The Philosophers' Cocoon

How can we help you? (December 2022)

Now that it's been almost a month since our last "how can we help you?" thread, it's time for a new one.

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.

As usual, 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.)
• Issues in the profession (including issues of social justice)
• Graduate school
• Publishing
• Teaching
• Work-life balance
• Mental health & well-being
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Ask away - we're here to help! 

Important reminder: if you submit a comment in this thread responding to someone's query, I won't post it, as this makes it difficult for me to keep track of everything in the comments section, particularly which queries I've started new threads on and which ones I have not. However, if you do post a follow-up comment, chances are good that I will post it in the new thread I start on the relevant query. So, do feel free to submit responses. Just know that they won't appear in this particular thread and might instead appear later in a new post.

Holiday stressors & the job market

In our November "how can we help you?" thread, a reader writes:

Here's one concerning holiday stressors, which is not so much a question as it is a request for the opportunity to vent and/or swap stories of frustration during this time of the year.

I am an early-career person with a large publication output and a series of decent postdoc and VAP-type jobs at good institutions, but no TT job. It turns out that, to my friends and family (nearly all of whom are non-academics), such a career profile makes me indistinguishable from someone who has spent the last many years living in the basement and playing video games.

I've just spent a mentally exhausting few days "back home" among these people for the holidays. It quickly became clear to me that they cannot parse my efforts as successful given that I'm still on the job market.

Some annoyingly ignorant questions I got include, "When do you get to start teaching your own classes?" (I've been teaching my own classes for nine years, five as a PhD student and four as an early-career non-TT prof); "Is the reason you don't have tenure because you don't publish?" (which especially smarts given how aggressive I've been with publishing my research compared to my peers), "How's life as a philosophy major?", and, perhaps most annoyingly, "How's school?" (clearly implying the inability to distinguish between being a professor and being a student). Given the stressors of the job market, etc., dealing with the alienation that follows from friends and family members who cannot see one's hard work and instead read one as a slacker who needs to "work harder" to get that job is especially mentally taxing.

In posting this, I'm not really asking for advice. The rational part of me knows that I should assess myself through the evaluation of my peers (who are experts), not laypeople who do not understand my field; that I cannot expect friends and family to understand my field; that I should remember that I don't even really understand what *they* do for a living; etc. But nevertheless, I would benefit from the opportunity to vent about this, and imagine others might be able to relate.

As someone who spent many years on the job market, I deeply empathize with the OP. Given that they did not ask for advice, I won't attempt to provide any. But, if you are a job marketeer, please do feel free to use this thread to commiserate about these issues--and if you would like to ask for some advice for how to handle these kinds of stressors, please do feel free to ask for some in the thread. As always, the Cocoon is here to help in any way that we can. 

Campus visit tips?

I've noticed on our job market reporting thread that a few hiring committees have already proceeded to invite candidates for campus visits (not many so far, but a few). Given that campus visits will increase in frequency over the coming weeks and months, and some job candidates may be doing campus visits for the very first time, I thought it might be good to run an open thread on campus visit tips.

It would be great to hear tips from past job-candidates, as well as from search committee members. Are there particular "do's and don'ts" for campus visits that you think job candidates should be aware of? Do have any helpful tips for common or unexpected situations that candidates might encounter during a visit?

Presenting papers currently under review?

In our November "how can we help you?" thread, an anonymous postdoc writes:

I've seen a few discussion here about presenting papers before they are under review. And the consensus seems to be that this is fine (as I think it should be).

However, I'm not sure you've touched on presenting papers that are currently under review.

Specifically, I am giving a talk next week on a paper that is already under review, and at a venue where I expect some of the most obvious reviewers for the paper will be attending (although it is not a particularly niche paper, so the probability the reviewers are actually there is reasonably low).

The following reasons make me think this should not be a problem: 1. I'm pretty sure I've seen people do this before. 2. If the reviewers are in the audience and haven't started reading the paper yet then this is really just an instance of pre-review presentation.

But the final reason goes rather the other way: 3. If the reviewers have started reading the paper and my presentation changes their views of the paper (either positively or negatively) then they might need to excuse themselves (or feel that they should) from review—and that would be annoying for everyone (me, the reviewers, the editors) due to the wasted time and effort all around.

