Elijah Leutwyler
Fall 2024 John Jay Fellow
Hometown: Salem, OR
College: University of Oregon
Degree: B.S. in Philosophy; B.A. in English
Elijah Leutwyler graduated from the University of Oregon in 2023, focusing on philosophy and English. He wrote his senior thesis as a joint project between the Philosophy and English Departments–analyzing the history and philosophy of friendship in the West, amending it with an archival study of more than 150 19th-century slave narratives.
His undergraduate career has been marked by particularly disparate pedagogical structures: beginning at Corban University, a small Christian college in his hometown, and moving to Chemeketa Community College before settling on his state’s public research institution. After experiencing a little of what a faith-based approach to higher education can offer, his time at community college introduced him to a broad range of subjects and novel interests, equipping students with the general knowledge to tackle life’s challenges. He further specialized his studies at the University of Oregon, where he became a member of the editorial team for Ex Animo, the school’s undergraduate philosophy journal, and conducted research with the Department of Comparative Literature as a Nomad Scholar.
Elijah maintains a presence in the academic community by presenting philosophical work at conferences across the nation and has a demonstrated interest in fostering an environment in the humanities that invites input from the various other disciplines within a college system. In 2021, his presentation at the Leadership Alliance National Symposium was a continuation of research as a Mellon Fellow, then given to an audience of humanities students, social scientists, and people invested in STEM. Subsequently, presentations at his home institution and at Harvard’s National Collegiate Research Conference both included multiple audiences that could ask innovative questions of each others’ research. More recently, he conducted in-depth and comparative analyses of Emily Wilson’s translation of Iliad as a Humanities Fellow with the Hertog Foundation.
With a true passion for humanities education, Elijah is eager to make a meaningful contribution to many of those existential questions about human connection and authentic human love, doing so in a way that challenges past assumptions and serves as a model for future scholars to follow. After his time at the John Jay Institute, he plans to pursue doctoral studies in these areas.