New APPS: Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science

Crowd-funding Philosophy

Sometimes an idea just is in the air. Last week in the context of our blogging (originally by Dennis, then more recently yours truly, and Catarina) about the ABC conjecture our very own Dennis des Chene reminded me that the source of the most recent discussion, written by Caroline Chen, requests that "If you enjoy this story, we ask that you consider paying for it. Please see the payment section below." How many philosophers did? (I finally did in context of writing this story!) Now, Daan Oostveen, a journalist writing for a Dutch weekly, contacted me about my views on crowd-funding in philosophy. According to Wikipedia, crowd funding is a "collective effort of individuals who network and pool their money, usually via the Internet, to support efforts initiated by other people or organizations." I often write these blog posts in an espresso-bar/fashion-store that was funded in this fashion (the owners were even on Dutch TV about it).

Now, I certainly expect that (like blogging!) crowd-funding could be a viable financing model for some philosophers.  At NewAPPS we self-consciously decided not to accept advertisements, but if we had I expect we might have had some nice extra cash to fund our annual APA lunch. Crowd-funding is an especially viable funding source for non-academic (or marginal-academic) philosophers, who (a) use  performance-like or primarily digital methods. It might even help develop these fields--something I wish we could do at NewAPPS (but I have come to the conclusion we lack interest and talent in these areas). Also, for charismatic people (b) whose philosophical views and methods lean closely toward self-help/therapeutic/religious spheres/pratices crowd-funding may even be lucrative. (In Holland the glossy Filosofie Magazine has made philosophy a life-style for educated folk near retirement looking for alternatives to religion.)

University Technocrats to Scholars: Keep Books Out of your Office

The headline to this post was not written by folk at the Onion. The managers at the Free University of Amsterdam have decided that university staff have to share office-space efficiently.  This has had a surprising consequence for the theologians and philosophers (the first departments with new-look offices). As the Dutch newspaper, Trouw, reported: "bookcases are now 'something for home'; department employees have up to 3.8 meters of books per person now. In addition, there should be a common department bookcase." If you go to the official university web-page of Dutch philosopher of science, Hans Radder, one can find under "Office hours:" "We don´t have offices anymore. For an appointment, please send an email."

For folk that can read Dutch the economic sub-text of the piece in Trouw is instructive; the chair of the philosophy department, Rene van Woudenberg is, quoted as follows: "We had the choice between expensive rental spaces where people can store a lot of stuff and own books; or we could choose to spend our budget on  staff with more limited office space. We have chosen the latter. Not in an expensive new office-office, but with a renovation in the old university building, which saves a lot, because every square meter has a price." Oddly, the piece does not mention that the Free University has been notorious for its financial blunders with derivatives (see here and even here) and a considerable loss due to Icelandic investments (initially belittled by the university).

Bob Meister's proposed Coursera MOOC

Bob Meister, President of the Council of University of California Faculty Associations, and author of the classic "They Pledged Your Tuition to Wall Street" (please read this if you haven't already; here's a one page summary if you want to start there), has an utterly brilliant proposal to Coursera for a MOOC on Coursera's business model. This is one of the very best things I've ever read on MOOCs (here is our category on them). Here is the punch line -- MOOCs only make sense when public HE has already been privatized by turning to tuition rather than tax funds -- but please do read the whole thing. 

I want to keep public higher education public in a sense [in which] for-profit content disseminated on the internet is not. A large part of Coursera's appeal lies in your own nearly-socialist vision of an informational Common to which access should no longer be restricted based on the scarcity of places at existing universities and colleges. I personally wish that this part of your vision were coming from the leaders of UC. Instead they are trying to sell students on paying higher tuition because of the demonstrated role of elite universities in generating income inequality while also persuading the legislature to increase “access” so we can generate even more revenue from the tuition we charge.

Here I agree with your and Coursera’s business logic’s implicit criticism of public higher education. Public education has all but lost sight of its egalitarian mission while raising its prices at three times the rate of inflation.

I disagree, however, with Coursera’s implicit claim that privately-financed MOOCs can fulfill the promise once made, and now abandoned, by public systems to be an engine for reducing social and economic hierarchy.

If you want the Biblical version: we have sold our birthright for a mess of pottage.

