Patrick Henry College’s Arche Journal of Philosophy and Political Theory is an undergraduate, peer-reviewed academic journal. It has been around since 2015 and gives Political Philosophy and Theory students a chance to share their work on a wide variety of subjects.
Editor-in-chief Mikael Good explained to us how this journal can enrich the education of all PHC students, not just Political Philosophy or Theory students.
What does the title “Arche” mean?
Arche is an ancient Greek word meaning "origin" or "beginning," which indicates that the journal deals with fundamental questions about reality and how those play out in particular contexts.
What subject material does it focus on?
Anything relating to philosophy or political theory, which are disciplines that attempt to understand all the different aspects of reality and human life in light of the whole. That means the subject material is extremely broad. In this issue, for example, we have papers about power and virtue, the philosophy of art, the ethics of punishment, the source of legitimate political authority, love, and futility.
What is the process like?
We encouraged submissions from anybody, but particularly political theory/political philosophy majors and other people who have taken classes with Dr. Bayer, Dr. Mitchell, and Dr. Roberts. Since there were only a few of us involved in the editing/publishing process, we were able to keep it pretty simple—we all contributed edits to the papers, fixed formatting issues, had the authors review the edits, and then did a couple rounds of proofreading.
What is your favorite part about being editor, and about working on the journal?
For one, I love to read my friends' and fellow classmates' papers. Publishing the journal makes it feel like we are participating in a community of ideas, rather than just writing papers for our professors to get grades. I also really enjoy editing, but in the past, I've mostly done it for other people and organizations. It's fun to be the editor of a student-run project where we are in charge and get to make our own decisions.
Is the future of Arche promising?
Yes, we actually published last semester's issue a couple months ago (it got delayed), and we plan to keep publishing every semester from here on out.
______
Read the most recent edition here...
