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Erasmus Student Journal of Philosophy
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Our Team
Our team usually consists of approximately 10 editors and 4 lead editors. Editors work in groups and are usually assigned to at least two papers. Without knowing who the author is, they go through three rounds of providing feedback. Lead editors are those that are primarily in charge of organizing the feedback rounds for one paper and they change every edition. The ESJP also needs one editor to be in charge of all operations, the Editor-in-Chief, and one Secretary.
Team Editie 24 (2023/2024)
Georgina Aránzazu Dijkstra (Editor-in-chief)
Caspar Smink (Secretary)
Arwen Vonck
David Holroyd
Rutger Maaskant
Heloísa Nerone
Jakob Hofmann
Bo Heller
Cassandra Kamberi
Ties van Daal
Sterre Kanon
Menno Lenting
Jasper Peters
Kasper Essers
Roan van der Laars
Atal Katawazi (Interview editor)
Get to know some team members
Georgina Aránzazu Dijkstra
What does working at ESJP mean to you?
Being a part of the ESJP is an good opportunity to work together alongside motivated and inspiring students, as well as finding a free space for your own intellectual curiosity to flourish. It is both exceptionally meaningful, and fun!
What’s your editing philosophy?
As an editor, you try to immerse yourself within the complex philosophical ideas of the author in order to first understand them. Once this has been accomplished, your role is to make these ideas come across as clear and understandable as possible. This is where my editing philosophy comes into play: you want to ensure the ideas of the author are expressed as clearly as possible, because you want readers to enjoy them as much as you did. This way, you honor both author and reader.
How would you convince a friend to join ESJP?
Working for the ESJP is wonderful for a variety of different reasons. It teaches you how the publication process works, what defines a high quality philosophical paper, and exposes you to new ideas you wouldn’t probably have considered within your normal studies. Apart from the intellectual aspect, it is an incredibly enjoyable social environment as well. You work in a team full of interesting students who share your passion, and at the end of the day and every publication, you feel as if you have contributed something meaningful to the field of philosophy we all care so deeply about.
Roan van der Laars
What does working at the ESJP mean for you?
I really see it as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to be directly involved in the editorial process of a very qualitative journal. Working together with like-minded, and highly motivated people to contribute to the discipline we love is a very meaningful experience, which also brings a lot of benefits when it comes to academic skills and personal intellectual development.
What’s your editing philosophy?
I think my principal focus is to make the text as accessible as possible, preferably without removing any of the depth or originality that the author brought to the table. Academic philosophical discourse tends to over-complicate itself, which consequently limits its reach and impact to the academic world alone. I do not think this needs to be the case. I believe that very difficult concepts and ideas can be communicated in text in a clear and accessible way. Helping the author to find this way should be the primary goal of the editing process.
How would you convince a friend to join the ESJP?
I would say that if you are looking for an opportunity to improve your skill of reading, interpreting, and improving on difficult philosophical texts, and if you want to learn how the editorial process works by directly seeing and experiencing the inner workings of a journal, then this is a chance you should not let slip by.
Arwen Vonck
What does working at ESJP mean to you?
Working at ESJP is a very valuable experience that allows me to engage with philosophical literature in an entirely new way. Not only is it very inspiring to be able to read the works of my fellow students, as an editor I also have the opportunity to help elevate their texts to an even higher level. It is a very rewarding experience to help an author publish a text they are truly proud of.
What’s your editing philosophy?
What is important to me when editing is to work together with the author in an interactive interplay, because editing is not a top-down process. Therefore, I believe that it is important to converse with the author and to help them formulate their ideas in a clear and engaging manner, so that their text can reach the audience it deserves.
How would you convince a friend to join ESJP?
Although editing texts can be challenging at times, it is a very valuable experience to become familiar with the process of editing in such a friendly environment. I also find that learning to look at a text through the eyes of an editor helps improve your own writing skills. All in all, working at ESJP is a very fun and fulfilling experience that I would recommend to all my fellow students who have an affinity with writing.
