The Philosophers' Cocoon

The Nigerian Philosopher in a Fund-Starved Academic System

This is the second installment of The Cocoon Goes Global, a look at what it's like to be a philosopher in countries outside the anglophone west. This is a guest post by Ada Agada, faculty member at The Conversational School of Philosophy, University of Calabar, Nigeria (read more about the general state of African philosophy in his Aeon piece, here).

A year in the academic life of the typical Nigerian philosopher is a long one defined by frustration, mediocrity (either self-imposed or externally imposed) and drama. The drama aspect revolves around violent student activism leading to university closures, Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) industrial actions, blood-letting on university campuses by students who are members of violent cults, the intrigue surrounding the selection of new vice chancellors, the latest corruption scandals, political interference in university administration, or accusations of sexual harassment directed at prominent professors. There is drama all right, and plenty frustration.

In Nigeria the apex labour union that protects university teachers’ interests, ASUU, is best known for calling industrial actions that last from a few weeks to an entire academic session. An academic session consists of two semesters of about four months each. But the regularity of industrial actions in the system means that public universities have no fixed academic calendar and students are often on enforced holidays. It is not unusual for a student pursuing a four-year philosophy degree to end up staying in the university for six years. The rationale for the frequent and destabilising ASUU strikes is the avowed commitment to the fight to prevent the Nigerian university system from collapse. The usual ASUU focus is university funding.

The private universities fare much better in terms of calendar stability. Unionism is discouraged in the private universities. They are all relatively young universities and mostly lack the profile of the public universities. Just two or three private universities, notably Covenant University, can compete favourably with the established public universities.

Committed Nigerian philosophers immersed in the academia in Nigeria are buffeted from all sides by forces they are mostly unable to control. The gravest challenge the Nigerian philosopher faces is poor research funding, which in turn means meaningful research activities cannot be fruitfully pursued. Most Nigerian philosophy departments have departmental libraries to augment central libraries that exist virtually in name only as some of these central libraries have not been restocked in decades. You walk into the libraries and you see mostly centuries- and decades-old volumes on Western philosophy. Unfortunately, the fate that befell the central libraries is also the portion of the various departmental libraries. Philosophers have no choice but to depend wholly on their self-funded libraries. And it is never easy for the Nigerian philosopher to go about building library capacity in view of the poor remuneration package of Nigerian academics relative to their counterparts elsewhere. Conference attendance grants, postdoctoral fellowship grants, and other research-related funding are either non-existent or come sporadically.

Obviously, actors in the Nigerian academic system are aware of the importance of research and excellent research funding for the optimal performance of the system. The strange problem here is how well-intentioned interventions are frustrated internally and externally, such that the funding matter becomes intractable. The Nigerian government set up the Tertiary Education Trust Fund (TETFund) in 2011 by an act of the Nigerian parliament to address the research quagmire in Nigerian higher institutions, with special focus on the university system. While substantial funds have accumulated in the coffers of TETFund, academics, including philosophers, have bitterly complained about the difficulty in accessing the funds. Bureaucratic bottlenecks in the application process, the perennial menace of corrupt practices, intellectual indolence, and sundry other factors have been blamed for the poor performance of TETFund. Surprising as it may sound, the TETFund administrators have had cause to complain about the poor research proposals submitted by some academics, leading to rejection. Certain unscrupulous scholars awarded TETFund scholarship to study in the West and Asia have been known to have scandalously diverted study funds into private bank accounts and stayed put in the country. Many philosophers have found the application process for publication funding too long and cumbersome.

Even with the TETFund intervention, the Nigerian philosopher’s access to much needed funds remains grossly restricted. Nigerian philosophers compare their unenviable situation with the much more comfortable situation of their counterparts in the West, parts of Asia, and even South Africa (which has the most developed university education system in Africa). To improve themselves and be more competitive in the current global village, Nigerian philosophers are forced to look to the West, mostly, for research funding. They apply for one foreign fellowship or the other. If they are lucky and successful they are able to work for a while in the West and see how things are done differently. Indeed, migration is top on the priority list of Nigerian philosophers as such an event alone promises them escape from the frustrating research situation at home. The migration bug has, unfortunately, created a grave problem which I think has not received the serious attention it deserves. Here I speak of the phenomenon of brain drain. Top Nigerian philosophers are finding ‘safe’ havens in European and American universities where they generally excel.

In recent times, however, some of these philosophers are no longer at ease with the ‘Trumpification’ of Western politics and the upsurge of populist sentiments. Consequently, some committed Nigerian philosophers conclude that the devil one knows is better than the angel one does not know. They stay put in Nigeria fighting a losing war to save a collapsing academic system, doing their best to impart knowledge to their students and hoping against hope while sliding into the mediocrity that has become second nature to Nigerian universities. Thus even the committed philosopher steadily becomes immersed in the everyday averageness Martin Heidegger talks about in the context of the inauthentic life.

Achieving a Good Work-Life Balance

This is a guest post by Jason Brennan, Georgetown University. 

