Welcome!
I am Akshath Jitendranath, and at the start of the 2023 academic year, I will be a postdoc in Philosophy and Economics at the Paris School of Economics.
I am presently a PhD candidate in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (or PPE) at the VU Amsterdam where I am also a Junior Lecturer in the PPE programme at the VU’s John Stuart Mill College. Before coming to the VU, I finished my Research Master in Economics and Philosophy at the Erasmus Institute of Philosophy and Economics. And before moving to The Netherlands I completed my B.Sc. in Economics at the Symbiosis School of Economics in Pune, India.
By way of stating my academic identity, economists think I'm a philosopher, and philosophers think I'm an economist. I'm just enjoying the schizophrenia in my doctoral work which is at the intersection of ethics and decision theory. My doctoral research is supervised by Prof. Martin van Hees, and Dr. Roland Luttens.
In addition to my research and teaching responsibilities, I have been an editor of the Erasmus Journal of Philosophy and Economics, the international, peer-reviewed journal of the Erasmus Institute for Philosophy and Economics. I am now a member of the editorial oversight board of the journal. I was also a co-organizer of the Amsterdam Graduate Conference in Political Theory.
I grew up in Bangalore, India. And in this context it is worth stating that while I do not take the South Asian sub-continent to be my direct object of research in any immediate way, I spend a lot of my free time thinking about South Asian society, its history, its culture, and its various discontents. I hope to publish some of these thoughts as soon as I feel confident enough to do so.
When I am not engaged by my intellectual pursuits, I enjoy cooking, tending to my houseplants, reading poetry, curating playlists on Spotify, and watching Test match cricket. Here it might also be worth mentioning, and not just because of the season we have been having, that I am a fan of Arsenal Football Club.
You can email me at akshath [dot] j [at] gmail [dot] com or connect with me on Twitter.
Jai Bhim!
PS: If you are a student from India or anywhere else in the global south and looking for advice on (i) how to apply to a graduate programme in Philosophy, or (ii) have general questions about the academic system in The Netherlands, then do not hesitate to get in touch with me. I shall try to be as helpful as my knowledge and experience allows.
