How can we help you? (December 2024)

Now that it's been several months 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 (including in the age of A.I.)
• Work-life balance
• Mental health & well-being
• Personal struggles
• Etc.

Ask away - we're here to help! 

Finally, a quick reminder of the following RULE: Please do not submit replies to other comments in this thread. It makes these threads unwieldy and difficult for me to keep track of which queries I've posted new threads on. If you'd like to respond to a comment in this thread, please wait until I dedicate a new post to the person's query myself and comment in that thread instead!

Comments

[Jealous]

I would like to hear more about the "real" differences in teaching load between a research-oriented program and a teaching-oriented program.

I am curious about this because I feel that the numbers of courses could be very misleading. I work in a teaching-oriented, undergraduate-only program, and the standard teaching load for us is 3/2. The typical teaching load in a research-oriented program seems to be 2/2 (I could be wrong though). However, I feel that my teaching load is way more than just one course, and I almost have no time doing research during the semester. I have never gone to more than one conference during a semester: simply canceling classes for conferences seems less acceptable in my institution, and I usually fell behind on grading/teaching if I went to a conference.

I have never taught in a research-oriented department, and my impression of the teaching load at such a place is mostly from my time in graduate school. It seems to me that professors at research-oriented programs usually have TAs for service courses, so they only need to teach in the classroom and done with teaching, leaving grading for their TAs. TAs can also cover classes so professors go to quite a few conferences during semesters. They can also teach on topics that align well with their research. So, the actual teaching load in a research-oriented program is way lighter.

Am I right? I would like to learn more about this. Thank you!

[Senior and confused]

I could use some advice on navigating the job market as an associate professor. Unfortunately, my university is going through a budgetary crisis, and so I'm going back on the job market. This season, I applied to a few open-rank positions, but is it common practice for senior candidates to apply also to tenure-track jobs? Do committees hire senior candidates into t-t positions? Do they then grant those candidates tenure in the new position, or do the new hires have to start all over again on the tenure track? Thanks in advance for any advice you can give.

[asking for feedback]

Is it ever okay to ask a hiring committee (e.g. the chair) for feedback on your job market materials if you were denied an interview? Here's the scenario I have in mind: a school posts an ad which is a very good fit for you, you spend a significant amount of time on your materials (e.g. tailoring cover letter to the job, etc.), but they don't even interview you. In that situation, is it okay to ask the hiring committee for feedback and advice, purely in the spirit of trying to improve your materials? Or is that too much of an ask?

[Alice Watson]

First-year PhD student here. What are my prospects for academic employment in philosophy at R1 institutions given my PhD in social sciences from a top 3 globally ranked university? Would publishing 2–3 papers in leading political philosophy journals before graduation outweigh the lack of a formal philosophy PhD? Also, how might publishing in non-philosophy journals be perceived—would it strengthen my interdisciplinary appeal or work against me? For context, I hold a master’s degree in philosophy, but my undergraduate degree is in another field.

[Doxastic Doxing]

Many of my colleagues and especially students are being drawn to a kind of philosophy that strikes me as bad for them and for the field. It's basically a sort that redrescribes practices that are obviously harmful, especially to marginalized people, in novel epistemology-ish terms, and piles on about how bad they are, maybe in newish but less novel social justice-y terms. It doesn't really teach us anything new. The harms, though obvious, aren't empirically investigated, and the fancy new terms only redescribe what needs no redescription. It's exactly the kind of circle-running that gives us all a bad name, at a time when we can least afford it. And for students, I feel like it stifles their growth (and I've seen some awesome ones go in for this stuff).

The problem is, when you're the only one standing against it, you seem like you are insufficiently behind the social justice program that allegedly drives it, even when you're fully on board. Why, folks wonder, are you in such a tizzy about this, of all things? It must be you, not them...

Any advice? Anyone else feeling this, too??