I have a dirty secret: I generally work under 40 hours a week. Despite that, I made full professor at age 38, publish a bunch, and receive great merit evaluations every year. I also am actively involved with my kids, play in two gigging rock bands, cook dinner, do the laundry, take multiple vacations every year, and have, if anything, far more of a social life than I’d like to. How?

Whether you have a good work-life balance is largely up to you. It’s a choice. Here are some principles to help think this through.

1. An academic job will take as much time as you give it.

I’ve had lots of jobs: implant operator, baker, dishwasher, GEICO insurance adjustor, computer chassis builder, and so on. They all had one thing in common, besides being boring: when I clocked out, I was done.

Academia isn’t like that. There is always more you could be doing. Shouldn’t you be writing, reading, and prepping?

2. Your job is a job.

The answer is no. Your job is a job. You are getting paid to do certain things. I respect people who go above and beyond—I mean, it’s not like I publish the bare minimum. But there’s no reason to make yourself a martyr to philosophy. 

You aren’t saving souls or saving world. Frankly, you probably aren’t going to finally solve the big problems your papers address. Your impact on your students is probably much lower than you think. (Read the empirical literature on how much students learn, how much they forget, and how little they transfer their learning outside of class.) Much of your service work is bullshit and useless. 

I say: Do your job. Do it well. But remember it’s just a job.

If your employer is paying you to work 2000 hours a year, you have every right to work only 2000 hours a year.

Your employer values what it rewards. If your school says it values service, but then allocates raises and promotions on the basis of publishing, not service, then it doesn't value service. Don’t feel like you must do what you aren’t getting paid to do or what you’re really getting punished for doing.

A writing sample dilemma

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, VAP writes:

I claim two AOS, A and B. I plan on applying to jobs in AOS A, but all of my current work on A is co-authored. (Just one other co-author, and it's fully jointly authored.) My ordinary writing sample is in in AOS B, but it's single-authored.

For those jobs that are looking for AOS A, should I (1) send my regular writing sample from AOS B, which is single-authored but on a different AOS; (2) send my co-authored paper on AOS A; (3) do some combination, or (4) something else entirely?

Good question. I've heard over and over again that it is a really bad idea to submit co-authored pieces as writing samples. This may be entirely unfair (co-authorship is standard in many academic fields, and increasing in philosophy), but the general thought is that search committees want to know your philosophical 'chops' and co-authored pieces make it unclear what exactly you have done and what is the work of your co-authors. So, I am inclined to think option (1) is probably the way to go, at least for jobs that only permit one writing sample. The ideal case, I think, is to submit both pieces, but in my experience very few jobs request multiple writing samples or even permit them in the file-upload process.

What do you all think?

The Cocoon goes global: Being a philosopher in Indonesia (guest post by Tiddy Smith)

Updated: comments now open!

We are excited to start a new series on the Cocoon entitled The Cocoon Goes Global, where we will host guest posts by philosophers who work in countries that are outside of the anglophone western world. We will feature philosophers who work in places such as Germany, China, Singapore, South Korea, Colombia, Chile, Belgium, Turkey, and much more. These posts will give you a sense of what's it like to work in these countries, and also sketch the job market. We will focus on people who work in academic posts (but they don't need to be tenure track positions). If you fit these criteria and would like to be featured, please let us know! Here is our first installment. 

Being an academic philosopher in Indonesia, by Tiddy Smith, University of Indonesia. 

In 2017, I completed my PhD at the University of Otago. That’s probably when everything started to unravel. Having lived a blissful life of steady study and a paycheck, I was plunged into the abyss, the nightmare, the academic purgatory known as the Real World. I applied for well over a hundred academic positions, and received three interviews, only one of which went particularly well. After this particular rejection, I asked the interviewer how I could have performed better, he simply responded: “You couldn’t have. Someone else just was better.” I had published in premier journals and had a book in press. Yet everyone else seemed to have published in better venues, with a couple of books under their belt, and were probably booked for the next series of John Locke lectures. I decided, at this point, to change tack.

Rewind the clock a decade. I lived in Jakarta. I taught English as a foreign language to rich kids at a private school. During my time there, I became semi-conversational in Bahasa Indonesia, and familiar with all the local hazards (floods, fires, and terrible beasties called “tomcats”. Trust me, google it). Since that time, I have always had a soft spot for Indonesia. I love the food. I love the people. I love the language. It contains some of the most paradisiacal islands of our solar system, and probably the next one over too. After my hundred and somethingth rejection, I began to investigate whether Indonesian universities would be interested in my application. After a year of negotiations, some aspects of which are still in progress, I am now employed as an adjunct professor of philosophy at the University of Indonesia (roughly speaking, this is equal to an adjunct assistant professor position, in US terms). 

