Nova PhDs

Hello all--

I acutally just deleted a long message detailing the life of Mike and I because I realized this is more of a professional space and not so much a personal tell-all.

So, that being said...as you all know, SPEP will be in Salt Lake City this fall. It should be a good time. If you have any questions or need any help with anything, then just let me know. I hope to have a party either Friday or Saturday and I do hope that you will all come.

Shannon

Ahoy,

I figured I would post a response to John's query on the main page for all to easily see--anyway, I am in Memphis, safe and sound. Hopefully I will have a home and job to return to in a few days...

has anyone heard from joe since saturday? i got an email from him on saturday morning at about 10:30 am indicating that he had not yet left new orleans, and i tried calling him yesterday afternoon but only got his answering machine. i am assuming (and hoping) that that means he gathered all his most precious belongings and got out of there quickly, but i haven't heard from him yet. if anyone hears from him, please let the rest of us know. i'm sure all the residents of new orleans would appreciate any thoughts or prayers at the moment...

Dear friends,

I am happy to say that I attended a very successful dissertation defense today. Emily and I drove to Villanova for the day to see Greg — Dr. Hoskins! — defend his work in front of about 35-36 people in SAC 400. He had an impressive presentation followed by a lively q&a session. We all thought that Greg did very well and I was extremely pleased to be there for this event. This is the advantage of being in DC; daytrips to Nova are feasible.

This evening, we joined Greg and a handful of others for drinks at Ludwig's Garten in Philly. We all bought him the Tower Beer special, a gallon of beer in a very tall glass. (Joe should have been there!)

Congratulations to Greg!

Greetings all. I'm at Villanova for the next few years straddling the ethics program and the philosophy department. Finished up the PhD Spring of 04, setting a sweet record of a smooth decade as the longest finish so far (though Ed insists he is working on his dissertation and plans to finish). Just got happily married.

Many personnel changes here:

Finally hired someone to replace Maria Carl: Mike Waddell. Does Aquinas stuff. Very energetic teacher.

Finally hired an Augustine scholar to replace Don Burt: James Wetzel. Don't know a thing about him.

Hired a new Cook Chair following last year's departure of Jack Caputo: William Desmond. Hegel with a post-modern twist.

Much hiring in the pipeline (Kant, Environmental, Senior Continental to name a few).

New Department Chair is John Carvahlo.

Feel free to contact me if you have questions about how things are going here. Enjoyed reading through the posts (one caveat: can we make a rule banning "y'all"?).

i have a paper i'm about ready to submit to Philosophy Today, and i just had a quick question about their guidelines for those of you who have worked with them. in the actual journal credit-page submission guidelines, they say just to include 2 manuscript copies in blind review format, but when i looked them up online, they said to include a floppy or CD with that. is that necessary as well (i.e. have y'all done that), or can i just send them the hard copies?

Categories have been added to the blog, per Farhang's proposal. A few categories have been set up, following Farhang's list with a few amendments. So far we have the following (these can also be seen in the "Categories" list on the sidebar):

Blog News/Info: For posts like this, or Farhang's post on comments, dealing with intra-blog issues.
Market/Placement: See Farhang's "Market."
Misc.: At this point, for everything that doesn't fit any other category...
News About the Profession: See the same in Farhang's post.
Philosophical Discussion: See the previous posts "Am I Really an Analytic Philosopher," and "I don't think anyone..." for the kind of post that should fit here.
Research: This should fit announcements of recent publications or lectures/presentations, and/or be the place where authors ask for comments on current research issues.
Teaching: See Farhang's post.
Villanova News: Pretty obvious.

There is a drop-down list on the post-writing page where you can select categories. Note that you can put one post under multiple categories, and I imagine that it should often be appropriate to do so. Also, note that the current list of categories is a working list and certainly open to revision.