[lmk]

Preparing myself for the market next year. Wondering if anyone could give me their sense of my chances based on my overall profile: PhD candidate from a top-10 leiter program, 2 publications in good, but not tip-top journals, and a person of colour.

[Anonymous]

I've been having difficulties tracking essay competitions in Philosophy. Although I already receive some updates from the Philosophy e-mail list, many of these competitions are annual and sparse throughout the internet so it would be interesting to have an idea about when they are receiving papers to better organize myself

[A Philosopher Named Slickback]

With deadlines coming up for graduate programs, I am wondering if I, in my academic statements, should include professors that I would like to work with. I have got conflicting advice on this, some say "do not name drop" other say "name drop! So long as you know that they align with your research interests."

Second, on my application, I have been told NOT to add the schools that I am applying to, i.e., applying to UCLA, do not add that I am also applying to x, y, or z schools so that it either 1. build some competition or urgency at the school you're applying too? 2. It makes them think, "Oh well, they will get into x school. They will choose us." I have also heard naming other schools is good because they are more likely to choose you; they can have some sort of vision as to who they are competing with. Again, these are all things I have heard, and I have no idea what to do...

[Zili Dong]

I would like to hear people's opinion about co-authorship in philosophy. To make my question more concrete, let me cite a specific example. In a manuscript by Samuel Elgin (https://philarchive.org/rec/ELGTGO) who is the single author, Elgin says in a footnote that "I am especially indebted to Pauliina Rumm, who first raised the puzzle of the grounds of nonground to me. Though the theory I develop here is my own, credit for identifying the puzzle goes entirely to her."

Elgin is very generous to give the credit for identifying the puzzle entirely to Rumm, but I was wondering whether Rumm deserves to be listed as a co-author. If the above information is not enough to answer the question, then hypothetically, what kind of contribution to the paper is sufficient for Rumm to earn a co-authorship in philosophy? What do people think?

PS: I notice that Pauliina Rumm had given a presentation earlier in July at the International Wittgenstein Symposium entitled "A Puzzle About Grounding and Specification" (https://centerforgermanphilosophy.uchicago.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/International-Wittgenstein-Symposium-Program.pdf). But I didn't attend the Symposium so I don't know what Rumm has said in her paper. Perhaps someone who's attended the Symposium can provide some more information.

[first-time job hunter]

Where can I find job ads for other countries? (I'm US-based) I know sometimes philjobs or insidehighered will post some international jobs and jobs.ac.uk posts UK-based jobs. I'd also like to apply for jobs in Canada, and Europe, but haven't really seen much.

[Hermias]

Grading with a straight bat? I have a couple of students this semester who have been completely dire; numerous absences, zero participation, no posts on the discussion board, late and poor writing assignments. On paper, based on the syllabus, they should get Fs. It’s an intro class that is required for all students. Am I a teddy bear for wanting to just give them Ds and send them on their merry way?

Relatedly, any advice about the “end of semester begging email” - this other kid last attended 10/31 then emails me to say that they’ve been struggling mentally, that a friend of theirs died. Hard to verify any of these claims, or what to do if true. Another kid emailed me to say that their parent had died, another that their parent was sick in the hospital, etc.

[ScaredEarlyCareer]

Philosophy is such a harsh and judgmental field and as an early career philosopher, it's debilitating to think that I am constantly being nitpicked at when I apply to jobs, submit to journals, give talks, etc. (I have friends who are scarred from hearing faculty discuss job candidates). Can anyone give me tips on how to overcome this fear of judgment, especially since this is what makes/breaks your career?

[Specialist]

As someone who writes mostly in a "specialist" field of philosophy (in my case, philosophy of religion), I was wondering if anyone out there has good thumb rules about what kind of "specialist" philosophy to send to generalist journals and where. Obviously the material needs to be understandable to non-specialists, but maybe someone can say more?