Indonesia is home to 265 million people, of which 150 million live on the island of Java. The country claims around 4,000 higher education institutions, though most of these are of undeniably poor quality in terms of teaching and research (the government’s own assessment states that 77% of these institutions are substandard). Around 120 of these institutions are state universities, and there are many more private universities. Of these, three universities stand out as both prestigious and productive in research and teaching. These three are the University of Indonesia (Universitas Indonesia, Depok), Gadjah Mada University (Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta), and the Bandung Institute of Technology (Institut Teknologi Bandung, Bandung). The University of Indonesia excels in Law and Medicine. Gadjah Mada excels in humanities and social science, and the Bandung Institute of Technology excels in Engineering and Business. All three universities feature in the latest QS World University rankings, and are ranked 296, 320, and 331 respectively.

Until 2018, foreign lecturers could not be directly employed by these universities as permanent members of academic staff. However, law changes by president Joko Widodo (affectionately known as “Jokowi”) have opened the doors for foreign lecturers to enter the academic job market for the first time. Unfortunately, this law change has not been much exploited by the universities in question. Few, if any, have so much as advertised academic vacancies online or in international venues. Part of the reason for this is that the question of just how these institutions should go about employing foreign staff remains a bureaucratic mystery. The visa process is not only complex, but ever-changing, and still more changes are anticipated in the wake of Jokowi’s law change. There is talk of the introduction of a new kind of academic visa, but this seems only to underline the uncertainty and difficulty of the existing process. The problem is also exacerbated by an existing practice within the universities to employ “by appointment”, in a way which can be prone to institutional nepotism. Without any reform to the employment process, the chances are slim that a great influx of foreign lecturers will soon come to the country. In any case, intrepid candidates who are interested in the possibility of employment at an Indonesian university would be most sensible to make themselves known to their department of interest directly. That is what I did.

Being a philosopher from a working-class background (guest post by Adriel M. Trott)

This is a guest post by Adriel M. Trott, Department Chair at Wabash College. 

I grew up working class. One sign of my having grown up working class is that I don’t think it is a badge of honor. In the academy, it is generally something I hide. I’m writing this post to describe some of my experiences in the academy that I think come from being working class in the hopes that others might be able to learn from my experience. Another sign of my having grown up working class is that I tend to think of all the reasons not to think of myself as working class rather than all the reasons to think of myself in this way. When I posted something on Facebook about being working class – the post that led to this blogpost – a number of people responded by noting one or two factors that made their experience not working class, but then went on to say they were working class in the sense that their families did not make much money. It strikes me as odd, even though I do it, that people think that they are claiming a title to working class unfairly. I take it to be very working class not to want to get some unfair allowance for one’s situation, and very American, in the sense that Sartre observed when he said “here a worker never considers himself a ‘proletarian’ in the European sense of the word.” Even as a socialist movement in the United States is gaining momentum, it strikes me that so many workers and their families don’t want to think of themselves as sharing experiences or interests that might bind them together, particularly in the sense of being oppressed. Fortunately, I think that is changing. The first thing I want to say then is that it is fine to consider yourself working class even if there are various factors in your background that don’t stand up to the ideal of the working class.

Both of my parents went to college. To very good colleges. And three of my four grandparents finished college, while the fourth had some college. So I knew what the good books to read were. My dad enlisted in the army in the early seventies to avoid the draft. When my parents came back from Japan where my dad was stationed, my dad became a mechanic, and then later a roofer and a sider, and then later, a self-employed subcontractor. My mother was a homemaker. My family income was under the poverty line. I was Pell-eligible. My parents trash-picked and my mother got food at a food bank. We shopped almost exclusively at thrift stores (which I still do). I distinctly remember my older sister’s birthday one year when my parents didn’t have money for ice cream. One of my parents found a box in someone’s trash that had a bunch of things including a canister of tennis balls. I think my mom was thinking about giving the tennis balls to my sister as a birthday present. My mom opened the can to see what shape they were in and found 14 dollars at the bottom of the can. So the birthday cake had icing and ice cream.

I grew up the second of six kids. When there were only five kids, we lived in a small twin in Olney, which was then an Irish-Catholic working class neighborhood in Philadelphia. We weren’t Irish, or Catholic, and the other kids called us “publics” because we went to public school. My parents were conservative Presbyterians, which I mention, because I think I became a philosopher in conversations around the dinner table about theology. Calvinism is systematic if nothing else, and I learned how to be a systematic thinker talking and thinking about Calvinism. I mention this also because despite what Aristotle seems to think of farmers and “vulgar craftsmen”—that they do not have the leisure for the kind of thinking and reflection necessary to be citizens or philosophers—my experience observing my dad and my own experience in working on projects around my house is that there is a certain kind of reflection and thoughtfulness made possible by working with one’s hands. I think we should hesitate about considering the working class without thought and reflection both on their own lives and on big ideas. Often I hear people say things like, well my parents are well-educated or thoughtful so I’m not really working class as if those things are mutually exclusive. While it can be the case that a college degree is a steppingstone to the middle class, I think it is more and more the case that it is not necessarily so. Cultural capital does accrue to the experience of college and reading good books and thinking that museums are better culture than television, something my parents knew – we didn’t have a television, but I only went to museums on field trips as a kid. But I think there are mindset issues at work in being a poor kid even if you did have some access to cultural capital. As I say at the outset, I caution against talking yourself out of being working class if you did grow up poor.