So, have I made a mistake? And assuming that I will present the paper anyway (it would be difficult to change now), is it better to flag that the paper is already under review or not to mention it?

My sense is that it is fine to present papers that are under review at journals. I suppose it could "pollute the reviewer pool", as it were, particularly if the paper is on a niche topic where there aren't many reviewers for the journal to choose from. But this is a problem even before a paper is under review, as presenting at conferences or colloquia can disclose your identity to potential reviewers too. I also don't think it's a good idea to flag it to the presentation organizers or participants. But, I'm not sure. I have to confess that I've never thought about the OP's questions before myself!

What do you all think?

Taking breaks from writing & research?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Does anyone have advice for what an early scholar might do while taking a break from writing? I'm in a post-doc and feel a bit(lot) burnt out on writing, having done it at a blistering pace for so, so many years. I'm starting some time "off" from this particular aspect of my career and hoping to spend more time reading, exploring philosophy, and perhaps other things.

Has anyone taken a similar sort of break from writing? How was it? Do people have tips as to how to stay engaged with philosophy even if not through new research projects?

This is a great query, and I'm curious to hear how readers respond. I myself go through peaks when I feel inspired to do write and do research and troughs where I feel worn out and uninspired (often when, like the OP, I've worked at a blistering pace for a while). And I've found it to be helpful to listen to what my body and mind are telling me, as it were. In fact, I'm taking one of these breaks right now, as I've been working really hard the past several months and feel like I need some time to recoup.

When I'm feeling worn out, I'll take a break and focus on other things for a while--either other aspects of work (e.g. trying to teach a particular course really well), and/or hobbies (such as writing and recording music, listening to podcasts, or reading historical nonfiction). Oddly, I've found that many of these hobbies can be great (and unexpected) sources of inspiration for new philosophical projects--so, it's sort of like "doing research without doing research." To be clear, I don't pursue hobbies looking to mine them for philosophical ideas. I often just find that new ideas occur to me out of the blue when doing other things for pleasure.

Light blogging this week

This is just a quick note that there may be comparatively few posts on the Cocoon this week, as I will be traveling to visit family for the holiday.

If readers have any topics you'd be interested in seeing discussed here this week, please feel free to post them at our November "how can we help you?" thread. I can get discussion threads up quickly and am happy to moderate them while I am away!

How to choose readers for paper drafts?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asked:

What goes into selecting a potential reviewer for your article? Is it normal for junior scholars to select, for example, their thesis advisor or another person at their graduate institution? Should it specifically be someone who works on this exact topic, or someone who you know in the general area of philosophy?

I've never presented this exact argument, so I don't feel that I would have met someone at a conference who clearly responded well to this particular work. Although, I did attend a conference on this topic and met some folks there. What's the best strategy?

It wasn't clear to me whether this reader means "suggesting reviewers" when submitting to journals (which some journals request or even require from authors), or whether they simply mean "readers of paper drafts." I'm assuming the latter, as it would surely be inappropriate (a clear conflict of interest) to suggest a thesis advisor or someone else one is close to as a journal reviewer.

So, I'm assuming this person means to ask: what goes into selecting readers for paper drafts? Should a junior scholar ask mentors in their graduate program (even if, say, they already received their PhD)? Should they seek out other specialists? If so, how? Any helpful tips?

Are new hires expected to do graduate mentoring?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I have seen several job adverts recently for Assistant Professor roles that seem to request graduate mentoring. Are new Assistant Professors actually expected to mentor graduates from day one, or is this listed as something that will be expected in the future? Or am I misunderstanding and they do not mean PhD dissertation supervision but something else by graduate mentoring in the US? It seems like a lot to ask recent PhDs to mentor graduates.

My experience, from what I have seen and heard second-hand, is that new hires in graduate programs are absolutely expected to do graduate mentoring from day 1. Are recent PhDs well-prepared to this? My sense is: probably not--which, personally, is why I think it may be better for people to be not to be hired into these kinds of TT jobs right out of graduate school. Postdocs and/or a VAP or two can greatly help one find one's footing, as it were, and for my part I recall feeling profoundly unprepared for a tenure-track job when I got my first VAP (in retrospect, I'm profoundly thankful that I did not get a TT job right out of the gate; I think I probably would have failed in one!).