[Preemptive Mid-Career Crisis]

I have a couple of questions about the transition from the early-career stage to the mid-career stage, particularly with respect to research:

(1) How do sabbaticals realistically work? It seems like almost everyone goes to visit another institution for a long time, but I don’t see how that’s feasible if you’ve got young children, or a spouse or partner with location-specific work, or elderly family to take care of. I also do not understand if these visits are typically like “official” visiting positions or something less formal. When I have asked about this, I feel like I do not get the kind of detailed answers that would be helpful for planning.

(2) I’ve been told that this early-to-mid-career time is when you should start thinking about a book project, and that you should have some publications out in support of your book project.” I can see that often whole chapters of books are drawn on material from published papers. But how many papers should one draw on? How do you know when you have an established enough body of work to satisfy a well-regarded press?

(3) I’m also wondering if anyone else has felt like they kind of messed up their early career. I feel weird and bad about feeling this way, as I am lucky enough to have a tenure-track job, I have met all the relevant requirements for promotion and tenure, and I have really supportive colleagues. But I kind of think that nobody is reading my work, and I don't know how to engage with other people whose work I admire. I feel like I missed the boat on setting up good professional networks. So much of “professionalization” seems to be about surviving the “publish or perish” years rather than setting up a flourishing intellectual life with other people in the profession. How weird would it be for me to just cold-email people to say, “Hey, I really like your work. I've discussed your work in my work. Can we talk shop sometime?” or "Hey, we've interacted professionally a bit. I'm working on this paper and I would love to get some feedback from you, given your really cool paper on the topic." Obviously, conferences can be great for this, but the same practical constraints mentioned above about sabbaticals are relevant here, too, if to a lesser degree. Any advice, emotional and/or practical, would be greatly appreciated.

[a masters student in phil]

I am a masters student in philosophy and I currently have a paper under external review at one of the "top-25 general philosophy journals" listed on this webpage:
https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2022/07/best-general-philosophy-journals-2022.html

Of course, I am happy and excited and nervous and somewhat terrified about this at the same time! And I have a couple questions about this kind of experience:
1. Since I'm applying to PhD programs in the upcoming cycle, I wonder if it would be appropriate for me to list the paper in the "under review" section of my c.v.? (I've seen many early career philosophers do that, so I was curious.)
2. If the answer to the previous question is affirmative, then what is the best way for me to do that? (I.e., should I list the journal title? should I indicate what stage it's in?)
3. How do I cope with the anxiety associated with waiting to hear back from the journal? Any tips, advice, suggestions would be greatly appreciated!
4. Lastly, what does it mean to have a paper under external review at a journal at the Masters stage? (I know that there are many people who have done this, but I just don't know any of such people personally, and so I was hoping to get a better, general sense of what this whole publication thing means at this stage in my career/life.)

Thank you so much in advance!!

[mossy]

I am curious about how non-philosophy teaching on a CV is perceived by search committees.

In other words, is teaching a person may have done in other disciplines irrelevant or is it seen as a positive indication of teaching experience that gets lesser weight than philosophy teaching experience? In particular, I am curious about a scenario where a person might have more teaching experience in a different discipline than in philosophy. Is that person evaluated only according to the philosophy teaching experience or is the non-philosophy teaching experience also factored in somewhat.

[Manuscripter]

Is it advisable to post unpublished manuscripts online (assuming one has already perfected them based on much feedback from many colleagues)? I have noticed that some philosophers do this, but most don't. What are the pros and cons?

[RA]

Does anyone have any advice about how to engage with undergraduate research assistants? How can I make this relationship mutually fruitful? How can undergrads help with philosophical research? What sort of support does such a relationship require?

[LLL]

I am an international student. I have a paper published in a well-regarded journal, though not top-tier (I am the first author, and my supervisor is the second author. His contribution was to provide feedback and suggestions; the paper was written by me). Despite this, I intend to use this paper as my writing sample for application. I would like to know if this is acceptable.