Lost in translation--on publishing philosophy in a non-native language

One more cautionary observation before we begin. The volume is published by Bloomsbury, which has taken over Continuum, the house which apparently had contracted the anthology. A number of the pieces unfortunately contain stylistic and grammatical inadequacies in expression. For some essays this is just distracting, but for others it is extremely frustrating. Clearly the publisher's copy-editing was highly inadequate. We can only hope that this will not become a trend with Bloomsbury. More significantly though, we cannot help but wonder whether it really is such a good thing for English to become the de facto lingua franca of European philosophy. This is perhaps unavoidable today -- not long ago, something called the 'European Science Foundation' produced a ranking of philosophy journals, and publication in languages other than English was initially used to relegate journals to the 'B' or 'C' category. Now, if Anglophone philosophy puts a premium on 'clarity,' as defined by composition models taught in Anglophone universities and less elsewhere, then the obligation to write in English seems to unavoidably place international colleagues in a bad light. In this reviewer's experience, the profession suffers from a pressing need to address this issue.--Hakhamanesh Zangeneh

There are (at least) three issues here:

(i) Especially given the high prices charged for their product, academic presses and journals have a professional obligation to maintain the highest standards of copy-editing. Cost-cutting measures do not inspire confidence. I have no ideological objections against outsourcing, but the recent (apparent) trend toward concentrating copy-editing philosophical texts in Bangladesh and India is not improving the situation. (I am probably not alone in having to correct the copy-editors; as my fellow NewAPPSers can testify, I tend to be the one needing correction!)

Can academics organize around attacks on academia?

Various sorts of attacks on academia have been a theme at Newapps since the beginning: Increasing corporatization of the university, growth of administration, take-over of administration by non-academics, funding cuts, increasing student debt, uses of MOOCS that are contrary to goals of education, increasing use and abuse of adjuncts, hyper-emphasis on "evaluation", anti-intellectualism, federal attacks on academic freedom and research independence, legal attacks on faculty and graduate student organizing, and here's a new one - "outsourcing" grading to Bangalore (coming in a pilot project from a director of business law and ethics studies, as probably was just inevitable.) 

Anyway, I've been saying for some time that I'd start a thread in which we might think collectively about what can be done. Should we work within existing organizations like AAUP and APA, or give them up as hopeless?  Should we take an activist/organizing approach or focus on legislation and lobbying?  Should unionization be a focus - whether legally or not?  Creative new ideas would be most welcome.

An Open Letter to Professor Michael Sandel from the Philosophy Dept at San Jose State

The eloquent and well argued letter is here. I do not think they are being alarmist in their diagnosis of the ultimate function of this and other attacks on the traditional university.  (Let's keep discussion here to the open letter and the function of MOOCs specifically.  I'm going to start another thread today for discussion of things that we might organize publicly to resist these trends.)

Plagiarism in business ethics (at University of Virginia)

The University of Virginia has a famous honor code. So I was surprised to learn through one of my favorite blogs, Retractionwatch, that one of UVA’s advanced graduate students  in business ethics (in the business school) had to retract a paper from the Journal of Business Ethics (a Springer journal). Retractionwatch quoted the Director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, Andy Wicks, as follows: “we opted to take no additional action beyond extensive internal conversations…it is an isolated incident that was a mistake rather than a calculated effort to plagiarize.” Yet, according to the retraction notice 16% of the paper was plagiarized; this is not a case of a few missing quotation marks. I contacted Professor Wicks, and he wrote me that, “a thorough review of the case was conducted according to school policy. The review process included a panel committee and a forensic review of the student’s work. We cannot discuss individual student matters due to confidentiality and privacy policies.” Fair enough, privacy is important. (I also contacted the graduate student, but received no answer.) In effect, outsiders are being asked to trust the school's judgment.

I was also surprised that in addition to the retraction, the journal did not take further steps against the UVA graduate student. For, in January, Retractionwatch, reported on a case of self-plagiarism that led to a five year ban from Journal of Business Ethics. This involved a case of a scholar re-publishing his own previously published work without acknowledging this. I am no ethicist, but plagiarizing another would seem a far worse offense than plagiarizing oneself--this is why, I think, Retractionwatch tends to use the term "duplication" to refer to the lesser offense. Turns out, alas, that the self-plagiarist teaches at a school in Thailand, while one of the supervisors of the UVA graduate student, is on the editorial board of the journal. As they say in the business world, it can’t hurt to have friends in the right places. (The editor of the Journal of Business Ethics also did not respond to my email.) 