Caspar Smink
What does working at the ESJP mean for you?
For me it means being able to work together in a team of motivated students who all like to contribute to the project that is the Erasmus Student Journal of Philosophy. It also means that I am able to read wonderful and intellectually challenging work about a large variety of subjects from students with many different backgrounds and motivations. This whilst also improving my own reading, writing and editing skills.
What's your editing philosophy?
For me this comes down to respecting the text by opening myself up to the ideas and or arguments that are put forth by the author. I want to understand to the best of my abilities what someone is trying so say before thinking about any changes to the text or judgements about its ideas. There is always a reason for a text’s composition and so I want to think together with the author during the editing process and try and understand why the original text was written the way it was. Ownership of the text, of course, belongs to the author. I would like to help make it into the best version possible.
How would you convince a friend to join the ESJP?
I would recommend any friend that is interested in a broad range of philosophical subjects, is affectionate towards reading & writing and is curious about the editing process to join the ESJP. It is a way to learn, meet new people and work in an intellectual environment. Something I hope would encourage those that are like minded.
Jakob Hofmann
What does working at the ESJP mean for you?
Working at the ESJP means engaging with the current philosophical discourse and expanding my own philosophical thinking together with the authors and other motivated students. As such it is as much an academic challenge as it is a reward for my very own future endeavours in philosophy.
What’s your editing philosophy?
For me each round of editing is a continuous oscillation between reading and discussion amongst the editors and with the author until the text has reached its satisfactory expression. I believe it is in these interactions that the tension between accessibility and profundity of a paper is most accurately expressed. It is important that texts remain readable, lest we forget the world exists outside philosophy professors' classroom
How would you convince a friend to join the ESJP?
I would emphasize the benefits it has for her own understanding of philosophical texts and philosophy as a whole, while also offering a glimpse into the world of academic publishing. I could think of few better places for an upcoming philosopher to join the ongoing dialogue of her discipline.
Cassandra Kamberi
What does working at ESJP mean to you?
The more I learn about philosophy, the more intrigued I am to find out more. Therefore, being part of a group of passionate students sharing bright ideas gives me the opportunity to both learn and challenge my own beliefs and way of thinking.
What’s your editing philosophy?
I’ve realized that without written pieces of work, philosophy would not exist as we know it. Writing is a way of communicating complicated and deep ideas that can live on forever. What fascinates me even more is that a script can be transformed if one puts the time and effort to truly grasp the ideas behind it and get into the perspective of the reader. As still a young editor, I have a lot to learn about this discipline, however, from my perspective, two of the most important aspects of editing are to make the reader understand how arguments follow from each other and make them feel something – intrigued, challenged, inspired, and so on.
How would you convince a friend to join ESJP?
I believe ESJP is a great place for anyone curious about different philosophical topics, and writing. For me, these two areas happen to be two of my biggest passions and thus I believe combining them can help me learn so much and expand my horizons! In addition, I’m a big fan of “You become more of who you spend time with most”, and therefore, if one wants to learn more about philosophy, writing, and editing, what a better place to do this than surrounded by people who have been mastering these exact same skills?
Jasper Peters
What does working at ESJP mean for you?
Working at ESJP provides the unique opportunity to not only engage with fresh and exciting philosophical ideas, it also allows for our own contribution to these ideas. It means that I can broaden my own knowledge and skills in both philosophy and writing, inspired by my peers, and hopefully give some of my own inspiration in return.
What's your editing philosophy?
The editing process, to me, is one of complete engagement with the author and their text. In essence I think the goal is, in some way, to make an attempt to understand the text even better than the author themselves, if ever possible. Followingly the task of the editor can perhaps best be described as translator. The philosophy that I like to apply is then one where the editor, to their best capacity, translates the complex and interesting ideas of the author into a comprehensible and enjoyable story for the reader.