[Seeking to understand]

Hello, I'm wondering what the difference is between SPEP Continental philosophy and Leiter Continental philosophy? I saw someone reference this distinction on a comment on this website. I can kind of intuit that there's a difference, but don't really understand what it is. For the record, I don't do continental, but I'm fairly sympathetic.

Also, in general, does anyone have any insight into what SPEP (Society for Phenomenology and Existential Philosophy) is all about?

[Curious Teacher]

I’m interested in trends for teaching-only jobs. I know that Lecturer/VAP positions have been around for many years, and I’ve held these myself. In recent years, I’ve noticed an increased number of ads for “Instructional Assistant Professors,” “Assistant Teaching Professors,” etc. Some of these seem to have more expectation of permanency than the Lecturer positions, and I’ve seen some with promotion schedules. But the position titles are not consistently applied.

Have others observed this trend? Do others perceive that these are more permanent than Lecturers? Those of you chairing searches or involved in obtaining permission to run searches, what considerations prompt you to seek a teaching-only position? I wonder, for instance if they are less common in schools with graduate programs, because perhaps the grad students fill some of those needs. And what determines the position title?

I ask because, after a decade in the profession, teaching philosophy is my greatest strength. As I make some decisions about my future, I’d love to hear about trends in teaching-only jobs.

[Anonymous TA]

I would like some advice about how to deal with student complaints. I’m a TA at a university which, to my eye, has some pretty serious issues with grade inflation. Recently, I submitted participation grades for my students and received an unexpectedly large influx of complaints, despite the fact that the average mark I assigned was an A-. Unfortunately, the academic culture here among the undergraduates seems to be to complain until someone capitulates. As much as I would like to counteract this uncharitable sentiment, my feeling has been that many students take a very transactional approach to their classes which is dispiriting. As a TA, I feel I am in a difficult position considering that I don’t have authority about the academic and grading standards for the course.

[first impressions]

I have a question about web presence. I'm in my second year on the job market.

I know that some committee members google candidates, because they leave a footprint on linkedin, academia.edu, philpeople. I do not use social media apart from those sites.

If you google my name, one of the first things to come up is a reddit comment from a student in the first week of classes in the first class I taught, a year ago. It expresses extreme frustration at my shaky lecturing. It also expresses frustration at the fact that their department (biomedical sciences) requires them to take this philosophy course -- but that's mentioned as an aside. Two other students from the same class chime in, agreeing. A student from another course I was teaching the same term, in which I had a better first week, expresses disagreement, but that's a ways down the thread.

The reddit thread is a year old. My teaching evaluations are so-so and can't entirely counterbalance it. Students tend to give fairly balanced critiques that reflect the real weaknesses in my lecture style -- though they also say other things that reflect strengths in the facilitation of classroom discussion. In other words, the reddit thread expresses (though also sort of caricatures) a genuine shortcoming.

Since this thread, which has been dormant for almost a year, is still at the top of my google results, I've started to think that it might be a good idea to ask for advice about the effect that this might have, and whether there is anything I can or should do to counterbalance it. (The problem is partly related to the google algorithm, which places reddit results near the top of the results, but that's not within anyone's control.)

[Carmen]

I’m a few years into my first job and I have a semester-long sabbatical coming up next year, and I’m trying to figure out what to do for it. I have heard of people doing visiting fellowships and stuff like that while on sabbatical but I don’t really get how this works, how to get them, or where they would be advertized, what the application cycle looks like, and what constitutes a good position/what I should look for. Can anyone offer some guidance on this?

[OS]

I'm wondering if there are any periods in the year when it is simply not worth submitting to a journal and instead sitting on a finished draft in case, e.g., you spot something that needs tweaking. I am thinking of the fact that right now many people are potentially taking a break for Xmas, and so very few editors or potential referees are actively checking their inboxes. Can anyone speak from personal experience here?

[VAP]

How different should a cover letter for a VAP position should be from a TT position? Should one talk about research at all (or minimal)? I'm guessing one should focus on teaching and that's about it?