Tips for PhD program transfer applications

A reader writes in: "do you have any advice about what a statement of purpose should look like for a PhD student transferring PhD programs? I’m sure it should look different from (say) someone applying out from undergrad or an MA program, I just don’t know how exactly. I think this could be a nice question for the Cocoon community."

I think this is a great question. Although I transferred between programs myself many years ago, I must confess that I don't quite recall what I did in the application process. Does anyone who has served on a PhD admissions committee have any insight? I think it would be good to hear tips not only on this reader's main question (the statement of purpose), but also any all-purpose tips related to coming across well as a transfer applicant. 

How to write a short philosophy paper (by Jonathan Tallant, University of Nottingham)

This is a guest post by Jonathan Tallant, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Nottingham.

There is no one right way to write a short philosophy paper; one need only read the journals that publish them to appreciate that.

What I’ll do here is say a little bit about how I do it and the sorts of issues I think those writing them would do well to think about. My sense of it is that shorter papers need to be punchier papers. That informs a lot of what I say here. Whether you think I’ve managed to follow my own advice in my short-form articles…. Well, I’ll leave that up to you.

1. Read: Go and read some examples. If you’re pitching a paper at the likes of Analysis or Thought, which are the two main journals that publish philosophy in the kind of word-count range we’ll be thinking about (1k to 4k words), then go and read them. Get a feel for (/remind yourself of the feel of) a short, punchy philosophy paper. This follows from a more general principle. If you want to know what kinds of style matter to a journal, go read the journal and try to get a sense of the sorts of style that work.
2. Get on with it. For my money, there are two types of short paper. Reply papers and standard papers. They are a bit different, but one thing binds them for short-form articles (for me): you need to get to the point. Philosophy papers often have slow careful introductory passages that lay out a host of competing concerns, explain a great deal of background, and so on. For a 1500 word reply paper, you can’t do that (well, I can’t). Set up the target thesis; knock it down. For a more standard paper: tell me what the point is and then make it. Don’t mess about.
3. Don’t try to be too interesting. I mean this only in part. Often, longer philosophy papers have a target thesis, but they also make lots of other interesting points along the way, and sometimes explore interesting side issues. For a short paper, don’t (/I don’t) do this. You have few words. You have a target thesis. Set it up. Show how it works. Stop.
4. I find that short sentences make for short(er) papers. Keep it snappy, keep it short. Shorter sentences will force greater precision, which should help you to get on with it. (You may spot a theme here.)
5. It’s obvious, but don’t just edit for content or for sense. Edit for brevity. Find shorter ways of making the same point. Delete those paragraphs that you’re fond of, but that don’t really help drive you towards the main point that you’re making.
6. Edit (again). Imagine that this is a student paper that you’ve been asked to look at. The student is targeting brevity. Your job is to help them.
7. Top and tail. If you feel the need to have an introduction and conclusion (you might not need to), then the same points apply. Keep them short and concise.

Average time to TT job analysis

One issue that philosophers on the job-market face is how long to stay on the market in pursuit of a tenure-track job. Although each case is different (it took me seven years, and I've known a few people it took over 10 years), Lee Elkin posted this interesting analysis of how long it takes on average for those who do get TT jobs. Evidently the mean time is 1.86 years post-PhD. Here's a graph of the distribution:

Using video-conferencing in a workshop: the case of Rethinking Formal Methods in Philosophy

I recently attended the workshop Rethinking formal methods in philosophy  (RFMP) at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. It was organized by Samuel Fletcher and Nathan Lackey. The topic of this conference was unusual and exciting, asking deep metaphilosophical questions about how formal methods might contribute to philosophy, and what place it has in graduate and undergraduate teaching. I came away from this conference feeling energized and with lots of new ideas, and I commend Samuel and Nathan for coming up with this topic and for their organization. 

Here I want to focus on one specific aspect of this conference, namely the extensive use of video conferencing technology and other forms of online augmentation. Three of the invited speakers, Branden Fitelson, Joshua Knobe, and Catarina Dutilh-Novaes, participated with video conferencing technology. The university has a specific room to facilitate this. It not only has the standard technology to stream Skype but also microphones in the ceiling that pick up whenever someone is speaking so the person skyping in can hear questions clearly. These talks worked very smoothly with (except one very minor occasion) no technical glitches. Moreover, the technology also permitted remote participants to sit in on other talks, for example, Joshua Knobe saw my presentation on teaching experimental philosophy for undergraduates.

To give you a sense of how it worked, the image shows Branden Fitelson, Skyping in from what appears to be deep space, and the image at the top (tiny) shows the workshop room. Image credit: Liam Kofi Bright on Twitter. 

In addition to this, Liam Kofi Bright live-tweeted the conference (see here and here), and I also contributed a few twitter threads on some papers (e.g., here).  Moreover, Liam took questions from the Daily Nous initial post on this blog during the roundtable discussion. Overall, technology helped to augment and supplement, and draw in a wider range of people to the discussion than would otherwise be able to participate. For example, following the workshop I asked on Twitter whether philosophy graduate programs should still have a logic requirement and it generated this fascinating discussion. 

