Dr Jon Phelan

Jon helps to support the academic and personal growth of students at Wolfson as Director of Studies in Philosophy. He is also Director of Studies in Philosophy and Theology at Homerton where he is an undergraduate tutor. Jon is a course director on the University of Cambridge’s International Summer School for several short courses in philosophy. He has taught philosophy to a variety of audiences and ages, from primary school pupils to postgraduates, but focuses now on undergraduate teaching and supervises a number of papers on the Philosophy Tripos. He received his PhD from The Open University in 2017 having studied at the University of Cambridge and at The Centre for Jewish Christian Relations where he remained as a research student. His current research area is in the philosophy of literature and he is interested in any philosophical question about literature. For example, when does a piece of writing become literature? What does it mean to view literature as art? What makes effective literary criticism? He is also interested in the history of philosophy, particularly in ordinary language philosophy. Jon is a member of the Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain, Oxford University’s Department of Continuing Education, and the Wittgenstein Society.