[PhD student]

I'm a PhD student, with two pretty fancy publications and nothing else published so far. I have another article draft prepared but it got rejected from the top journals in the relevant subfield. Is it risky to send it to a medium-ranked journal or even a lower-ranked journal? Will that look like a stain on my CV that lowers my average, or will it just have an addititive affect considering I already have two other fancier publications?

Thank you!

[anon]

I've heard some discussion of getting a JD before a PhD in philosophy (e.g., on Leiter's site), but I haven't heard anything in reverse: going from a PhD in philosophy to a JD. So, I'm interested in answers to any/all of these questions:

A) Would having a PhD in philosophy give an applicant a significant advantage in law school admissions?

B) Would this route make one more or less competitive at schools with AOS in political philosophy or philosophy of law?

C) Is going from a PhD in philosophy to practicing law a viable alt-ac route that others have taken?

[teaching philosophy?]

I have seen several religious SLACs ask for Teaching Philosophies rather than Teaching Statements. I don't think they are using philosophy and statement synonymously; it seems like they really want your philosophy of teaching and not just the standard fare statement where you list 1-2 pedagogical goals and give concrete examples of how you achieve them.

So, I'm wondering: how do you write an excellent Teaching *Philosophy,* especially for religious SLACs?

[handouter]

Is the convention for job talks to use slides, either instead of or in addition to a handout? Really hoping the answer is no, as I hate slides, but I've heard this from enough people that I wanted to check...

[David]

Is it better to have more publications when going on the job-market, or fewer? I'm not from the fanciest of PhD programs, most of our graduates end up teaching at smaller regional colleges/universities. My question isn't whether it is best to have more/fewer publications in order to "publish into getting" a job at a Research Universities or a prestigious SLAC, but whether it is better to have more/fewer when applying in general.

[anon]

i recently got ‘conditional acceptance’ for my paper. what exactly are the norms here? Should I separetely write a report in which I address the reviewer comments and the changes I made? Or should I just revise the paper and send the final version without any report? Also, are small changes (that are not mentioned in the reviewer’s comments.. such as changing the title a bit) okay?

[editor]

I'm co-editing a volume, and we're interested in making it open access. Unfortunately the fees are exorbitant and our respective institutions offer no financial support.
(1) Are there grants for funding open access and, if so, which bodies give them out? (We're based in Europe and the US in case it matters.)
(2) Can one negotiate open access fees with a publisher and, if so, what's a good way to go about this?

[Carmen]

Hi I wrote the question on sabbaticals and visiting positions above but it seems to have been passed over, I just wanted to “bump” it in case this wasn’t intentional

[Anony]

How (if at all) are people dealing with the rise of student emails being created by AI? I have noticed it more than ever this semester. Out of the 20 or so recent student emails with override requests, about 15 of them have been pretty obviously AI-created.

Is this just a new reality we have to adjust to? Are people generally okay with this? I find it frustrating, in part because it is a sign of just how much our students have ceded even minute aspects of their lives over to AI. But I am also annoyed that I am reading through a bunch of 3-4 paragraph AI emails filled with sanitized nonsense about how this course fits into their educational journey, when they could have just typed up their own two-sentence email for a simple override request.

[Ruzana]

Hello everyone! I am hoping to ask a serious question, especially to the ladies (and gentlemen as well) in philosophy who are married, what is it like to have a husband/partner who are non-academician and work on technical jobs like strategic management, big data or logictic, which are more practical rather than philosophical? Do you guys still vibe and get along well? Especially in considering marriage decision. Thank you in advance admin for posting this!

[B]

Hi!

I've received a referee report from a journal that looks very much like it was written using AI. (Five short paragraphs structured like an undergrad essay, vague and general, slightly contradictory---it says my arguments are compelling but there's room for rebuttal.) Should I say or do anything about it?