But anyway, maybe I'm wrong about the expectations here. Any readers care to weigh in?

Can paid work count as 'service'?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Can I include paid work under 'service' on my CV? I'm doing some copy-editing for a journal. Or is service supposed to be volunteer?

Fair questions, and I'm not sure what the answers are. I suppose you could always list it in your CV under "service", but maybe it should be noted parenthetically as "(remunerated)"? What do you all think?

Race equality work in Philosophy @Sheffield (Guest post by Tareeq O. Jalloh)

By Tareeq O. Jalloh (PhD Student, University of Sheffield)

There is an astounding lack of demographic diversity in philosophy, especially academic philosophy. BAME–Black, Asian and minority ethnic–students make up 8.6% of philosophy postgraduate students in the UK (Pozniak, 2020). In the US, 2.5% of philosophy PhD recipients and 4% of philosophy faculty are black (Schwitzgebel, 2021). Many other disciplines encounter the same lack of diversity. This is especially true for disciplines in the arts and humanities. For instance, whereas BAME students make up 22.3% of UK postgraduates, they only make up 11.5% of humanities postgraduates and 9.2% of arts postgraduates in the UK (Pozniak, 2020).

This lack of diversity in turn tends to centre dominant perspectives in academic disciplines. History, for instance, often centres a very narrow and constrained view of British history where black history is relegated to the margins (Arday, Brachu, & Boliver, 2022). Further, topics in race and ethnicity often seem to be marginalised and taught as add-on or specialist modules as opposed to being a fundamentally integrated part of the curricula (Arday, Brachu, & Boliver, 2022). BAME students engage with curricula that don’t reflect their socialisation, history or lived experience.

There are multiple benefits to improving the demographic and conceptual diversity of disciplines. For instance, improving demographic diversity will lead to students interacting with a variety of different people, and interacting with diverse peers leads to gains in cognitive abilities such as critical thinking (Pascarella & Loes, 2012). We might think improving critical thinking skills would be good for all university students, but this especially rings true for students in disciplines like philosophy, where critical thinking is an integral part of philosophising well. Another reason demographic diversity is necessary is that it exposes people to members of a commonly stereotyped social group who don't fit stereotypes–countersterotypical exemplars. The exposure to counterstereotypical exemplars helps reduce implicit bias (Holroyd & Saul, 2018).

Fewer jobs at SLACs?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Anyone (or Marcus?) affiliated with SLACs care to weigh-in as to the dearth of job postings at such places this year? It's a real bummer for those from the SLAC system who would ideally love to teach & work at that kind of institution. Or maybe my perception is off? But it seems like there haven't been many postings at SLACs.

I hadn't noticed this, so I'm curious whether other job seekers share the OP's sense. If it is a real phenomenon, it could just be a statistical blip--but I suspect one thing that could be going on is this: there have for a few years now been warnings about an enrollment cliff in higher education, where college enrollments are expected to decline by 15+% beginning in 2025.

The impact is in turn expected to have different effects regionally (see below):

Moreover, there have already been some significant declines in enrollment, particularly since COVID. And unfortunately, my understanding is that these trends are the most likely to impact small colleges and universities the most. I work at a SLAC (or rather, we've grown into a mid-sized liberal arts university) in a desirable location, and we've been growing every year. But I have friends that work at ones in other places that are already really struggling financially, and in fact sadly I know of at least one person in recent years who accepted a tenure-track job at a SLAC only to be let go a year or two into the job due to downsizing. 

Anyway, this might be going on with the SLAC job market. I think it would be great to hear from people who actually work at SLACs whether they think there's anything to this explanation, or whether something else is up.

