Ian Marcus Corbin

Ian Marcus Corbin  is a former visiting fellow with the Mercatus Center's Program on Pluralism and Civil Exchange. Corbin is a philosopher, research fellow in neurology at Brigham and Women's Hospital / Harvard Medical School, and a Senior Fellow at the think tank Capita. He has studied politics, religion and philosophy at Gordon College, Oxford University, Yale University and Boston College, with an eye to the ways that deep human values function in the formation and evolution of human communities. At HMS he studies intersubjectivity, cognition and human flourishing. He is writing a book on belonging and worldmaking for Yale University Press. He has taught at a number of colleges and universities in the Boston area and published widely in venues such as The Washington Post, The New York Times, Newsweek, and The Point and Plough. In a former life he founded and ran a contemporary art gallery in Boston's South End.

Fellowship focus:

• Solitude as one potential antidote to addressing loneliness, polarization, and a path towards authentic friendship
• The emergence of loneliness and the rise of illiberalism
• The value of friendship in divided times