[MRT]

I'm increasingly teaching courses to non-philosophy majors. It's been a challenge to change my "academic dialect" to better teach these students, but so far its been successful and rewarding to find just the right way to communicate for somebody without a background (or even necessarily an interest) in our discipline. But one area I continue to struggle is finding good texts to assign. My students are baffled by academic or historical philosophy and I can't really justify it, as I would to majors, by saying that learning to read difficult philosophy is a skill they're developing.

So, here is my question: What are other teacher's go-to resources for finding philosophy readings that were written (from the ground up) to be read by the un-initiated?

[On partner’s career “reset”]

On partner’s career “reset”

I moved country to start my current academic position. It wasn’t easy. My partner works for the NHS now. The working conditions are like nothing they’ve experienced before. They are experiencing burnout and feeling hopeless regarding promotion opportunities. They are constantly being in charge of more patients than they’ve ever done anywhere. And the pay is laughable. It’s likely that their career with the NHS will be nasty, brutish, and short.

But not focusing on our particular experience. One of my non-philosopher friend’s wife used to be a public servant in Korea. After they moved here, she couldn’t find any comparable job and is now a full-time parent. Another philosopher friend’s partner simply decided to end the relationship because they didn’t want to move here.

The more general question is that we did not consider the possibility of some sort of career “reset” (or feels like being level-drained using a gaming metaphor) for my partner before I signed the contract with my current employer. I guess it is worth hearing more of such experiences. Partly I guess it would help me feel less lonely or to simply commiserate with people. But it may also provide some good stories for those who are considering moving countries for their research and career.

[School teacher]

I love philosophy, and I love doing it at an academic level, but lately, after seeing all the struggles people go through to get (and keep) professional philosophy jobs at universities, I've been wondering whatpeople find so attractive about the tenured philosophy lecturer role that makes people think it's worth all the trouble.

I'm currently a doctoral student (about to move to stage B) and I work a full time job at a local school. I find that I have plenty time to read, write and publish good philosophy, and I'm hopefully getting tenure at my school by the end of next year (with no tenure-portfolio requirements). I believe that many people who break their back to try to get TT'd or tenured can much more easily obtain and enjoy a position like mine.

What makes people lose sleep over getting a philosophy-lecturer job at a university? The funds? The freer schedule? The peers in one's department? The academic environment?
I personally could do without these, except maybe the peers. I would like to have a chance to talk to other philosophers more frequently, but I don't think that I need a job at a university for that. (On a side note, it would be nice if we independent scholars could have some organized way to know about each other and get in touch, maybe this can be discussed in a separate post.)

I'm genuinely very curious to hear what it is that makes some people value a philosophy job at a university so much, and I'd like if people can share their personal reasons.

Thank you!

[NTT problems]

I am hoping to do a bit of crowdsourcing in order to get a sense of the norms of other departments when it comes to non-tenure stream faculty being involved and voting in tenure stream job searches. As a bit of context, I am in my first year as a teaching assistant professor in a fancy R1 department. This year, my department is running two tenure stream searches and one search to hire another teaching assistant professor. Our jobs are intended to be teaching-only with some service expectations (so, no research support, research funding for conferences, grad student supervision, etc.).

These teaching assistant prof. positions are relatively new to our department, and my concern is that the tenure stream (TS) faculty are expecting us to take on many of the downsides of being a TS faculty without any of the accompanying upsides. Our (very small) teaching faculty subset is already expected to run the teaching faculty search on our own (with the addition of the chair, who will presumably be quite busy with everything else going on). We are then also expected to meet individually with all 8 of the flyout candidates for roughly an hour interview, attend all 8 job talks, and pore through all of the 8 (mostly senior) candidates' materials. This will all be happening over the span of about a month, during which time we'll also need to be conducting interviews (and later flyout) for our own job search).