By the end of the week, all previous posts should be categorized (many are already).

so, if joe can figure out how to get us some categories (i don't see anything myself), this would presumably go under "teaching" and "conferences.

i don't know how many of you know about the NCUR, but it's a pretty big conference that you might encourage some of your best students to submit abstracts to this fall (online abstract submission is oct. 3-dec. 2, 2005). the papers don't have to be complete at that time. if they are accepted, they're invited to present at the conference at the beginning of april (6-8). it's usually mostly juniors and seniors presenting, but the director of the honors college here at Western Carolina tells me that he actually had one freshman from his honors tutorial get a paper accepted this past year.

i mention this for a few reasons.
1) it's apparently a great opportunity for the students to share their work on a variety of topics (they do several phil, english, etc. panels) with each other, to meet other top notch students from around the country, see how they measure up, get a publication on their record (for those who are seriously considering grad school), and so forth.

2) i take it that it would look very nice to our various administrators (particularly for those of us coming up for tenure in a few years), for any of us to have students accepted.

3) this year (2006 i mean), the conference will be held at UNC-Asheville (which started the conference 20 years ago), so if any of you were funded by your schools to accompany your student(s) to the conference, you'd get the chance to spend some time in beautiful western north carolina and visit me in west asheville!

here is the link, if y'all are interested.

Folks,

Sorry about the hiatus and not commenting on recent posts. It is wonderful to see the group grow. I think that with Jamie Smith and myself, we have the first institutional gap. I came to Nova right after Jennifer and Jamie left and the blog brings us together for the first time, which is precisely why it is a great forum.

As the blog grows, I have a suggestion, which may already be in the works or cannot be implemented for whatever reason. I suggest that we use the "category" function of Powerblogs. Since Leiter was one of the initial inspirations, I can refer to his subcategories. As of now, our blog is only chronologically ordered. Time for continental folks is key, of course; but so is archive fever. I think the blog would benefit from a categorization.

Whose categories? Which rationale?

It should be debatable and reformable. Here are a few suggestions:

"Research": Posts dealing with our own research, or focused on research matters: new journals, interesting call for papers, conference notes etc.

"Market": We're the fortunate ones who got jobs; this is the place where we could post upcoming ads, news about APA gatherings such as nearby hotels or transportation issues, hotel room sharing if needed, especially for the grad students who can benefit from it, finally, tips/question regarding interviews. For instance, Greg had put together the 'Top Weird Questions' that many of us received during interviews this year. That could be here. (My favorite from this past year’s interviews: “Which article and/or book have you read in the past year that has helped you better integrate diversity in the classroom?” Yeah…that was a fun interview, the way the Spanish Inquisition must have been a blast.)

"News about the profession": Vague category, I admit. Senior hires, moves, or perhaps new journals and CFP could go here.

"Villanova News": Obviously about the philosophy program first and foremost but in general about Nova.

"Personal News": As mentioned earlier, I have never had the pleasure of meeting Jamie Smith and this is the beginning of an acquaintance. In general, this forum is allowing us to keep in touch and I think we should make room for sharing some personal good/bad news. One's breakfast does not count; a baby would.

"Of Political/Philosophical Interest": I never got a chance to give my two cents about the Iranian election, for instance, as I was about to move. But I think there will be occasions when one would like to have a link here or put a post with some political value.

"Teaching": Tips, news, war stories etc.

"Humor: Sophisticated and Unsophisticated": Hopefully more of the latter than the former, and this is not an important category but I like philosophical humor.

"Misc.": Call this the "ambiguous category", the "over-determined category", the "Other" category, the "differeance" category, the "hospitality" category", etc. Just stuff that is harder to classify.

As in Leiter's case, one can have multiple categories for each post if needed.

This is more a meta-post than an actual post. Meta-comments are most welcome.

So, from the flurry of recent activity (and people thanking me--though I should point out once more that I am not the head of the blog--it belongs to us all!) you can all probably tell that I sent out an email inviting most of the PhD grads and ABDs from Nova (who were not a part of the trial period) to join up. Note that I say most; there are a few for whom I couldn't find email addresses. In any event, look for the author column to grow even more in the next few weeks.