Lund Philosophy and Cog Sci department is worried about its future--you can help

[The following letter has been circulating on the web.--ES]

Dear Colleagues,

We urgently need your help. The Department of Philosophy in Lund, which is located in Kungshuset - a beautiful  16th century house in the centre of the town which originally was home to the University as a whole - is now  on its way to being relocated. In the Spring of 2014, we are supposed to move to a new building, together with other departments in the Joint Faculty of Humanities and Theology.  Judging by past experience, the next step after the relocation might well be an administrative merger of the different departments into a huge megadepartment. Such mergers have taken place at other universities and at our university as well.

Peter Singer, class warfare-ist

Obesity is an ethical issue, because an increase in weight by some imposes costs on others... [a] way to achieve the same objective would be to set a standard weight for passengers and luggage, and then ask people to get on the scales with their luggage. That would have the advantage of avoiding embarrassment for those who do not wish to reveal their weight...the point of a surcharge for extra weight is not to punish a sin, whether it is levied on baggage or on bodies. It is a way of recouping from you the true cost of flying you to your destination, rather than imposing it on your fellow passengers.--Peter Singer [HT Feminist Philosophers.]

I'll leave it to others to dissect the use of racialized/gender stereotypes [e.g., "a slight Asian woman" vs "a man who must weigh at least 40 kilos more than she does"] by Singer in the piece.  Let's also grant Singer that air travel is not a "human right" (and stipulate that Singer could grant some exceptions). In effect, Singer advocates differential pricing. This is not uncommon: in higher education Stateside we are familiar with tuition discounts ("financial aid") based on, say, need.

Singer ignores need or ability to pay entirely in his analysis. It is unclear why that ought not be included in this "ethical issue."  Evidently, "true cost" does not mean subjective utility. Need is not irrelevant to Singer's proposal because Singer talks about "true cost of flying" without calling attention to all the subsidies offered to airlines, airports, and aircraft manufacturers by the general public (Singer uses the vocabulary of "public transport" without irony by the way); these may well involve non-trivial financial transfers from the poor to the middle classes and rich. Given that Singer selectively focuses on body weight (and shapes) when talking about "true cost" of flying, one cannot help but feel that he is selectively using (Euro/US-centric) upper-class moral sentiments to advocate policies that will disproportionally impact others.

Pity the star academic

I bet the academic anthropology job-market is no better than the one in academic philosophy. So, what can one conclude about the politics of that field in light of the fact that after a stint at Yale, a scholar applies to "the City University of New York Graduate Center, the New School, Cornell University, and the University of Chicago (all of these twice)...Hunter College, Emory, Duke, Columbia, Stanford, and Johns Hopkins—as well as the University of Toronto," and then fails to land a job?

One can conclude that it is not easy to land a job in academic anthropology, especially if you apply (ahum) rather narrowly (not to say, snobbishly)...but such a sober assessment would undermine, of course, the mythic narrative of "exile" attached to being..."From 2008 through this spring, Mr. Graeber was a lecturer and then a reader at Goldsmiths College and, just last month, he accepted a professorship at the London School of Economics and Political Science."

Ah, yes, London...that academic wasteland...must be very tough being David Graeber.

Discussion of Adjunct salaries

A political science blog discusses the low salaries of adjuncting here. [HT Josh Wood.]

Time 'wasted' with peer-reviewing

Helen has a very interesting post up on the problematic culture of grant-funded research. (Full disclosure: I have been on research grants pretty much for my entire career, and I see many advantages in this system.) She emphasized the fact that grant-writing is a very time-consuming endeavor, and that many researchers spend so much time securing research money for their group that they virtually stop doing research of their own. In this short post, I want to outline yet another way in which this culture entails waste of precious research time: the time it takes panel members and referees to evaluate the huge number of proposals that get written.