When I think of what TS faculty at previous departments tended to complain to me the most about, it's often been faculty meetings and the work that comes along with job searches. We are already expected to be at the faculty meetings (even if many of them have to do with things that don’t concern us and that we don’t functionally have a say over), which is fine. My thinking, though, is that I am not hired to be a researcher and I do not have any of the associated perks (chance for tenure, research funding, dedicated research time, the option to not always be teaching during department works in progress meetings, etc.) that come with being an R1 TS faculty member who was primarily hired to be a researcher. We are now being asked, however, to take part in one of the more unpleasant duties that would typically come with being hired into one of these positions. 99.9% of the conversations in our meetings so far on the candidates, after all, have to do with assessing the candidates' research. Given the fact that we are not hired (or in any way valued) as researchers, it's hard not to feel like we're expected to shoulder many of the negatives of the TS role without any of the positives (or the pay, prestige, etc.). If we’re being honest, it’s also not the case that any research-related input we might provide when assessing these candidates would be taken seriously.

The reason I am providing so much detail is that our chair seems open to hearing me out on this, and I am hoping to convince him to let us sit the two TS searches out when it comes to voting (which would then release us from some of the aforementioned burdens). I’ve already brought up in passing that the departments I've been a part of have not had NTT faculty vote on faculty hires, but I realize that sample size is small. So, I am curious: Do NTT faculty vote on tenure stream faculty hires at your department? If so, what are the associated expectations? Out of curiosity, I'm also curious how typical it is for NTT faculty to be running their own search (with flyouts and the whole nine yards), but that's the least of my worries at the moment!

I apologize for the long post! I suppose the last relevant detail is that I am legitimately worried about being able to juggle our own search and flyouts, these 8 TS flyouts, and my teaching duties this semester, as I am teaching an entirely new prep with three sections and over 100 students to grade. So, thank you in advance for any advice and/or insight!

[Struggling Writer]

What was it like writing your first publication?

[E]

I am giving my first professional conference talk in a few months (at a conference slightly out of my AOS), and I am so nervous! In particular, I'm feeling pretty anxious about the Q&A section -- I'm not sure what the audience will be like, but in any case, I've never been someone who's good at thinking on her feet (I'd rather go home and think about mull on a bit before responding). Does anyone with similar Q&A anxiety have tips for handling Q&As at conferences?

[anon]

Are graduate students morally obligated to accept reviewer requests if they have published with the journal?

If the answer is no, a follow-up: Is it nonetheless prudential for them to accept these requests?

[peer review]

I am an early career philosopher currently in a postdoc. I have published enough in a niche subfield X that more established philosophers in TT jobs have reached out to me for feedback on their papers about X. I have gladly given feedback on those papers, either written feedback or over Zoom.

The thing is that the few times this has happened (3 times so far, from different people), I have received invitations to review those papers from top journals within a couple of months. I've never published in a top journal before. I usually accept the invitation, review the paper, and give positive, constructive feedback.

I assume that those established people are putting my contact information as a potential reviewer when submitting their paper. I don't see why a top journal would ask me to review those papers otherwise since I've never published there before. This feels weird because there's an obvious power dynamic at play here: I don't want to say no or give a negative review since the established philosophers would know it's coming from me. I feel like it would hurt my career.

Is this just common practice in the field? You send your paper to a bunch of people and then put them down as potential reviewers? Have I been approaching the peer review process all wrong? Or am I engaging in unethical peer reviewing because I feel like I cannot do otherwise, considering power dynamics? Am I being taken advantage of?

I just received another invitation to review, and it's been making me feel very anxious. I have had a bad year on the job market and received a few journal rejections over the past month. I am just not in a good place right now. And yet, I feel like I must accept this invitation because otherwise, those established philosophers will hold a grudge against me. I also feel silly for *not* doing what those people are doing and sending papers into the void of the peer review process instead of strategizing to make sure it gets in the right hands.

Any thoughts, advice, words of wisdom? Am I overreacting to this?

[Book]

I am curious about how/when people read books that are not directly relevant to their research projects, especially for those who are at “teaching schools”.

