One more thing about job postings and then I'm done: if you're going to advertise for something like "metaphysics, broadly construed" you would do your department a service by appending "we are especially interested in diverse approaches to..." (1/n)
Now, this might seem counter-intuitive, but an ad like that might signal to someone whose area isn't "metaphysics," which we've been primed to treat as "western metaphysics only," that we should apply for it. Moreover, it increases the odds of pluralizing your department. (2/n)
I say increases, but not guarantees because even this incremental step is useless if committee members do not take seriously their responsibility to ensure that they are actually committing to the intentions of the ad, and not just performing pluralism as a virtue. (3/n)
This is a problem with almost every job ad I've responded to: with exception to one, the call for "diverse perspectives" are all ancillary to the "primary" interest of the application as indicated by the AOS/AOC, which often mirrors the departmental commitment. (4/n)
That is, the application does not demonstrate a genuine desire for pluralist area specialists because it treats the diversity or the pluralism of the perspective as secondary, which is a problem when western philosophy is considered the default and everyone else hyphenates. (5/n)
Thus, "we are especially interested in diverse perspectives," as a statement about qualities of candidates is purely performative because the primary motivation of the ad is made clear through the AOS/AOC designation as it aligns with the existing departmental orientation. (5/n)
Thus, since almost EVERY department is taking heat to "diversify," statements like these allow them to dance around committing to pluralism or diversifying their faculty without actually taking a principled stand. And, in my experience, such stands only happen when forced. (6/n)
That is, the only time I've seen departments respond intentionally to these situations is when they already have an existing commitment, or their students drag them kicking and screaming into the future for their own sake. The latter is more common than the former. (fin)

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More from @shengokai

2 Dec
Every time a job ad states that their department has needs in marginalized philosophy, but does not list marginalized philosophy in the AOS/AOC, my response is the following:
If a department had needs in marginalized philosophy, it would craft an ad that would net them a specialist in one of the half dozen areas that is listed in the ad. It would put that shit in the AOS/AOC.

Clearly, they don't need marginalized philosophy bad enough to do that.
And the fucked up thing is that specialists have no choice but to apply for these positions and accept the meager scraps that the field throws us. We have a collective understanding that a department would have to face significant pressure to even dare put us in their AOS/AOC.
Read 4 tweets
2 Dec
Here's the thing, though: all of this depends on the people inflicting the systems upon students viewing students as deserving of the same kinds of privacy and human rights within the educational space as other individuals. That is, it relies on seeing them as human. (1/n)
I say "human," because the way that "student" is used in the deployment of these systems (and in higher ed generally) refers to something disembodied, detached from the context of education, and in need of disciplining into line with the expectations of the university. (2/n)
Now, not all students are viewed the same, and some students are in need of more disciplinary measures to ensure their compliance with the expectations of the institution, but there is the assumption that ALL students are in need of some form of surveillance. (3/n)
Read 6 tweets
28 Nov
We always run reductionist comparisons like “music is just math” in one direction, as if it gives legitimacy to one side of the equation. Increasingly, I think this is a shitty way to do it.

What if math is just music? What if a good equation has an affective component to it?
I mean, you can get there via Dewey who is really fucking clear on this, but you really shouldn’t need to. What I’m asking is really quite simple: what would our science look like if we considered the possibility that affect lies at its ground?
That is, what if we recognized that the whole of scientific progress hasn’t been forged by logic, but by being moved by a felt connection with the world or some natural phenomena, and science is just a creative response to that feeling?
Read 4 tweets
14 Nov
This is a joke, but a lot of Gundam series take this point seriously and make clear that there are limitations to the ways that one can embody forms that one didn’t grow into. This is most clearly indicated in the series Gundam Unicorn. (1/n)
In Unicorn, the eponymous RX-0 Unicorn mobile suits has what is called a “full psychoframe” in which materials are built into the suit which enable a newtype pilot, essentially a neuro-divergent person with expanded cognition to control the suit as if it was their body.(2/n)
Now, supplemental materials for the series indicate that the unicorn can only be operated in this fashion for a few minutes because the stress of embodying a giant robot is too much for the mind to handle. In short, the body is too big for the mind to embody it for long(2/n)
Read 7 tweets
14 Nov
I just woke up after sleeping for eighteen hours. Eighteen hours.

I blame academia. Or, rather, I blame the unique kind of stress/rage my corner of academia generates on a weekly or daily basis.
I mean, I’m just going to say the quiet part out loud here: we can infer the values of an institution, not only from its shape as indicated by the direction of resources, but by the collective pattern of actions that we otherwise call “habits.”
So when I say an institution habitually does not give a flying fuck about the majority of the individuals that make up its body, this is a statement of institutional direction, of institutional habit embodied in action. It is a quality of the institution.
Read 9 tweets
8 Nov
THIS WAS THE WRONG GODDAMNED LINCOLN QUOTE FOR THIS TIME. LET ME HELP YOU, BIDEN:

"We can succeed only by concert. It is not "can any of us imagine better?" but, "can we all do better?" The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present." (1/n)
"The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise -- with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." (2/n)
"Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us." (3/n)
Read 4 tweets

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