In recent discussions I've had with academics, motivated by climate change and the role of flying in it, people have wondered whether we should just stop flying altogether for conferences, or at the very least drastically reduce how often we fly. This prompts the need for more possibilities for remote participation. As Catarina said, "to fly so far for a talk for two days, I can't really justify it anymore." 

Dealing with 'egocentric' journal reviewers

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, postdoc writes:

I would like to know your suggestions about the right way to deal with egocentric reviewers. I have received a few times reviews of my papers that aim to compel me not only to mention specific literature but to engage with these ideas in my own article, even if they are not directly related to it. In two cases, I have the impression that the reviewer mentions his/her own papers, and because the reviewer is probably someone important, it is very difficult to make the case that the reviewer's demand is not necessarily well-founded, and that it is more the product of his/her ego than anything else. Another variant is when the reviewer compels the author to cite his/her academic friends' papers. I have the impression he/she does not really ware about the origin of the idea (reviewers never told me to cite something that has been written more than 5 years old), but only about mentioning his/her academic friends. I find both attitudes shameful.

'Editor and referee' then responded:

Sometimes reviewers do as you suggest. But often the referee is aware of the literature, and sees connections to other recent stuff that you do not, but should address. Indeed, that would explain why you are being asked to cite recent stuff. The idea is if philosophy is anything like a science, then there is a moving research frontier and you must keep up with the latest developments. I occasionally get asked to referee papers that are wholly ignorant that what they are arguing has been discussed at some length in other articles in high profile journals. That just looks like lazy scholarship.

Postdoc then responded in turn:

I think we are not talking about the same case. Maybe you suppose reviewers are always well-intentioned and objective, I do not. My experience tells me that egocentric academics are quite common, and that egocentrism can be more or less easily recognized through reviews, when for example the reviewer forces the author to cite and talk about him/her, engage with her/his ideas, because if not the paper is not considered worth it.

I have some thoughts on this (mostly in agreement with 'Editor and referee'), but I am more curious to hear from others. How common is the experience of referees unreasonably requesting engagement with additional literature? My own experience as an author has been almost entirely positive here. On the (relatively rare) occasions I've been asked to engage with additional literature, I've nearly always thought the requests to be reasonable (indeed, I've mostly been thankful to referees bringing my attention to relevant literature I missed). Further, following the comment by 'Editor and referee', I'm inclined to think that improving the overall level of scholarship in philosophy is a good thing, not a bad thing.

But these are just my thoughts and experiences. What do you all think? What have your experiences been?

APA leadership nominations

If you are a member of the American Philosophical Association, you may have received a notification recently soliciting nominations for APA leadership positions. The announcement, which is also here at the APA blog, reads:

The American Philosophical Association is now accepting nominations for APA leadership positions for terms beginning July 1, 2020.

Visit the online nominations system.

There will be member vacancies on seventeen APA committees, as well as vacancies for associate chair positions on five committees. There will be one vacancy for member-at-large of the board of officers, and four member vacancies on the graduate student council (GSC). Most committee terms are three years in length; GSC terms are for two years.

To see the full list of vacancies, and for more information, sign in to the nominations system using your APA member credentials.

Please note that both nominators and nominees must be current APA members. Please be sure to renew your membership. Self-nominations are welcome, and members may nominate or be nominated as many times as they wish.

We will only accept nominations through the online nominations system. Please do not submit nominations via email, phone, or postal mail. The deadline to submit nominations is October 31, 2019.

Service on the board of officers, an APA committee, or the graduate student council is a significant opportunity for leadership in the profession and the association, and I encourage you to take the time to nominate qualified candidates for these important positions.

Readers may recall that earlier this summer, I suggested that the APA might benefit from broader representation, including more representation by faculty from liberal arts universities and community colleges, as well as part-time faculty and philosophers in non-academic industry (for further discussion, see this Daily Nous thread). I'd like to encourage readers of the Cocoon who are APA members to consider nominating philosophers in these broader categories!

Job apps: how confidential are they?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, 'worried' writes:

I have a TT position and a department near my own is hiring. I am a good fit for the position and plan on applying. But I'm a bit worried that my current department will find out if I apply. Are SCs generally good about keeping things confidential in these cases? Or do you know of exceptions? What should I include in my cover letter, other than a request for confidentiality? I won't say anything negative about anyone or anything, but I'd wondering if I need to actually say something that I wouldn't say if I were applying from across the country.

I would sure hope that job applications are treated confidentially! Still, the world often isn't how we hope it to be. What's the reality here? Does anyone have any experience relevant to worried's concerns?

Job-market reporting thread (2019-20 season)

Each year, readers ask for threads for discussing and reporting news on the job-market. I recently posted this season's discussion thread here. Please visit that thread if you are interested in discussing/commiserating about this year's market. The current thread (below) is for reporting news on the market (i.e. reporting interviews, flyouts, offers, hires, and so on). Although it should go without saying, commenters are asked to please remember the Cocoon's supportive mission while reporting. A link to this thread will remain on the blog's right sidebar for the remainder of the job season.

