest are presented in a way which leans more toward the Socratic method of the 'pursuit for truth'. Given the creative work is paired with in-depth pieces of both research and opinion, our magazine is inherently tailored to the philosophical, independently-thinking mind. As well as this, submissions are open to all people on all levels of education, should they have something they'd like to say, whether purely an opinion, or a personal and unique perspective of a designated topic.
Tadhg: It gives people a great opportunity to engage in the fundamental practise of writing, debate, research and we hope our openness to submissions will urge people to take up writing as larger components within their lives.
What would you say to people who are interested but unsure about what to contribute?
Tadhg: Draw on your interests, everyone's an expert on something, whether you have an essay you're proud of or are just super interested in something, it's an opportunity to write about in whatever style you want. There's editors on board to help at every stage.
You can follow Frontier Magazine on their Instagram page here.