This year, I was a member of the panel for one of the grant schemes of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO). I can report that carefully reading the big pile of research proposals has taken something like 50 to 60 hours, not including the actual meetings to discuss the proposals and to interview the candidates. All in all, it must have amounted to 2 full weeks of work, during which time I could have written a new paper or worked on my own research more generally. In fact, I have the feeling that the first 3 months of this year were entirely spent on evaluating other people’s work rather than doing my own: besides the work for NWO, I also wrote multiple reports on (other) research proposals and applications, and countless referee reports on papers submitted to journals -- not to mention my work as an editor for the Review of Symbolic Logic (as every journal editor knows, it is very hard to find referees for papers these days, as everyone is already so overburdened). These three months were exceptionally (or so I hope!) busy in this respect, and I’m sure there are many others who do just as much or even more work of this kind. Still, this just seems wrong.

Is it, perhaps, time to wake up and start raising hell before academia ceases to exist?

From yesterday's Chronicle

Is PEA Soup going to create an ethics monopoly?

The friendly folks at PEA Soup announced the following:

As die-hard PEA Soupers already know, for a while now we have enjoyed a partnership with Ethics in which, relatively soon after each issue of that journal is published, we have a discussion of a paper from that issue kicked off by a commissioned précis of that paper, often a commitment from the author to respond to questions, and several commentators lined up to help launch the discussion. Each paper that gets commented on at PEA Soup is made publically available to all without a subscription.

We are pleased to announce that we have now started up a somewhat similar partnership with Philosophy and Public Affairs, Philosophers’ Imprint, Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, and JESP. We are expecting a few more such partnerships to be firmed up shortly. The result will be that there should soon be significantly more critical discussions of first-rate work in ethics, political philosophy, and related matters on PEA Soup. There will be much less “down time” between discussions.

First, it's great that PEA Soup is looking at ways at staying 'live' more frequently. I always enjoy the discussions. So, congratulations are in order! Second, I bet that later generations will wonder, 'what took philosophers so long to develop such partnerships?' Such partnerships are a clever and obvious move in order to develop a forum for (relatively) high quality and highly visible philosophical discussions. 

Even so, I have concerns: I worry about mechanisms in which a relatively narrow group of gate-keepers (however qualified, open-minded, and well-intentioned) will decide for us what is worth our collective attention (a very scarce resource). Given that PEA SOUP Partners (PSPs) are a fantastic group of journals with very high quality 'content,' crowding out of others is quite possible. This is not an idle thought because the post speaks of (a) a 'few more such partnerships' and (b) the web facilitates winner-take-all mechanisms, after all. (Something we have benefited from at NewAPPS!) Anyway, kudos to PEA Soup for being so pro-active. But I do hope some enterprising web-blogs partner with the philosophical alternatives to PSP.

A brief question for MOOC fans

Why do you think MOOCs will lower tuition?

They might lower production costs inside the university,* but previous means of doing that (increasing ratio of adjuncts vs TT faculty) haven’t resulted in reduced tuition (far from it). Instead the increased “profit” from cost savings has been kept in-house. Why should we expect the alleged savings from MOOCs to be treated any differently?

a small example of virtuous community

We certainly devote enough time at this blog to criticizing universities and aspects of university culture.  So just for a change of pace, here's a local feel-good story.  

Georgetown, like most universities, has some budgetary worries.  We've been through an economic crash, are in the midst of governmental cutbacks, etc. In response to moderate short-term deficits, the administration developed a 5 year plan that called for various savings. Among these were limits on salary: specifically no cuts to the faculty raise pool, but an elimination of all raises for staff this year. This was presented to us as a done deal. When announced in the college Exco - a committee of reps from each program and department that advise the dean - I suggested that this sucked, more specifically that placing the burden of lower salary on those already lowest paid in our community did not represent the values we purported to live by as an institution. Not one person in the group of about 30 disagreed.  After some crafting of word choice, a motion was passed unanimously expressing the sense of the exco that this was not the way GU should deal with budget cuts. Shortly after this, someone introduced the same motion at the faculty senate. I'm not sure if it was unanimous, but it passed with an overwhelming majority there as well.

And the administration listened. Staff increases are reinstated. In the new proposal announced today, there will be no raises for senior administration, and faculty will have raises delayed for 6 months. This will generate the same savings, but with a very different distribution according to need. 