Five years on the academic job market (Jeremy Davis)

Jeremy Davis (Georgia) has a nice piece over on Substack detailing his five years on the academic job market in philosophy. It's a very insightful read, and worth checking out by anyone currently on the market or due to head out on it in the future. A few excerpts:

[I]t is not my aim in this post to wax poetic about this journey, what I’ve learned about myself and my profession, and so on. My goal here is rather to illuminate some of the more specific elements of my job search that, in my experience, remain relatively opaque to those who haven’t already experienced it—particularly, graduate students who are planning to enter the profession. In my case, while I knew that finding a job in academia would be hard, I didn’t have a clear enough sense of just how hard it would be—and what, specifically, my own trajectory might look like.

....

I had one first-round interview for a VAP in ethics, which yielded a fly-out, which yielded an offer. This was for a 3-year position at West Point, which I accepted—though I only ended up staying for two years (which, of course, is normal and expected for these types of jobs).

I should note here, in case you’re reading this and don’t know me personally: I don’t have military experience; I’ve never even so much as held a gun. West Point hires civilian instructors regularly. (I find some people mistake my working at West Point as an indication that I’ve served, but I want to be clear that I haven’t.)

...

I asked (as one does) during my fly-out at West Point whether there were any concerns about my candidacy. I was told that there was some concern about my comparative lack of teaching experience. (Remember: I had taught two courses on my own, and had a wealth of TA experience at that point.) It obviously didn’t prevent me from getting the job, but in a different candidate pool, it could have been a significant barrier.

(How) do jobs prioritize domestic candidates?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Can someone working at a Canadian institution, and preferably someone who has been part of hiring committees, speak to the typical 'Canadians will be given priority' line in most job ads at Canadian universities. It would be helpful to know how this is actually put in practice when it comes to selecting candidates. What I am most curious about is whether it is already effective at the interview stage, or whether it is more of a tiebreaker.

This would be very helpful for more than one of us, I assume.

Good question. A couple of readers submitted helpful responses. One writes:

I am on the job market now (non-Canadian but have a Canadian degree). The priority has been real for me. I have watched two recent searches at two different Canadian universities. The total 7 candidates who were invited to Campus were all Canadians. (You can tell by looking at the places where they got their bachelor's degrees.) It's only two incidents, but I believe many Canadian institutions just go for Canadian candidates (anyway, there are plenty of good candidates!)

And another writes:

I can speak to this. I am a Canadian, and I have worked in the USA and Europe. The Canadian law is interpreted the same way the equivalent US law is. The US schools are less explicit about advertising it ... but it is more or less the same. The very competitive schools have ways of working around things, such that they can hire who they want without difficulty (they also have legal departments to take care of this). The smaller schools - or ones outside the more competitive rank - tend to not have resources to hire foreigners. There is paperwork involved - costly paperwork. When I was hired by a state college, they needed to apply for a labor certificate saying I was the most qualified candidate, and there was not a qualified American. I know at least one of my competitors - and they were no match for me. But smaller schools do not want to do this, and then have you leave after a year or so. I did not leave so quickly! They got more than their money's worth from me.

It would be great to hear from other readers who are in the know, both in Canada (as this is what the OP asked about), but also in other countries (such as, but not limited to, the US). To what extent do/must hiring departments prioritize domestic over foreign job candidates? 

Unusual Interview Questions

By Trevor Hedberg

Later this week, I will be helping with a workshop designed to help ABD grad students prepare for job interviews. There are some questions that are asked in almost every job interview, but almost all the ones I've done have also featured at least one rather unusual or idiosyncratic question. Here are a few such questions that struck me as odd when I was asked them:

• What does "social justice" mean to you?
• Wouldn't you agree that the way you described [a specific study mentioned in my writing sample] was inaccurate? (I reread the study after the interview and discovered that, as I suspected, I had not described it inaccurately, but I didn't feel comfortable saying that so straightforwardly in the interview.)
• When I teach [subject in the job ad], I teach it through [modality A], [modality B], and [modality C]. What different modalities do you use to teach that subject? (Given how the faculty member described them, the "modalities" were sort of like different disciplinary perspectives, but the course under discussion was common philosophy course.)

These are relatively mild compared to some of the stories I've been told, however. I was hoping that some of you might have particularly rare or unusual interview questions that you are willing to share so that I could give workshop attendees some examples. If you have an example of an unusual interview question that you were once asked, please post it as a comment.

