This is the third entry in the Cocoon's new series, Non-Traditional Paths into Philosophy, a series of guest posts by people who entered academic philosophy later in life or otherwise took a non-traditional path into the field. Today's post is by Logan Scott Mitchell, a first-year PhD student at UNC Chapel Hill who is also a mindfulness instructor, musical theatre performer, and Certified Nonprofit Professional. If you took a non-traditional path into philosophy and are interested in contributing to the series, feel free to email me at [email protected]!
By Logan Scott Mitchell
My path to pursuing a PhD in Philosophy is quite non-traditional – prior to pursuing any type of higher education I spent several years as a professional actor, singer, and dancer in musical theatre. From childhood through my early twenties, performing was my entire life and identity. I dressed up as a “Broadway Star” for career day in the third grade, went to boarding school for two years to study dance, started working professionally in musical theatre at 17, and never even took the SAT.
I moved to New York City when I was 19, which sparked the beginning of my career as a (mostly) full-time musical theatre performer. I travelled across the country working in regional theaters, returning to New York only when I needed more work. I joined the stage actors’ union, Actors’ Equity Association, one year later, and by 2016 landed a role in an international tour of the musical West Side Story, where I was cast as a Jet (aka one the racist white guys). My big break!
The rehearsal process for West Side Story was one of the most traumatizing periods of my life – being in the woods of Ampflwang, Austria at a Dirty Dancing type resort, where we got screamed at in a ballroom during the day and Austrian performers lip synced to Grease and Cats in German at night (no, I’m not kidding). Our director had worked with Jerome Robbins himself, famous for abusive behavior, and apparently took that as a free pass to throw shoes and pens at actors, call them slurs, insist we call each other slurs in “acting exercises,” kissing actors without consent (on the mouth), telling actors they had gotten too fat…. you get the picture. People who knew him told us this was the best he’d ever behaved, and at least he wasn’t doing cocaine in the bathroom on our ten-minute breaks. Being outside of our union’s jurisdiction, and very consciously aware of how replaceable we were, the cast suffered through it.
Then, the morning we were scheduled to escape Ampflwang and head to our first theater in Germany, Donald Trump was elected President of the United States. While it felt somewhat impactful to be performing in a show about violence and white supremacy in America, I still felt like I wanted to do more (plus, it didn’t help that West Side Story was written by all white men, our production was produced and directed by only white men, and the lead actress was also white, even though she was playing a character who is Puerto Rican…. yikes). I didn’t have any other skills that I thought could benefit my community, whatever “my community” meant. Plus, I realized that I never wanted to need an acting job so badly that I would work with an abusive director again. So, I decided I would go back to school.
I left the tour after nine months in 2017, where I began attending Scottsdale Community College. My initial plan was to transfer to Arizona State University to get a bachelors’ degree in interdisciplinary studies, combining Nonprofit Administration and Social Transformation, because those words all seemed impactful and cool. I figured I would get a degree, move back to New York, work for an amazing and well-paying nonprofit (??) while I waited for my Broadway debut, have a successful career on Broadway until I was 40, and then go off and save the world. I was sure this plan was brilliant – the epitome of the good life!
The semester before I was set to transfer to ASU, I took an introductory ethics course with a rebellious, motorcycle-riding professor named Mike Valle. I had never been so intellectually stimulated in my life than reading our textbook (by Russ Schafer-Landau). I had also just started watching The Good Place, so it all felt especially exciting! I was finally thinking about the things that were most important in life, and it was all made particularly relevant when I was told that gay marriage had been a topic of debate in the syllabus less than ten years prior. These were issues that mattered to me, and it seemed like sometimes philosophers actually made a difference. So, within the first couple of weeks I had declared myself a soon-to-be Philosophy major at ASU, where I would also pursue a certificate in Nonprofit Leadership and Management. My plan still remained to move back to New York after I graduated.
Throughout my college career, I actually supported myself mostly by working at a local theater, the Phoenix Theatre Company. I ended up doing almost as many shows per year as when I was acting full-time, reading Aristotle and Kant backstage during shows like Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia, working enough to qualify for union healthcare, and doing some summer shows out of town in Utah and Colorado. I also started teaching mindfulness (which has played an important role in my life since I was a teenager), so didn’t have much time to think about anything beyond whatever semester I was in, let alone grad school.
Yet, something caught my eye when I got an email about some undergraduate diversity institutes for philosophy. Most were in the summer, but one – the COMPASS workshop at the University of Michigan – was in the fall. I didn’t have any shows scheduled that semester, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt to apply. I wasn’t seriously considering graduate school in philosophy, but I was PhD-curious and the thought of spending the weekend talking about philosophy with a diverse group of folks sounded wonderful. Luckily, I got accepted, and headed to Ann Arbor with an open mind, ready to be persuaded to change my post-graduation plans.
Clearly, the team at the University of Michigan convinced me! Once again, I saw how relevant and meaningful philosophy can be, and I got a taste of what the best of the philosophical community had to offer from graduate students to tenured professors (though I still regret not accepting a students’ invitation to go knock on Elizabeth Anderson’s door!). I was hooked.
Thanks to the incredible mentorship of Cheshire Calhoun back at ASU – who, among other things, helped supervise an independent study project that turned into my writing sample – and the generous feedback and support offered by other professors like Doug Portmore, Shyam Nair, Ben Phillips, and Joan McGregor, I was able to build up an application amidst a global pandemic, and I somehow managed to snag a spot at one of my dream schools (UNC Chapel Hill)!
At this point, I know myself well enough to know that I have absolutely no certainty about what I will want to do in five years – though of course the current plan is “professional philosopher.” But no matter what happens I can say with much greater confidence that I will be one of a select few who can talk about relational egalitarianism, scalar consequentialism, and mindfulness all while tap dancing.
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