I relay this not (just) to brag on the GU community, but to remind people that even in these uber-corporatist times, and even in the context of  the increasingly corporate university, people sometimes manage to think in collective, communitarian, social, or just moral terms. We manage to make collective decisions on the basis of fairness and concern for each other, rather than our own narrow economic interest. In a time in which one dimension of the uber-corporatism is a constant drum-beat of propaganda suggesting that economic self-interest is inevitable, it is important to keep reminding oneself of examples to the contrary.  

Imagine what might be possible if we organized our work differently.

Cedarville cuts philosophy and physics major

Following earlier reports (here and here), The Trustees of Cedarville University voted to end the philosophy  and physics majors; a philosophy minor will remain.

Expert for sale (episode # 3392)

Mark Lance rightly complains about the fact that corporate interests and sponsors are getting a free pass in the Lance Armstrong doping scandal. But they are not the only ones. For example, as one of my favorite blogs, Retraction Watch, reports in 2005 Edward C. Coyle published a paper about Lance Armstrong in which he "hypothesized that the improved muscular efficiency probably reflects changes in muscle myosin type stimulated from years of training intensely for 3–6 h on most days." As the NYT reported half a decade ago) that paper was regularly used "by Armstrong and his lawyers to fend off allegations that his cycling success came in part through doping." Turn out, Coyle was a paid consultant to Armstrong in a series of lawsuits (even Armstrong's team insurer suspected doping). The NYT quoted also Coyle in 2008 as follows, “People are drawing their opinions essentially on whether or not they believe Lance cheated or not,” he said. “I don’t know what the truth is about that, but I don’t really care.”

Coyle still features the paper on his website alongside his grants and honors. This despite the fact that it has been shown to be deeply flawed. It is reassuring to know that this gun-for-hire is a consultant to the IOC.

France vs Elsevier (open access publishing)

Nature reports that one of the French state grant agencies is funding mathematicians to go open access on arXiv. Presumably this is an experiment before they try other (more lucrative) sciences. Maybe they want to fund a trial run in (the) philosophy (of sciences), too? [HT Teresa Blankmeyer Burke]

The impact of Philosophy at Cedarville

We have already linked to the petition to save the Cedarville philosophy department (see also Leiter). Anyway, the group trying to save the department has been running very touching testimonials from former (and current) students  about the impact philosophy has had on their development in (what is clearly) their very Christian environment. It makes for very moving reading.

I would not be surprised to learn that I share few philosophical commitments with Profs. Mills and Graves, but I am very proud that they are fellow philosophers.

JB Say, the Economist that Couldn't be Bought

On my way through Paris, both going and returning, I passed some time in the house of M. Say, the eminent political economist, who was a friend and correspondent of my father, having become acquainted with him on a visit to England a year or two after the Peace. He was a man of the later period of the French Revolution, a fine specimen of the best kind of French Republican, one of those who had never bent the knee to Bonaparte though courted by him to do so; a truly upright, brave, and enlightened man. He lived a quiet and studious life, made happy by warm affections, public and private.--J.S. Mill Autopbiography

While reading Evert Schoorl's enlightening intellectual biography, Jean-Baptiste Say: Revolutionary, entrepreneur, economist (Routledge 2013), I learned what Mill is alluding to in the passage above. I quote Say (in a translation originally by, I believe, Evelyn Forget):

During my period as Tribun, not wanting to deliver orations in favour of the usurper, and not having the permission to speak against him, I drafted and published my Traite d'Economie Politique. Bonaparte commanded me to attend him and offered me 40 thousand francs a year to write in favour of his opinion; I refused, and was caught up in the purge of 1804. (quoted in Schoorl 2013: 36)

Schoorl comments: "He also refused the tax collectorship, at a salary of 30,000 francs." (Schoorl 2013: 36)

Will the web transform philosophical praxis? If so, how?

Let's stipulate an expansive notion of 'technology' such that (a) linguistic, mathematical, and logical developments also count as 'technology' and, thus, (b) a lot of philosophical breakthroughs are  preceded by technological ruptures. (Sometimes they redefine philosophy so much that we do not recognize the successor disciplines as "philosophy.") If so, is the web transforming or about to transform philosophical praxis? I use "praxis" to distinguish this question from the one about to what degree professional philosophy is being transformed by the web.

