Jeanne Proust introduces the Night of Ideas and explores philosophy in everyday life

 

Jeanne Proust has studied Humanities, Philosophy and Visual Arts in Bordeaux, Berlin, and Paris. She has been teaching Philosophy for the last fifteen years in the US and has held multiple leadership positions in ethics education and public philosophy. She currently serves as Vice President of the Public Philosophy Network, where she helps guide national initiatives connecting philosophy to public life, and as Academic Coordinator for Crown College at UC Santa Cruz, overseeing the core course on the “Ethical and Societal Implications of Emerging Technologies”.

She continues to serve as the program director for the Santa Cruz Night of Ideas, now a recurring event held every spring. The 2026 Night of Ideas will take place April 17th at the Institute of Arts & Sciences in Santa Cruz, from 5 to 9 PM.

She has been actively involved in the Center for Public Philosophy (UC Santa Cruz) for the last three years, where she served as director from 2023-2024, spearheading community-centered ethics programs and partnerships across academia, civil society, and the arts. With the Center, she helped launch the first Tech Ethics Bowl in the Bay Area, contributed to several Ethics Bowl programs targeting underserved communities, and led the inaugural Santa Cruz edition of the Night of Ideas – in collaboration with the Marc Sanders Foundation, Humanities West, The Humanities Institute at UCSC and Villa Albertine.

Jeanne’s PhD dissertation (Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) focused on the pathologies of willpower, both in philosophical and psychological perspectives, but her interests are wide: among many fields, she does research in Ethics, Philosophy of Technologies, Bioethics, Feminist theory, and Aesthetics. She taught at different universities in New York, advocating for a widening of philosophical education beyond Academia by leading and participating in different events open to the general public and to marginalized populations (Rikers Island, San Quentin). She gives many public talks, collaborates on podcast projects (she produced her own, “Can You Phil It?”), and regularly collaborates with artists on her photography, drawing and painting works.

Jeanne has recently started her own philosophical counseling practice, open to individuals seeking to expand their worldview, and to examine their values and life concerns through the lens of philosophical inquiry. Part of this work is conducted in partnership with the Philosophy Technologies startup, which provides support for senior executives, helping leaders broaden their conceptual frameworks and decision-making practices.