Which journals' word limits are flexible?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, Submitter writes:

Which journal submission word counts are, in reality, flexible?

I recently published a paper in a journal that, on its website, says the word limit is 7500 words. But when I sent the paper in, it was over 10k. I only did this because I knew that other papers in this journal exceeded the 7500 count.

Anyone know of any journals worth submitting to with practices like this? Top 20, top specialist journals (BJPS, PhilSci, Ethics, PPA, etc.).

This is a great question. I gave a list of some journals' word-limits a while back, and one of the things I find a bit puzzling is that a fair number journals do not give a hard word-limit but instead merely that articles are "normally" no longer than X (sometimes adding that papers longer than X are "rarely" accepted). I can't help but wonder whether despite this these are de facto word-limits, or whether these journals really are willing to at least consider longer papers. I am also curious whether (at Submitter writes) there are journals with 'hard' limits that nevertheless sometimes consider longer papers.

Anyone have experience with these things? 

What It's Like to Apply for a Job In Academic Philosophy

Back in the spring when I was getting close to the end of my job market run, I screen-recorded some footage of filling out a few applications with the intention of editing it together as a sort-of sneak peek for graduate students who wondered what the application process actually looks like. After a long hiatus from thinking about anything related to the job market, I finally returned to that material and finished the video. It's nothing too grand, but I figure it might be a useful tool for placement directors or curious graduate students. Over 12 minutes, I run through the essential elements of completing an application, including short sections on editing PDFs and using Interfolio to upload letters of recommendation. Audio narration could have been a bit louder, but such are the growing pains of working with a new microphone.

In most of the footage, my on-screen actions are portrayed at 1.5x or 2x speed, so don't expect that you'll be blitzing through these applications as quickly as I did in this video. Also, for reasons that will become obvious, anime fans are likely to enjoy this video a little more than other people.

Research standards for tenure

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, curious asks: "How many articles are usually required for getting tenure (at R1s, SLACs, etc.)? Does the journal's impact factor matter?" I'm glad someone asked this, as my sense is that a lot of people may be unaware of just how much variation there can be in tenure and promotions standards and processes.

In response to curious's query, anonymous writes:

curious: there is too much variation in the answer to your question for there to be a meaningful answer; and also, at almost nowhere is a certain magical number of publications either necessary or sufficient for tenure.

I think this is exactly right. Job-marketeers need to be aware that tenure and promotion standards can vary wildly by institution. For example, I know someone who received tenure at a very teaching-oriented SLAC with a single publication. Why? Presumably, because their institution primarily focuses on undergraduate teaching. Obviously, that wouldn't fly at an R1, nor I think would it fly at many other SLACs. At my liberal arts university, for example, the expectations generally seem to be substantially higher than that. The people I've seen tenured here generally "publish consistently" in peer-reviewed journals. Also, although citations are mentioned in our criteria for tenure and promotion, nowhere in our handbook's criteria for tenure or promotion are journal-rankings or journal impact-factors mentioned. 

My sense is that tenure standards can vary just as much at R1's. I've heard that at some R1's, tenure standards are fairly clear: that the expectation is something like one publication in a highly-ranked journal per year (so, something like 6 highly-ranked publications when coming up for tenure). However, I've heard that other R1's basically make tenure decisions on the basis of whether someone has become a Big Name in their field--such that if a candidate has published in top journals but no one recognizes or engages their work, they could still be denied tenure.

Finally, it is vital to recognize that tenure and promotion processes can vary a great deal by institution. In response to curious's initial query, Anon prof wrote:

curious:
Your tenure file will be evaluated by people in your subfield, typically, who will write letters for you. The letters will (likely) take into account the publication venue as well as the importance of your work for the subfield and its quality. If you are genuinely unsure, talk to people who might be called upon to write letters for you and ask them how they would rate your work relative to the position that you hold. Or, look at the publication records of people who recently got tenure at various institutions.

My sense is that this is how a lot of people think tenure and promotion works everywhere. However, as I noted in follow-up comment, it isn't. At some universities (including my own), your tenure file is not evaluated by outside people in your subfield. Instead, the process is carried out "in house." Here again, candidates should be aware of these differences, and ideally find out what the T&P process and standards are like at institutions before they accept an offer!

Anyway, these are just my thoughts. What are yours? It might be good to hear from people at various institutions: what are your university's tenure and promotion process and (research) standards like?

Anonymizing when self-citing

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, anon postdoc writes:

I am working on a paper that relies in a couple of paragraph on an argument from a previous paper, already published. I was wondering how best to do this in a way that complies with blind-review. Some possibilities I am considering:

a. Cite myself as though it were another person.

b. Give a footnote and write '[deleted for blind review]' where the reference would go. (However, I have been told before, when doing this, that it is not sufficiently compliant with blind-review. Wish that my views were that famous!)

c. Appeal to some other argument in the literature that raises a similar concern, and give that prominence instead of my view. Then change this if the article gets accepted. (This could be used in combination of a or b).