How would you convince a friend to join the ESJP?
For anyone interested in philosophy, editing, writing, or reading, the ESJP is the perfect starting ground to further indulge yourself. It is a space where you can build any of those interests up within an established academic context. If, in addition, you like to challenge both yourself and others, no further convincing should be necessary.
Menno Lenting
What does working at ESJP mean to you?
The main reason I’ve joined ESJP is to get acquainted with what it means to work within an academic environment. Besides that I think it’s important for philosophy students to really delve deep into texts and discuss them thoroughly with others and ESJP in my opinion is the perfect place to do so.
What’s your editing philosophy?
My editing philosophy is clear and simple, for me, a good philosophical text should articulate something new, for as Stanley Cavell put it: “There is no philosophy unless it is discovered.”
How would you convince a friend to join ESJP?
For anyone who likes to engage with complex texts, thoughts and wants to be inspired by them within a vibrant team of nice people, I would highly recommend them to join ESJP!
Kasper Essers
What does working at ESJP mean for you?
More often than not the inspiring work of students gets lost. ESJP provides the opportunity to show these interesting perspectives of students on various philosophical topics, through putting their academic efforts front and centre. By mediating the challenging process from editing to publishing ESJP allows me to get acquainted with the workings of an academic environment. Besides this it provides an opportunity to also improve my own writing and reading skills..
What's your editing philosophy?
you are trying to navigate ideas of a different author and coming to grips with ideas embedded in the text itself. Subsequently, the role of an editor is aimed at teasing out the problems which undergird a certain text in order for those ideas to flourish and be articulated clearly. Editing is therefore focused on both author and audience, and the interplay between these worlds. It is a position of both immersion and respect, with regards to the author, text and future audience.
How would you convince a friend to join the ESJP?
An interesting perspective which you gain by working at ESJP is learning how to see a work through the lens of different people. Learning to consider the viewpoint of someone else will, ultimately, greatly improve your own writing. Additionally, discussing complex texts and ideas with your passionate peers is one of the most beautiful and inspiring ways to be engaged with philosophy.
Ties van Daal
What does working at ESJP mean for you?
Working at ESJP means being part of a philosophical collective, a student-based project doing philosophy. It means being engaged with philosophy both qua content and qua style. Engaging with texts written by others sheds a light on your own writing style and the way a clear argument should be composed. Furthermore, being part of this collective means working with students that are passionate about philosophy as such, which is great.
What's your editing philosophy?
My editing philosophy is facilitating the interesting, remarkable, and important aspects of the text. I believe that every text is written based upon an intuition of these criteria. Therefore, by focusing on these criteria the why of the author becomes clear and should become clear in the text. This paves the way for a unique contribution of the author to the specific field of research.
How would you convince a friend to join the ESJP?
Since I do not think that I have ever convinced anyone to love philosophy as much as I do myself, I could only convince people who are already invested in this gigantic rabbit hole. To them I could only say: a collective of passionate students of philosophy, what else? Gezelligheid.
David Holroyd
What does working at ESJP mean for you?
My work as an editor is a great opportunity to engage with the best philosophical ideas of my fellow students here at Erasmus. Aside from developing my own editorial skills and breadth of philosophical knowledge, I get to work with a friendly group of fellow students interested in philosophy.
What's your editing philosophy?
Clarity. A writer’s responsibility is to know their audience and present their ideas and concepts in an accessible manner. My role as editor is to support our authors in finding the best way to present their work clearly. An argument is only worth making if it can be persuasive, and that first requires it to be understood.
How would you convince a friend to join the ESJP?
I’d tell them that the ESJP is a great opportunity to gain insight into the academic publishing process and meet other students here in Rotterdam interested in philosophy. With publications twice a year, the workload is very manageable too! Ultimately, however, they can’t form a fair judgement for themselves until they’ve actually signed up – so why not give it a try!