On Twitter yesterday, an early-career philosopher asked:
I would like very much to develop teaching competence in Ancient Philosophy, including especially ancient science. It seems like this is a bad idea given this would be far off from what I would like to specialize in...I wonder how people navigate such thing. [A]ny Cocoon posts about things like this?
I think this is a great query, as it raises some important job-market issues that I suspect many graduate students and job-candidates might not know very much about. Indeed, far from it being a bad idea for this person to develop an AOC in Ancient, I think it is a great idea. Let me explain why.
First, what exactly is an AOC? There has been quite a bit of debate about this over the years. One standard definition that I've heard is that an AOC is something that you'd be well-prepared to teach an advanced, upper-division undergraduate course in. But, for my part, I guess I'm inclined to say that AOC may be fruitfully treated as a more flexible category, depending upon the job that you are applying for. Here's why. At my university, our philosophy major requires students to take two of the following three lower-level history of philosophy courses:
- Ancient Philosophy: Plato & Aristotle
- Modern Philosophy
- Contemporary Philosophy
We also have a policy that required courses for the major must be taught by full-time faculty. So, when I was hired into an Ethics position (way back in 2009), I was hired in part to teach that course. Similarly, when we hired for a full-time position Feminist Philosophy, the job ad stated that the person hired would be expected to teach Modern Philosophy. Indeed, even though the advertised AOS was Feminist Philosophy, the AOC was roughly equally important to us: we needed someone with a good background in Modern. And here's the thing: there aren't that many candidates with an AOS in Feminist Philosophy who also have robust backgrounds in Modern. So, having an AOC well outside of your AOS can plausibly be a huge advantage for some jobs. Finally, as my above remarks indicate, my department didn't need someone well-prepared to teach an advanced upper-division: we specifically needed someone with competence in teaching a lower-level course.
Long story short, I think that the AOCs one develops (or doesn't develop) can turn out to be very important--indeed, a real difference-maker for some jobs. So, grad students and job-candidates are well advised to cultivate AOCs, at least (let's say) if they want to be competitive for jobs at teaching-focused universities (note: my sense is that research universities usually hire specialists to teach courses like the above - so if you're only or primarily interested in R1 jobs, AOCs might not make a big difference). But anyway, this in turn raises an important question: which AOCs are likely to be the most beneficial to cultivate? Here, in brief, is my sense: history of philosophy courses and applied ethics courses. First, as at my university, history of philosophy courses are likely to be major requirements--so having an AOC in historical areas seem to me likely to make a candidate attractive to departments that need courses like this taught. Second, judging by recent job ads on philjobs and my department's own course offerings, applied ethics courses are especially popular these days. Many students need to take them as electives for other majors or minors, so departments need to offer quite a few of these courses.
A few final comments: (1) Going back to the OP, I don't think competence in ancient science is likely to be helpful (as our Plato & Aristotle course doesn't, for example, focus on ancient science); (2) No, one doesn't need any background in foreign languages (e.g. Greek, German, etc.) to claim in AOC for history of philosophy jobs at universities like mine. We're not looking for specialists (who presumably should know the original languages of works in their AOS). We're merely looking for people with background competence and (ideally) teaching experience in the relevant AOC.
Anyway, these are my thoughts. I'm curious to hear from other readers. Which AOCs do you think are a good idea for grad students and job-candidates to develop, if they have the chance? Why, and what do you think is necessary for a candidate to plausibly claim the relevant AOC when applying for a job in your department?
The best advice I got along these lines, from my mentor James Freeman at Hunter College, was to get to know how to teach all of Intro to Ethics, Intro to Philosophy, and Intro to Logic. There's typically a need for one or more of these.
Posted by: FritzJMcDonald | 01/13/2021 at 09:27 AM
I am inclined to think it is quite unpredictable which AOCs are worth developing. So, concentrate on your interests. I see my advice as falling in line with Marcus'. Where I once worked, a permanent colleague got sick of teaching the various required courses he was routinely scheduled for. He had too many, and he stopped enjoying the rotation through them. So when a position came up, I suggested that we add one of his subjects as an AOC, so that we could relieve him. And, an AOC like Ancient, with expressed interest in Ancient science, would look great to a 4 year college thinking of starting an interdisciplinary HPS program with the history department. You cannot know where and when these things happen. But if you cultivate your interests, it won't be painful. The down side of Ancient is that any serious scholar in ancient has the languages. And that is a major investment.