Let me first say what I do not mean with this question. The web *is* transforming philosophical scholarship by facilitating amazing storage & information retrieval (etc.) capacities. I used to spend huge amount of time in libraries (to look at old books and and to scan journals)--now I am genuinely surprised when I enter a library. There are regular on-line/skype seminars on papers, books, topics, etc. The web brings together distributed audiences previously unknown to each other. Blogs have created dedicated intellectual communities, and spawned philosophical movements and catapulted some echo-chambers to professional prominence. (We are probably living in a new golden age of philosophical correspondence--I bet Leibniz would have adored email.) Citation practices are being influenced by blog communities, phil papers, and google.scholar., etc. All of this is swell, but it does not challenge what we mean by "philosophy." (So here I am also ignoring all the exciting ways the web changes how we teach philosophy, and maybe I shouldn't.)

Intimidation of public universities (Turkey & Flanders) and the Rectors that play along

Disturbing stories are ongoing in Turkey and in Flanders: university administrators are eager to accede to demands of the government  (Turkey) or powerful politicians (Flanders) to silence and intimidate student and faculty protests against government policies/proposals.  The more serious one is developing in Turkey, where a student protest turned violent. The linked report claims that ODTU/METU (confusingly, there are two acronyms for same university) students threw Molotov cocktails. However, my Turkish sources claim there is no evidence of that, and have linked to this (Turkish) video, which suggests unprovoked police attacks, although I cannot guarantee, of course, there was no editing. (Maybe some of the police were trained in California?) I should say that the Rector of ODTÜ/METU, one of the most prestigious universities in Turkey, is showing backbone and is meeting with the government today. There is petition to show support here.

In Flanders, the philosopher, Lieven De Cauter, wrote an ill-tempered, satirical (somewhat funny) attack  (it's in Dutch, but enough is in English to understand how silly it all is) on the leading Flemish nationalist politician, Bart De Wever, who has a tendency to name-drop once famous philosophers (e.g., Adorono) in his editorials (this one preparing the way for future cuts in art-subsidies).  Yeah, Europe really is different. De Wever responded in brief to De Cauter. (The email exchange is linked in Dutch.) But what De Wever didn't tell De Cauter is that he also wrote Mark Waer, the Rector of the Catholic University in Leuven (one of De Cauter's employers), who has a poor record defending academics under attack, to complain about De Cauter. Waer responded, meekly, criticizing (I am freely translating) De Cauter's lack of civility. But the sentence that caught my attention was Waer's insistence that "there is also such a thing as academic restraint,"["Maar er is ook zoiets als academische terughoudendheid,"] clearly suggesting De Cauter failed in this duty.

What makes these stories interesting is that (a) the political establishments of both Turkey and Flanders are eager to invest in higher education as a means toward prosperous futures; (b) in both places important democratically elected politicians lack warmth toward an open, critical society (and a university professoriat that they see aligned with a discarded establishment); (c) in both places important parts of the higher education establishment much prefer being at the technocratic core of industry-government investment rather than presiding the kind of creative fertility and tension that is the breeding ground for creative industries (and what passes for independent thought) .

One (unethical) way to get a timely and friendly email referee report

Is to hack the editorial system, or to have unknown benefactors with a weird sense of humor (the story is here).

"Not you alone, but with the state and so on"

This is how Gary Becker concludes his impromptu remarks at a May 2012 University of Chicago seminar (set up by Bernard Harcourt [1] with François Ewald [2]) on Foucault's reading in Birth of Biopolitics[3] of Becker's human capital theory[4].  

Or if I look at the United States, how can I understand what young African-American men are doing? To me, this theory—and I’m not saying I fully understand what they’re doing—but the theory says, well, they have a lot of different options available.

What we’re pointing out to them is, if you drop out of high school in the United States, you’re pretty much destined to be unemployed, to have low earnings, to be in poor health, to have low marriage rates, and the like. That’s what the theory points out to them. And what it then points out to them is that you can overcome that in various ways. Not you alone, but with the state and so on.

 Discussion and notes below the fold.

Which one is the satire?

Cooper Union's new website: "Shake hands to new horizons, expansion and development! Syngerization of global leaders for the advancement of multidimensional growth prospects."

University of California's new brand attributes: "Visionary. Experimental. Optimistic. Awe-Inspiring. Essential. Audacious. Pioneering. Proven. Everything we say and do should embody these traits."