Also, I have come to find that we have been added to the blogrolls of a couple other blogs. We have yet to have anyone who is not an author request a comment account (which is perhaps largely positive?), though, so while we are linked to other pages, it is not clear how many people have actually read this! In any event, the man might be watching, so be on guard...

Finally, Greg tells me that he is defending his dissertation in a couple weeks. Perhaps he will post something and we can hear about his dissertation, and its defense, from the horses mouth (nudge nudge).

Hey, everyone! Let me second the earlier thanks to those involved in setting this up. I have never been very good at keeping in touch, but this seems to be a painless and effective way to do that. A great idea!

I must say I'm impressed with how well Villanova grads seem to be doing on the job market and with their careers. It would seem that we are developing a critical mass, certainly within the region of the philosophy profession encompassed by SPEP, but perhaps even to some extent beyond. This is exciting to see, and I look forward to watching it continue.

Best to all!

Jamey

...has now completed a full draft of his dissertation. and no, nobody (neither busch nor the other committee members) has seen a single page out of the 260 up to this point. so if anyone would like to pray for the boy, or send him best wishes, or whatever, now might be an appropriate time. although this is a very seth-like thing to do, i didn't really think he would actually do it. but he called me a couple nights ago to say he has, so there you are...

Thank you and those who helped you, Joe, for creating this blog and for getting in touch with me about it. I know that when I first went on the market, the Ph.D. program at Villanova was new enough that there were really only a handful of its alumni in the profession, graduated, and at the ABD stage. But I think this blog comes just in time, now that so many Villanova Ph.D. alums are around.

As you likely know, I am about to begin my fifth year at Texas A&M. Earlier this summer I had the opportunity to participate in the Collegium, and I enjoyed the chance to become acquainted with some Villanova graduate students who arrived in the program after I had left.

The research projects that all of you mention sound extremely interesting, and I look forward to catching up with many of you about things at SPEP this Fall.

I look foward to hearing from you!

Ted

A special thanks to Joe, and all of you, for taking the initiative to begin this conversation and then inviting us to join in. I confess to a slight bit of envy in reading your posts. It seems to me that your cohort seemed to really bond and develop friendships that extend beyond your time at Villanova. And you also seem to take a certain pride, or at least joy, in being VU PhD grads.

I must confess that I don't often think of myself as a VU alum, and to be honest, rarely give thought to my connections to Villanova. Not out of lack of gratitude, or because I didn't value my time there, but just in the sense that it didn't get in my blood, so to speak. And I'm not sure that our earlier cohort (I was part of the first graduating class) forged the same kind of bonds that you all have.

However, that might entirely be a projection of my own experience. I rarely attend SPEP, so I tend to not have many chances to reconnect. It could be that others from my era do enjoy the kinds of connections you do.

In any case, I'm glad to listen in, glad to hear Villanova PhDs are getting hired at good places, and look forward to continuing the conversation.

one of the other new faculty (in chemistry) here at western carolina university asked me today, how many PhD programs in philosophy are there in the US? he said there were something like a couple hundred programs in chemistry, but i had to admit that i really didn't know how many there were in philosophy. a little research this afternoon gave me a preliminary answer from leiter's gourmet report, which indicated there were 100+, but i couldn't seem to find anything more definitive that that (i took a brief look at the APA's website). anybody have this info.? i suspect it has to be definitively in the big book that lists all the philosophy faculty and programs (undergrad and grad) in the country, but i don't currently have access to one of those.