This is a great query. I struggled with this very issue for a long time because I didn't know what the norms are. After seeing this discussed on social media, my sense is that the dominant norm is (a): citing yourself in the third-person, as though you are not the author. I am skeptical about whether this actually tends to work in terms of successfully anonymizing a piece--as my sense is that referees can probably still infer it's probably you a good proportion of the time (which I suspect may advantage prestigious, well-known authors and disadvantage lesser-known, less prestigious authors)--but still, my sense is that (a) is the norm.

What to list as peer-reviewed?

In our most recent "how can we help you?" thread, early careerist writes:

What publications count as "peer reviewed"?

Until recently, I had assumed that all and only papers submitted to a journal/volume and were (a) reviewed by a scholar, (b) whose identity the author didn't know, and (c) had a genuine possibility of being rejected at that stage were peer reviewed and eligible to be labeled as such on one's CV. It could also be double- or triple-blinded, but that wasn't necessary to peer-review.

However, a colleague's CV labels as peer-reviewed the following:
- invited papers to edited books, where someone read the paper and requested revisions.
- invited entries into books where the editor read the individual entries and the entire volume was sent out for review.
- the introduction to a volume they edited, which was sent out to a reviewer (and blinded), but where the volume was already under contract.

Is there a norm here? I was surprised, and now think I'm under-crediting my publications.

'Anon human' then added:

I’m very interested in the answer to early careerist’s question! Those all strike me as bad cases, but I think there are some cases that are particularly hard to figure out. (E.g.: if you were invited to submit a paper to a journal, it was peer reviewed by anonymous people, but the standard is to accept 98 percent of invited submissions, should someone list that as peer reviewed? Etc.

I'm curious what the norms here are as well. Unlike 'Anon human', it's not obvious to me that all of the cases early careerist listed are "bad cases." Invited papers to edited books could well be rejected if the reviewer(s) or editor(s) think they are not worthy of publication, so these cases seem to me legit cases of peer review (albeit not anonymized peer-review). Nevertheless, in my own case, I tend to play it safe in what I list on my CV. I only explicitly list my journal publications as peer-reviewed, as I don't want to run the risk of rubbing anyone the wrong way for listing other things that way. Since I take it everyone knows that invited book chapters are subject to review (but not the same kind as journal articles), I just leave it up to the person reading my CV to infer what they will about those cases.

In any case, I am curious about the norms here. What does everyone think? What kinds of publications are legitimate to list as peer-reviewed? Which ones are not? 

Advice on foreign job-markets?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, 'someone' writes:

I have a TT job and I would like to move to continental Europe for a number of reasons (spouse). Ideal location: France.
It would be great if you had a few posts (from guests contributors?) on the European job market. (I mean: places like: Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, Portugal etc.)

I think some guest posts on this is a great idea, and I'll plan to look into it! For the time being, though, anyone care to chime in here with tips for 'someone'? What does it take (e.g. for a tenure-stream person) in the States to be competitive for jobs in Europe? 

Query about foreign job titles & ranks

A reader writes in:

I have a question for you concerning the philosophy job market between the US and the UK. If someone is an Assistant Professor in the U.S., and they want to apply for a position in Europe, are they only eligible for 'Lecturer' or do they have a shot at 'Senior Lecturer'? More generally, what is the difference between Lecturer/Senior Lecturer and Assistant Professor/Associate Professor?

Good questions. I've often wondered about this myself. I was under the impression that Lecturer is basically equivalent to Assistant Professor in the US and Senior Lecturer equivalent to Associate. But then sometimes I see advertisements abroad for Assistant and Associate Professor positions. Anyone able to clear these things up?

Tips on conference logistics?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Mark Z. writes:

I was wondering if you can run a post describing how to run a conference. I want to hold a conference and I am at a new college (just got a TT job) and I know nothing of expenses, financing, logistics, lodging, room reservations, invitations, keynote speakers, timing, reasonable accommodations, etc. Is there anyone out there with good experience doing this that can share? I realize that some of this is college and location specific, but there must be some general best practices. I am also considering piggy-backing off another conference. That sounds easier, are there serious drawbacks?
Any advice would be appreciated.

Although we recently had a helpful guest-post by Alex Grzankowski on how to organize good conferences (in terms of how many talks there should be per day, when they should start and end, etc.), Alex's post didn't address some of Mark Z.'s central concerns: namely, the nitty-gritty logistical details of putting a conference together (viz. expenses, financing, lodging, etc.). Given how difficult it can be to put together a good conference (like many people, I've been to some really well-organized ones, as well as some logistical disasters), I think it might indeed be good to have a thread on this! Anyone have any tips on these matters?