Addressing peer-review bottlenecks in job apps?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I am a postdoc on the job market and I only have minor publications on my CV. I currently have three publications under review; one of this paper has been reviewed for a year at a highly-regarded journal in my main AOS and another is stuck in a third R&R round since May. The difficulty for finding reviewers may be explained by the fact that I use an unusual empirically-informed methodology in philosophy.

Would it be a good idea to address the impact of the reviewing bottleneck on my research in my job documents? And if so, how? Instead of directly addressing this situation in my cover letter, a way to hint at this situation could be to add on my CV and/or research statement the dates since my papers have been under review or through R&R. Or, would it be better to have my letter writers addressing this situation in their letters?

These are good questions, but although I could be wrong, I unfortunately suspect that addressing these issues in job-market materials (either in a cover letter or letters of recommendation) is unlikely to help very much. From a hiring perspective, search committees have incentives to hire people who publish enough--and publish quickly enough--to get tenure. They also typically have hundreds of candidates, many of whom have robust publishing records, and who they may favor for that reason alone.

Fortunately, I think, all is not lost. Search committees, at least in my experience, also care a great deal about the nature and quality of a person's work and will sometimes hire someone with few publications because their research is particularly unique and exciting. My department hired someone like that a few years back--someone whose research was so different than everyone else in our pile that we just had to interview her, and she knocked our socks off and we ended up hiring her.

Postdocs requiring projects beyond the dissertation?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

This question might be too specific, especially given the UK focus, but I think there is no harm in asking.

I am looking to apply for a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship and one of the criteria is that "the project put forward should therefore not be a reworking or mere extension of the candidate’s doctoral research project". I was wondering if anyone had a sense of how distinct a project has to be in these sorts of circumstances?

For instance, suppose my doctoral thesis was on distributive justice, would another project on distributive justice but in a different domain be considered an extension of the project?

Or suppose my thesis was fairly theoretical, but I now want to explore similar questions in applied/practical philosophy, but informed by my previous work. Would this be considered sufficiently different?

More broadly, do people have a sense about the merits of this kind of project versus one on a very different subject but still in ones broad research specialism?

These are fair questions, and not too specific at all! I'm not all that well-placed to answer the questions, as I've never applied to let alone hired for postdoc positions like this. However, I suspect that "[exploring] similar questions in applied/practical philosophy, but informed by my previous work" would almost certainly run afoul of the requirement, as it sounds like a clear extension of one's dissertation project. I'm less sure about whether "another project on distributive justice but in a different domain [would] be considered an extension of the project", and suspect that the answer is probably something like, "Well, it depends on how similar that project is, albeit in a different domain." 

But again, I'm not at all sure about any of this. It would be great to hear some answers from people who are more in-the-know!

Postdoc application tips?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

I find postdocs to be the most opaque jobs to apply for in terms of what criteria might be used to assess my application. I’m specifically talking about postdocs, fellow, or JRF-type jobs that are not focused on a specific/defined research project. Often, these job ads are very short and the department websites can be more undergrad-focused, which makes saying anything about working there or what I would bring to the table speculative and genera at best.

Are there any specific things that committees look for? Any things you would include or mention in those applications’ cover letters or research statements? (To clarify, I don’t have publications to highlight yet. So, I know that would be an obvious thing to highlight. I’m looking for less obvious things to mention.) Does having fewer research programs discussed in more depth the way to go or is it better to have many projects? (The second strategy may increase one’s chances of having something catch a committee’s eye. But, the first strategy could be better in many other ways.)

It would be very helpful to hear tips and advice from people who were successful in landing postdocs like this (e.g., Society of Fellows, MIT’s Stalnaker postdoc, etc.). Also, if any search committees have any suggestions for applicants (or their pet peeves to signal *what not to do*), that would be great too!

Good questions! Another reader submitted the following reply:

You absolutely have to have publications for post docs, and especially the Society of Fellows, etc. Alternatively you have to come from an Ivey league school - Harvard, Princeton, Yale. You are not competitive for these elite post docs without a great track record upon graduation.