"Are you gay?"

I was asked the question in the title of this post during the closing moments of an Eastern APA job interview. I  believe I stammered "that's illegal," but maybe I only thought of that response in the bar later. In reality the conversation continued with the Chair of the department  after the interview and that was even less edifying. (I have shared more unprofessional interview moments here.) This by way of calling attention to our friends at Feminist Philosophy, who are having an important discussion about what to do in situations like the one I encountered. Those with wise council (I don't have any, alas) or in need of it should join in there.

A colleague in the discipline had warned me against the department with whom the 'are-you-gay-incident' occurred. (I was, in fact, trying to replace that person, but did not receive an 'on-campus-interview.') Given the deplorable situation on the professional philosophy junior/tenure-track job-market, we often forget that interviews are two-way encounters. Departments should be mindful that they are also 'selling' themselves not just to people desperate for a decent paying job in philosophy, but also to future professional colleagues in the discipline. I sometimes wonder if I will ever bump into the  self-described "philosopher of economics" who asked me the question about my sexual orientation/sense of self. I imagine the conversation starts with, "Actually, we have met before. You may not recall..."

You have to be narcissistic and regularly tap into your inner anger to succeed at blogging. Given that professional philosophy has treated me extremely generously during most of my career, my blogging floats along happily on my narcissism. But sometimes what animates my blogging are the memories of the many unprofessional experiences undergone and witnessed....

Will There Always Be Tenure?

Over on Leiter Reports, Amy Ferrer, newly appointed as executive director of the American Philosophical Association, has been writing a series of guest posts on the latest prospect for tenure track positions in North America. “According to much of public opinion, and unfortunately according to some in power in universities and our nation’s legislatures, tenured professors are paid too much to work too little, and can’t be removed from duty even if they’re doing a terrible job,” she writes. Currently, ¾ of teaching staff in post-secondary institutions are employed “off the tenure-track” and “The median pay per course, standardized to a three-credit course, was $2,700 in fall 2010 and ranged in the aggregate from a low of $2,235 at two-year colleges to a high of $3,400 at four-year doctoral or research universities,” according to a report from the Coalition of Academic Workers.

These are shocking trends, and it is perhaps natural to blame the poor economic climate and cling to the hope that things will turn around soonish. Of course, there is the right wing resurgence and that doesn’t bode too well. And as we saw, Ms. Ferrer puts some of the blame on public opinion. But surely things can't stay as bad as they have been for the last three years.

Hmm, yes . . . but this neglects one rather obvious fact.

Changing our frame of reference from "job market" to "political economy of philosophy instruction"

Th Dec 6, 5 pm CST: I'm moving this post back up as it's received some important comments from Ed Kazarian, in response to a comment I made at Leiter Reports to a post by Amy Ferrer, the Executive Director of the APA. By the way, all of Ferrer's posts at LR deserve reading. 

----

The past month (September 2011) we've had a series of interesting and informative posts on preparing graduate students to enter what is commonly called "the job market." The presupposition here is that the job market in philosophy begins post-PhD. 

I don't want to criticize the content of the posts; as far as I can tell, the advice has been excellent. But I do want to suggest that we change our frame of reference on these matters, and specify that we have been discussing only a small segment of the complete system of employment for philosophy instruction in institutions of higher education. So I'd like to suggest we call the analysis of the complete system "the political economy of philosophy instruction." 

MOOCs: the newest online dating service

Employers willing to pay can now find their soulmates with Coursera's new escort, er, on-line dating, no, headhunter service to find students who like poetry, museum-going, and long walks on the beach. Or soft skills in addition to their raw performance. (Okay, now it's starting to sound like Craigslist.)

Providers of free online courses are officially in the headhunting business, bringing in revenue by selling to employers information about high-performing students who might be a good fit for open jobs.... Both Coursera and Udacity show employers more than just student grades. They also highlight students who frequently help others in discussion forums. Mr. Thrun, of Udacity, said those "softer skills" are often more useful to employers than raw academic performance. 

To be serious for a moment, this is an excellent example of the Autonomia themes of "real subsumption" and the "social factory" (somewhat technical discussion here), that is, the incorporation of everyday social skills into capitalist production.