Job market survey/study

The following post was submitted to the Cocoon by Charles Lassiter (philosophy, Gonzaga University) and two collaborators, Shane Wilkins (philosophy, USDA) and Sarah Arpin (psychology, Gonzaga):

Dear philosophy job seekers,

If you are planning to apply for academic jobs this year, we hope you'll consider participating in our study "The Philosophy Job Market: Applicant Profiles and CV Review." Our aim in this first phase is to get a picture of job market applicants: what journals are they publishing in (if at all)? for how many classes are they the instructor of record (if at all)? There has been, as far as we know, no systematic attempt to collect information about people going into the job market. In the second phase of this study, we will the collected information to randomly generate CVs and investigate the behavior of potential search committee members in reviewing them.

In consultation with the Gonzaga University IRB, it was determined that IRB approval was not needed for this phase project. IRB approval will be obtained for the second phase. Nonetheless, all responses will be kept private and information secured on the hard drives of the investigators. Results will be made available at leiterreports.typepad.com, dailynous.com, philosopherscocoon.typepad.com, and philarchive.org

The survey should take about 10 minutes to complete. Participants will be entered into a drawing for two $25 Amazon gift cards. If you are willing to participate, you can find the survey here. Please email Charles Lassiter at [email protected] if you have any questions.

Getting rec-letters many years post-PhD

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Al writes:

An earlier post discussed explaining why one is going on the market from a tenure-track (or tenured) position, but I'm wondering specifically about application materials and letters: if one has been out of grad school for 5-10 years, and hasn't kept in particularly close contact with advisors, who should one ask for letters of recommendation? In general, how does one go about putting together application materials when applying from a more advanced career stage? (I'm realizing everything I know about going on the job market, I learned as a grad student or post-doc!)

Bm then replied:

When are on the market looking for a new tenured job at another place, you should get letters from senior researchers who know your work. Ideally, at that stage, there are such people who you have been in contact with because they like what you have done. If there are none, your chances of moving are close to nil, unless you are pitching yourself as someone with administrative skills - for example, willing to chair a department who cannot find a chair among themselves. But then you must have chairing experience.

Fair enough. Notice, though, that Bm doesn't mention how Al might end in contact with senior people who like their work. Do senior people just email you out of the blue saying, "I love your work"? Presumably not, for the most part. I take it that in order for someone like Al to end up in contact with senior people who look favorably on their work, there are probably things Al needs to do: be active at conferences and the like, trade work with other people for mutual feedback, and so on. But is there more that Al could or should be doing? I guess I'm not sure I'm the best person to ask for advice here, as I don't fancy myself much of a "networker". Does anyone have any helpful practical advice for Al?

What kind of teaching experience is best?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Charles writes:

I’m currently a grad student and I'm relatively free to choose the topics about which I want to (solo-)teach. Would it be better to start developing my teaching portfolio around introductory courses (Introduction to Philosophy, Introduction to Philosophy of Science, Ethics, and so on)? Or rather with more specialized ones (Philosophy of Economics, Philosophy of Mathematics, etc.)? Should I focus on fields and topics related to my dissertation?

Craig replied:

My impression is that the broader courses would be a better choice. People will assume you can teach your research (or, at least, in my experience, they make that assumption). Accordingly, your courses are a chance for you to show breadth, valuable especially for smaller, teaching-focused departments.

I think Craig is absolutely right...

How can we help you? (September 2019)

Now that it's the beginning of the month, I'd like to run another monthly "how can we help you?" thread.

For those of you unfamiliar with this series, this is a chance for you to post openly or anonymously in the comments section below on anything you could use help with related to the profession. After you post your query in the comments section, I will then post new threads for readers to discuss your query.

Please feel free to ask questions on anything (within the Cocoon's mission) that you could use help with, including but not limited to:

• The job-market (applying for jobs, etc.)
• Graduate school
• Publishing
• Teaching
• Issues in the profession
• Work-life balance
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Fire away - we're here to help! 

Mentoring program update and deadline

I am happy to report that Helen De Cruz and I have been able to match a majority of job-candidates who have applied to this season's iteration of the Cocoon's Job-Market Mentoring Program. We plan to continue matching applicants with tenure-stream mentors as quickly as possible in coming days and weeks (as we recognize the job-market is fast upon us), and would like to again encourage tenure-stream faculty to sign up as potential mentors. Signups for job-candidates and mentors will remain open through Sunday, September 15th.

Applying from the tenure-track

In our recent post, "How forthright should cover letters be?", Frogger writes:

Could we revisit this issue since the job cycle/academic year is starting up again? I like my tenure-track job, but there are some tempting tenure-track postings out there already, and I am considering sending out some applications just to see what pans out. How should I market myself?

Great question! Although I've known quite a few people in tenure-track jobs who have gone out again on the market, I don't know how many of them have been successful, or quite what the best way to do so is. I'm tempted to think that in most cases, there isn't anything special to be done: just apply like you would to any job. In some cases, though--if, for example, one is seeking to move from an R1 to a more teaching-focused university, or vice versa--I wonder whether saying something in the cover letter about one's reasons for applying might make sense. Not sure though. What do you all think? It might be great to hear from some search-committee members!