Maybe this is true, though I guess I'm doubtful that flat generalizations like these tend to be true. Anyway, it might be helpful to hear from others, particularly those who (as the OP notes) have been successful in landing postdocs, but also from people who hire postdocs. Any helpful tips for the OP and others in their position?

Job market playlist?

Now that many job application deadlines have passed and news is starting to trickle in on our job-market reporting thread, candidates have to endure the proverbial waiting game. I remember all too well from my 7 years on the marker how stressful of a time this can be, and I often had to console myself listening to music on long walks around the neighborhood with my dog.

For me, music has always been a source of solace in tough times. So, I was thinking we might crowdsource songs from readers that people might use to put together job-market playlists. Some of us (like me), tend to prefer downcast songs, others of us upbeat, uplifting ones. Here are a few of the former that I used to listen to while I was on the market... 

What about you all? Any recommendations?

Why require writing samples?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

If a candidate has a number of papers that are available on the inter webs, what is the function of the writing sample? Assuming that I would choose one of those publications, it seems to me that I'm not exactly giving them something they don't already have.

Maybe it's a way of pointing to the paper I like the most? Is most representative of where I've been/where I want to go?

The answer to these questions is, I think, much simpler than this. Another reader submitted the following reply:

[D]o you really think that when faced with literally hundreds of applications people have the time to google somebody, find their website or philpapers, pick a paper to read, etc.? I (and many people!) look at writing samples pre-first-cut (not read them carefully, but browse through them and read some of them when they catch my eye), and if I had to do my own internet research on each candidate to do so it would take... way, way more time than the already way too much time it takes to be on a search committee.

Indeed. Most jobs not only receive hundreds of candidates, but each of those candidates' application materials contain a half-dozen documents, ranging from cover letters to CVs, teaching portfolios, research statements, and letters of recommendation. People on hiring committees have to sift through all of these materials in addition to otherwise working in a full-time job (teaching full course loads, research, mentoring, etc.). While we very may well check out other work of candidates we are interested in, it just isn't viable, time-wise for search committee members to go through this for every candidate. Hence, writing samples.

Still, I think there's a perhaps a better question implicit in the OP's query: namely, what a candidate's choice of writing sample says (or should say) about them. For example, in discussions here and elsewhere, it's often said that candidates should "submit their best work." But is that all? What if their best work is a small self-contained piece that doesn't bear much relation to their broader research agenda? Would it be better to submit a piece of work that shows "where their research is heading"?

I'm curious to hear what readers think!

Beyond the Ivory Tower applications open

This is just a quick note that the Beyond the Ivory Tower writing workshops on public-facing academic work have opened applications for their next workshop this March. I participated in one of the Workshops this past September and recommend it very highly!

Here's more from the email they sent out:

Our next workshop will be held March 10th and 11th, 2023, and will be open to applicants who apply by December 1st. Apply here. 

It will be taught by James Ryerson, a senior opinion editor at the New York Times. 

Selected attendees will receive two days of training and a $2,000 stipend to offset travel and lodging costs, as well as ongoing access to our alumni community and support network through 2026. You'll leave with a carefully workshopped "ideas" piece, ripe for pitching. 

You can find more information here. You can learn more about our work by watching these masterclass videos and checking out this podcast about popular writing.

Teaching Mill's Colonialism (and Other Great Mistakes of Great Philosophers)

By Sam Duncan

I made a mistake in my ethics class this semester: I canceled John Stuart Mill. To be quite honest it wasn’t entirely Mill’s history as an administrator for the East India Company or the fact that he was the author of an unsuccessful defense of the company and its (mis)deeds in the wake of the Indian rebellion that made me drop him from the syllabus. Mill’s Utilitarianism was on the bubble. Mill has an ability to turn a phrase yes, but students are often confused by the meandering presentation of Utilitarianism where he spends much more time arguing with an imagined opponent than presenting the theory itself, and it is hard to overstate how much the higher/lower pleasures stuff muddies the water while also solving no problems whatsoever. But Mill's history as a colonialist and defender of colonialism pushed Utilitarianism over the line for me. The fact that J.S. Mill spent most of his working life involved in a project of injustice and oppression and devoted some of his considerable intellectual and literary gifts to defending that project seemed to settle what would otherwise be a close call. In retrospect, I realize that Mill’s colonialism is actually a powerful reason to keep him on the syllabus. He made huge mistakes, and if someone wants to tear down statues of him I won’t argue against that. But like many mistakes made by great philosophers, and Mill is certainly that, there is much to learn from his mistakes. By dropping him from our syllabi we would deprive students of the opportunity to do just this.