Edited to add the following:

just found this little gem on an old leiter posting, available here :

There are more than 110 Ph.D.-granting programs in philosophy in the United States. If the majority of them were closed, there would be only a slight loss to the profession; if the weakest third of them were closed, there would be no loss at all, and, in fact, a net increase in human happiness... Philosophy, at least, does not need more Ph.D. programs. It could benefit, I think, from more top-flight, terminal M.A. programs (like Tufts, Wisconsin/Milwaukee, Northern Illinois, Virginia Tech, etc.), as a way of helping students figure out whether the academic career is for them. Unfortunately, the trend right now is in the opposite direction, with what were quite attractive terminal M.A. programs becoming PhD-granting institutions, without any clear market rationale.

i presume that villanova (and the spep-continental departments generally) would, for leiter, be in that "bottom third," which, if closed, would be no loss at all.

i was just reading through the spep program and was struck by a few things. the first (which we already discussed a couple months ago) is just how many villanovans are going to be giving papers, moderating, etc. it's really amazing; it's like we're taking over the organization. next year should be a lot of fun back in philly (party at ammon and heather's? ;)

second thing i noticed is that there seems to be a bit more of what i'd call "classical" phenomenology than at a couple of spep's past — several husserl panels, some M-P, and a couple of sartre panels (including the one with all the big hitters — busch, bernasconi, flynn, martin). i remember one where there was not even a sartre panel.

third thing — there doesn't seem to be quite as much heidegger as in years past. there's still a lot, but it just doesn't seem to me as heidegger-heavy.

finally — i calculated the acceptance rate for the 2004 conference at about 32% (101 accepted/311 submitted) from the business minutes, so good job to y'all who are presenting this year! (i do feel bad now for not submitting anything, but i really just wanted to get the job search behind me this past year. let's start planning some good panels for next year now!)

on to logistical matters: as long as i can get some money from my department, i'm planning to come out just to hit a few panels and catch up with what everyone is working on now, etc. (i will probably fly out thursday morning and back to asheville on sunday — anyone want to split a room? i should know something about money relatively soon, i think.) reply here or drop me an email if you like.

This morning I got the information for the panel that I am going to be presenting on at The Eastern APA. Here it is:


III-H. Colloquium: History and Metaphysics
Thursday, 12.29.05, 1:30-4:30 p.m., Murray Hill
Suite A (Second Floor)
Chair: Yitzhak Melamed (University of Chicago)

3:30-4:30 p.m.
Speaker: Joseph Berendzen (Loyola University of New Orleans)
“Horkeimer’s Materialist Stance”
Commentator: Max Pensky (Binghamton University-State University of New York)

The other two papers on the panel are on Locke and Kant, so it is sort of an odd panel. My paper basically discusses the metaphysical and anti-metaphysical aspects of Horkheimer's discussion of materialism, and then sides with the latter by interpreting Horkheimer through the lens of Bas van Fraassen's discussion of a "stance".

I am working on my SPEP paper on Lars von Trier's film The Five Obstructions, and I have come upon an obstruction of my own that I need help with. Do any of you guys know how to cite the commentary track on a DVD? If not, do you have a good suggestion as to where I might find this? Do you think it is covered in the most recent Chicago manual, for instance?

this just in from walter (i don't know how long i will continue to receive these emails, probably just until i'm purged from their "student" lists):

walter continues as grad director, and john carvalho as department chair; julie klein will be placement officer this year.

confirmations that greg and adam will be defending in august, and that shaw will be defending this fall. [as i noted before, seth has said he is also trying to do so prior to the first JFP of the year.]

alexi is in germany this year on a DAAD; danny is in denmark on a fulbright.

think that's all the relevant info. for us.

The first of what I expect will be several defenses this fall (maybe even this August!) has just been officially announced:

Adam Miller will be defending his dissertation, "Immanent Grace: Badiou, Marion, & Saint Paul" on Friday, August 12th, from 3-5 pm (in SAC 300).

I understand Greg, Mike Shaw, and perhaps even Seth are planning to defend in the next month or so. Hopefully this year's placement will be as good as last year's was, as we'll have a lot of people out on the market with PhD's in hand — I think the blog could be pretty helpful in that regard, at least in terms of us knowing where people's top positions are, and maybe getting in touch with people at those institutions we know on behalf of our newly minted PhD's...