Posted by: y | 01/13/2021 at 09:58 AM
I think you and the first commenter are basically right, that the AOCs that are the best bets are the ones that are related to courses that are really frequently taught / required for a program.
There are also some job ads that ask for, roughly speaking, something non-canonical. The way this is phrased depends on the school. I don't know how many of these jobs there actually are, but I'd guess it's far fewer than the applied ethics AOC jobs. But I thought I'd mention it since it seems to me like a fair portion of my interviews over the years can be traced to my experience with non-canonical philosophy.
Some of the data ethics jobs also ask for just an AOC in that area, rather than an AOS, and this seems to be a growing portion of the job market.
Posted by: anon | 01/13/2021 at 10:20 AM
I want to second the applied ethics suggestion. I was hired at my institution to teach healthcare ethics AND ancient/medieval philosophy.
Applied ethics courses (e.g., healthcare ethics, business ethics) are often required for other majors.
Posted by: New TT | 01/13/2021 at 10:21 AM
I found that being able to claim an AOC in 19th and 20th century continental philosophy landed me a few interviews that I don't think I'd have gotten otherwise. I second the thought that in general applied and history are the most likely to be useful. I do wonder how much of the relevant languages you need to claim an AOC in historical areas though though. Can you claim one in Ancient without Attic Greek? Personally, I wouldn't claim an AOC in continental if I couldn't at least read German or French. Then again I know more than a few people who not only claim Kant as an AOC without being able to actually read German but have even managed to publish on Kant. I'd be really interested to see people's thoughts on whether one needs to learn the relevant languages and if so to what degree to claim AOC's in historical eras or figures.
Posted by: Sam Duncan | 01/13/2021 at 10:27 AM
There's been an increasing effort in recent years to diversify teaching curricula. Given this, it seems that it couldn't hurt to develop an AOC in areas that would serve this overarching goal--especially if one had an independent interest in these areas, and they were potentially useful for one's primary research.
Posted by: Humanati | 01/13/2021 at 11:55 AM
I agree that the best AOCs, strategically, are those in which most departments offer several undergrad courses (especially if there's a tendency to offer several lower-level courses!). To my mind, that means ethics is probably the most useful of them all, but it seems to me that a historical AOC is probably pretty good too, especially ancient or early modern. Beyond that, I'd say that logic could be good if you're comfortable doing a little more than just basic FOL, since most departments seem to offer one or two logic sequences (or a 'critical thinking' sequence) and the pool of faculty members interested or confident in teaching the logic classes is probably usually lower than it is for other classes. Philosophy of science strikes me as a decent possibility, too, although a little narrower than the others in terms of departmental coverage.
I don't think you need to max out on all the most strategically viable AOCs, though. I think it's worthwhile having one that's in high demand, maybe two, but beyond that I think it's good to backfill with somewhat more niche areas that usually get one UG course a year at most departments.
Posted by: Michel | 01/13/2021 at 01:29 PM
Non-western. At least in my own case my department might be granted a new hiring line because students have expressed an interest for a few years now in more non western offerings. Faculty would be happy to see this offered and there is only so much we each want to do by way of changing our own research plans.
Posted by: Anon hopefully hiring | 01/13/2021 at 01:31 PM
I'd encourage people who are interested in developing an AOC in less commonly taught philosophies around the world, like Chinese, Indian, African/African diaspora, to do so. I think there are pragmatic reasons for it both in terms of hiring and in terms of getting a different perspective on philosophy, through looking at different traditions.
There are increasingly more resources for learning how to teach in these areas without having relevant language skills, and being able to teach a course, or even just a unit, on, say Buddhist philosophy of mind, could be very valuable.
One thing I'd caution people against is claiming an AOC in "Non-Western philosophy" as if one can be an expert in that large an area, or as if it is a cohesive category. Personally, I am suspicious of people who claim to have expertise in e.g."Daoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Confucianism"--this strikes me akin to claiming expertise in "continental philosophy, analytic philosophy, ancient Greek philosophy, and Arabic philosophy." Possible, maybe, but unlikely!
Posted by: Malcolm | 01/13/2021 at 05:26 PM