NTT job at The University of Tampa (AOS: environmental)

Readers of the Cocoon who are the job-market this year may have noticed that my department is looking to hire a full-time, non-tenure-track Teaching Assistant Professor, AOS: Environmental Ethics/Environmental Philosophy. As there are a couple of potentially confusing things about our ad on PhilJobs, I thought that I would clarify a couple of things:

1. The "full consideration deadline" in the ad was November 1st, but the ad also lists a hard deadline of November 14th and says that "applications will be reviewed until the position is filled." We are thus currently considering applications, but if you have not applied already and plan to apply, please do apply by November 14th.
2. Although the position is non-tenure-track, it is in principle a 'permanent' and promotable position (there are three Teaching Assistant Professor levels at my university analogous to Associate and full Professor, and the position is renewable in perpetuity).

So, if you are a job candidate interested in a stable, full-time, promotable job in environmental ethics (and willing to live in Florida), please do consider applying if you haven't already!

Sending a conference commentator a longer paper?

In our newest "how can we help you?" thread, Future Conference Presenter writes:

A conference question: Someone will be commenting on a paper of mine for the first time at the Eastern APA, and I have to give them a "final draft" by the end of the month. The conference itself only allows ~3,000 word submission, but the full paper is ~7,000 words.

If I give my commentator the shorter paper, there is a good chance they will bring up some good objections that I address in the longer version. But of course the 7,000 word version was not submitted and requires more effort to review. Should I reach out and ask the commentator what they prefer? Is it rude to just send them the longer version? Should I send both? Thanks!

Interesting questions. One reader, 'moral police', submitted the following reply:

You should ONLY send the 3000 word version that was accepted by the conference program. That is what you have been invited to present.

But another reader, an anonymous postdoc, writes:

I don't know the specific norms of the APA, but speaking personally I would probably like to receive both. I'd definitely think it was rude if you only sent me the 7,000 when 3,000 was specified—this would indicate you think I should be putting in the effort to read a longer version rather than you putting in the effort to make a good shorter version. But I can't imagine someone thinking it was rude to offer them both, since they can simply ignore the 7,000 one if they don't have time/prefer the shorter version/whatever.

I'm curious what other readers think.

On the one hand, I totally understand where 'moral police' is coming from. If the conference itself says that papers are to be 3,000 words long max, then it would not only go against the conference policy to present a longer version--even suggesting to a commentator that they read a 7,000 word version is to, in essence, ask for something that they did not 'sign up for' (which does seem rude to me). I also worry that presenting a longer version of the paper would be likely to go overtime in the conference session itself, eating into either the commentator's time or the Q&A (which can happen if the session chair doesn't enforce speaking times properly, which can easily happen). Finally, what if the session chair or conference organizers find out (perhaps if they are notified by an irritated commentator)? I imagine they might not be very happy about it...

On the other hand, I can also imagine that some commentators might prefer to read the longer reason, as they might not want to raise questions or objections that the author actually addresses in a longer version. 

So, I guess I'm really not sure. What do other readers think? 

New editorial team at Philosophia

Mitch Green and the Associate Editors at Philosophia write in:

The journal Philosophia has a new editorial team. Mitch Green of the Univ. of Connecticut recently stepped in as Editor-in-Chief and longtime Editor Asa Kasher will remain as Co-Editor-in-Chief with Mitch until stepping down at the end of 2022. (Associate Editor Amir Horowitz will also remain in his position until the end of 2022.) The journal also has a new team of Associate Editors, namely Emma Gordon (Glasgow); Polycarp Ikuenobe (Kent State); Iris Vidmar Jovanović (Rijeka); Jan Michel (Düsseldorf); Linda Radzik (Texas A&M). Kaley Rittichier (Connecticut) is currently serving as Managing Editor. It is expected that at least one more Associate Editor will be appointed in the coming months. Philosophia remains a general philosophy journal and welcomes broadly accessible submissions on all topics of current philosophical interest. Philosophia will continue to commission Author-Meets-Critics symposia, and starting in 2023 will commission state-of-the art essays accessible to a wide audience. Due to the growing number of high-quality submissions, the journal has moved from publishing four issues per year to five.