There are always books that I want to read simply because I am interested in them, not because they are related to my ongoing research projects. For example, books by contemporary scholars always interest me as they represent some cutting-edge philosophical explorations. Also, there are those influential books in the history of philosophy (esp. in non-western traditions) that I would like to read.

However, I do not know when to read them. My teaching load is 3:3, and my research time is already limited. I use my research time to focus on my writing and on works I plan to engage with in my writing. And I do not even have enough time for finishing up the drafts. And the books I want to read seem not those to read before bed. So, when do people read those books that you are interested in but are not directly related to your research?

[Rad]

How are 'collected/published papers' dissertations perceived on the academic job market, whether for postdocs or TT jobs?

[Who knows who I am? Not me? I don't even know if I exist.]

Sometimes I have a conditional answer to an invitation to referee—I am more than happy to referee the paper, but... I know that can't get it done by the assigned deadline. In most cases, I email the editor back (sometimes hunting down their email outside of the system) saying that, and they usually say, great, go for it!

But I'm not sure what to do about journals that are triple anonymous? I don't actually even know how those work to know whether emailing the editor like that would break triple anonymity?

I have a triple anonymous request in my inbox right now, and I can't get it done by the requested deadline. I was about to decline, given my uncertainty about triple anonymity. But I figured I'd check here.

I am not comfortable either committing myself to sucking it up (not going to happen here, especially not on top of other, already accepted requests) or accepting the request secretly already knowing I'm going to miss the deadline. I'm only comfortable accepting the request if I can be upfront about 'rejecting' the original terms.

Thoughts?

[ChastenedAuthor]

How much weight should one give a mean review? One reviewer just tore into the paper and didn't have anything nice to say at all.

The second reviewer felt the opposite. While they weren't huge fans, they said they thought my thesis was ultimately convincing, and they said the reasoning was 'rigorous'. They provided quite a long review with lots of helpful feedback.

So, I'm not sure how much weight to give the mean review. I mean, the reviewer's comments are such that it's clear they considered my paper so bad that they were offended by it.

[A confused Chinese philosopher]

I have a question about preempting objections in journal-length papers. It seems to me that, given the constraints of length, you can’t always argue for every premise that supports your central thesis in detail. Sometimes, you have to take certain premises for granted or only offer a brief justification for why you endorse them, in order to keep the paper concise. However, since most philosophical theses are controversial to some extent, it’s not uncommon for me to receive referee reports that say something like, "The argument relies on Thesis A, but there are obvious objections to Thesis A that should be addressed."

In response, I’ve tried preemptively addressing possible objections at the start of my papers, but then I often get feedback like, "The introduction is too long and makes the paper feel unfocused."

It seems that the root of the issue is that some referees agree with the basic premise of my paper, while others do not. So, I’m wondering: when, and to what extent, should I preemptively address possible objections to my paper’s central premise? Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

[Sinking Ship]

The job market has always been bleak but with the recent happenings it seems like there's going to be much, much fewer positions and more competition in the coming years, and some philosophy departments may not even survive. This is my first application cycle, and I have only gotten 1 fruitless interview even with a publication in a good journal. Is there any point to keep trying to compete with others for a spot on a potentially sinking ship?

[Civic cent(e)rist]

I'd like to gauge the room temperature related to something brought up over in the job discussion thread: the "civic ideals and American society" centers that have been appearing in state universities across a number of conservative states in the U.S. In particular, I'm curious to hear unfiltered takes about how philosophy departments would perceive job applications from someone with a postdoc / junior faculty position at one of those centers. Would ideological views be inferred and held against those candidates? Would they be seen as less academically serious? And ideology aside, would those positions be looked down on as bottom of the barrel on the assumption that there are all these pragmatic considerations against taking them? I'd also welcome discussion of the ethical issues bound up in working for those centers, but am especially interested in these pragmatic questions.

[editing services]

Does anybody have any thoughts on using writing services offered by publishers like Springer, Elsevier, etc., specifically for philosophy? Are they basically just a money grab, or are they worth it?