MA Student Interviews Professor on Metamodernism

One of our grad students, Adam Riekstins, MA '24, recently interviewed Dr. Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, currently Professor and chair in the Department of Religion and chair in Science and Technology Studies at Williams College.

According to Adam, "A few weeks ago, I had an amazing opportunity to interview Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm, a current academic 'celeb' who has laid a lot of the groundwork for metamodernism, a trending school of theory (both academically and publicly). I have written a lot about metamodernism in my graduate studies and presented on it at a few conferences as well."

Adam initially reached out to Dr. Storm with a question about his work: "I approached reaching out to Dr. Storm very carefully, since his work has been the cornerstone of my graduate career so far and I didn't want to trigger a Wayne's World 'we're not worthy!' moment," he said. "I sent him an email with a few quick questions about metamodernism I couldn't answer explicitly from his publications, and a week or so later, he sent me a novel of a response answering all of my questions and more. He is without a doubt one of the kindest and most humble people I have met in academia."

Adam prepped thoroughly for his interview: "Conducting the interview was a fantastic experience. I had prepped for about a month, reading and re-reading his book, annotating my annotations and so on. Because metamodernism is a trending movement not just in academia, but in the public, I made sure I was up to date on all of the public conversation and rhetoric as well," he said. 

"As I said, Dr. Storm is one of the most kind and humble people in academia today, but he is also one of the most knowledgeable. He has an amazing grasp on the history of philosophy, where we are with it today, what problems both society and academia currently face, and some solid ideas on how to solve them via metamodernism."

You can view the complete interview on Adam's Youtube channel here.