For more information, please visit Philosophia’s homepage, or contact Mitch Green ([email protected]). Mitch will also be happy to respond to any questions that Phil. Cocoon readers pose here.

 

How can we help you? (November 2022)

Now that it's been a month since our last "how can we help you?" thread, it's time for a new one.

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.

As usual, 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.)
• Issues in the profession (including issues of social justice)
• Graduate school
• Publishing
• Teaching
• Work-life balance
• Mental health & well-being
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Ask away - we're here to help! 

Important reminder: if you submit a comment in this thread responding to someone's query, I won't post it, as this makes it difficult for me to keep track of everything in the comments section, particularly which queries I've started new threads on and which ones I have not. However, if you do post a follow-up comment, chances are good that I will post it in the new thread I start on the relevant query. So, do feel free to submit responses. Just know that they won't appear in this particular thread and might instead appear later in a new post.

Writing a good conference abstract?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

What makes for a strong abstract when submitting to conferences and workshops?

A CFA has just opened for a prestigious and competitive workshop in my subfield. It's much easier to get an understanding of what makes for a strong paper - simply read papers published in prestigious journals. But the kinds of elongated abstracts that you submit as workshop proposals don't (to my knowledge) tend to be available online. So, how should you write the abstract? What should you include? How detailed should your summary of your arguments be? Can you focus on particular sections of the paper and gloss over others, or do you need to detail every step of the paper? Should you make any arguments in the abstract itself? And should you include citations and/or a bibliography?

All good questions! I think the answers probably depend a lot on the length of the abstract. Some conferences ask for 500 word abstracts, whereas others ask for ones that are significantly longer (1000 words). My guess is that what probably matters most is the "hook" (i.e. how interesting is your thesis), and whether it looks like you have promising looking arguments to back it up--but I realize this probably isn't very helpful.

In any case, my sense is that including citations/partial bibliographies are pretty standard in these, as they show that you've actually done scholarship on the topic (rather than just written something up without knowing the background literature). 

But these are just some quick, off-the-cuff thoughts. It would be good to hear from people who organize conferences and judge abstracts: what do you think makes for a good abstract submission?

How are articles in invite-only journals regarded?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks

How are publications in invite-only journals (like Phil Issues and Phil Topics) viewed? These journals often perform very badly in journal rankings (i.e. the Leiter polls), but I have the impression that those polls might be significantly understating the reputation of these journals. Is that right?

Good question. I have to confess that I'm not certain, but I suspect that people might consider papers in these journals primarily on a case-by-case basis (i.e. "you have to read the paper" to know how good it is). Frankly, I think this is probably the best way to evaluate a paper in any journal, but for all that, I suspect that people are more inclined to actually think this way for papers in journals like these (whereas there may be a greater tendency to evaluate papers in other journals by how prestigious the venue is).

But this is really just me speculating. What do you all think? It would be great to hear from everyone, but particularly from people who have served on hiring or tenure-and-promotion committees! 

Acknowledging reviewers properly?

In our October "how can we help you?" thread, a reader asks:

Is there a preferred way to decide when to acknowledge a specific reviewer comment with a dedicated footnote, instead of offering a general thank-you in an acknowledgments section? For example, suppose a reviewer recommends I cite a paper that I have not cited, or asks for additional argument in support of a premise. If I make requested changes like these, should I flag them and thank "an anonymous reviewer" in individual footnotes? Or is a single/general acknowledgments note enough?

These are good questions. I standardly acknowledge reviewers in comments, but sometimes also do so in a dedicated footnote here or there to thank them for asking me to address a particular issue or objection, if it seems to me a particularly important one. But I don't have any formula for this. 

What do other authors do/consider to be a best practice here?