A quick follow-up on yesterday's thought. Be careful of that sarcastic kid who's been giving you trouble all semester.
At NYU apparently someone left muffins laced with razor blades behind in their philosophy class.
-- Second Suitor
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27 comments:
I was curious about this Heidi White at NYU and which research interests of hers led to razor-muffins. It turns out that she doesn't really do philosophy:
http://gsp.nyu.edu/object/HeidiWhite
Instead, she does something called "General Studies." Broadway plays, Nietzsche, the Zoo, French existentialists ... sounds like fun!
I just got an email from a school where I applied for a VAP. It said they received my application, then listed all the things I was supposed to send them, and said if I hadn't sent any of those then I should ASAP.
Wait a minute. You received my application but you don't know whether it's complete? That means you don't know whether you really received (all of) it. So what the hell's the email for?
Maybe you're asking for more things than you originally wanted? Then I need to go back to your original ad, to see what you wanted, and check my cover letter to see what I think I sent. But how do I know if recs and transcripts arrived, which I didn't send? Geez, this is even worse than the schools that send you the checkoff list saying they haven't received the letters of recommendation that in my cover letter I said would take two weeks to arrive.
IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE DOING, PLEASE DON'T SEND ME AN EMAIL/LETTER SAYING "DEAR APPLICANT, WE WOULDN'T KNOW IT IF A COCONUT FELL ON OUR HEADS. WE'RE FUCKING MORONS."
Oh, great. Here I'm about to host my semi-annual open house for current and former students. Shall I run all their contributions through an x-ray scanner? What would that say about my success in teaching them ethics?
What is the deal with the multiple-offer postings on Leiter's blog? It's enough to hear that someone has a job at a great school, it's insanely annoying to see "Also had offers at Pittsburgh, NYU, the Lyceum, the Academy, and Christ Church Oxford" along with the post...
Anyone know what the deal is with the APA website? It's been down going on 3 days now.
The multiple offer postings on the Leiter blog are obnoxious. There really isn't anything else to say about this. The obnoxiousness is milder when it is the student's adviser that posts the other offers. When it is the department at which the job was accepted that posted the other offers, it is severely obnoxious.
Actually, it is quite nice to know what other places people got offers from. It lets you know the sorts of people these other places are interested in as well as letting you know that these places didn't get their first choice.
Yea, as someone who didn't succeed on the job market this year, it sucks to see that some people got multiple offers, but hiding that fact from me isn't going to make me feel any better...
Anon 9:09, Not only that, but to post the lucky candidates name twice, a second time to rectify the omission of the multiple offers on the first postings. It's not THAT fucking important that you need to waste the five minutes it takes to send that second post to Leiter. Really, people.
Your previous poster misread the info on Heidi White. "General Studies," where she teaches, is a Great Books program for NYU freshmen and sophomores--Plato, Aristole, Augustine, Hobbes, Rousseau....The muffin business was reported here on the NYU campus, and muffins were a student's idea--not solicited by the professor.
Anon 9:37,
Just for the record, Steven Gross is one of the kindest, sweetest, least obnoxious people in the philosophical world. An his bracketed info suggests:
[Sorry for double-posting. It was pointed out to me that I omitted some relevant info.]
someone else suggested he include the information.
Leave Steven alone!
APA website, where are you?
Anyone heard about PSA acceptances yet?
Anon 9:09,
Glad somoeone else finds this pompousness annoying! But the job market climate and its focus on prestige certainly encourages it; there's no mystery where the pompousness comes from. However annoying it is, it is quite suitable to Leiter's site and the whole "Leiterific" mentality.
"What is the deal with the multiple-offer postings on Leiter's blog? It's enough to hear that someone has a job at a great school, it's insanely annoying to see etc...."
as i said on an earlier thread, it may be annoying, but it is entirely appropriate.
the raison d'etre for leiter's whole site is to give prospective grad students info about which schools will prepare them for the market. the whole point is to be able to figure out: if i go to university x, will i be able to get a job afterwards, or not?
it is useful information to know that going to university x got so and so a job. it is, for the very same reason, useful information to know that going to university y got so and so his or her pick of five jobs. that speaks well for university y's ability to get you offers.
yeah, it's annoying, yeah, it's boasting, no, i've never had multiple offers in my life. yeah, it sucks.
but it is totally relevant, appropriate, and informative. it contributes more information of exactly the sort that leiter's site is intended to collect and convey.
The last poster is absolutely correct. In a philosophical field of obnoxious asses and pretentious pricks, Steven Gross is truly one of the exceptions. If every philosopher shared some of Gross's qualities, the field would be far better for it.
Unrelated note...
What is the majority opinion about applied ethics?: Should it be downplayed or promoted in a job app or CV? Is it taken seriously by departments?
Or is it better to go with Continental Philosophy as the stronger emphasis?
"IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT THE HELL YOU'RE DOING, PLEASE DON'T SEND ME AN EMAIL/LETTER SAYING "DEAR APPLICANT, WE WOULDN'T KNOW IT IF A COCONUT FELL ON OUR HEADS. WE'RE FUCKING MORONS."
I laughed.
Re: APA site being down, I hear that the APA is having serious leadership & budget problems. Can anyone here confirm that?
On applied ethics, and applied ethics vs. Continental phil., the right answer depends on the department to which you are applying.
Cet. par., my impression is that Continental is more valued, at least at the "higher-ranked" schools. But applied ethics certainly seems to be making a comeback, especially in biomedical ethics, war & terrorism, etc.
Of course, for the public at large and non-philosophy departments (perhaps with the exception of German and French Depts, etc.), Continental philosophy is too difficult to understand, and applied ethics is more clearly relevant to their lives.
Let this be a lesson to the rest of you who pick up strange muffins of unknown origins in New York City for a snack. Also, if some guy invites you to his van for candy you should politely decline.
On "APA site being down, I hear that the APA is having serious leadership & budget problems. Can anyone here confirm that?"
Your informant is about three years out of date. There were some serious problems earlier this decade, but for the last two years at least, things have been in good shape in terms of both leadership and budget.
By the way, the APA web site now appears to be up and running again.
While we're on the subject: is there a reason the APA site is still so obviously hosted as a UDel site? Why not a separate domain name?
On APA Website (well, not really)--
Has anyone heard either accepted or rejected from APA Eastern paper submissions?
"I hear that the APA is having serious leadership & budget problems."
Even if that were true, I don't think that would be necessarily connected to the website being down--since the site is housed on the Univ. of Delaware's server.
On the Continental vs applied ethics issue. I have to agree with the previous answer that it depends on the school, what the current faculty currently value and what courses they need taught. However, as someone with an AOC in Applied Ethics I found a lot of jobs to apply for that wanted AE, Business Ethics, or bio-medical ethics this past year. So, I don't think applied ethics will hurt you in general. (I don't know what to say about Continental... not my area)
You almost can't go wrong with applied ethics as your AOS, particularly if you have some publications in that area. If those publications are overly empirical, you may want to temper concerns that you're _too_ practical, which you can do by also including some interest in theory.
As for the Continental issue, I think evaluators are much more irrational about this, on both sides. Some departments have a clear Continental bias, and so it would be smart, if this is your area, to list this when you apply for jobs at these schools. Other departments, by contrast, have a clear analytic bias, and so it would be smart to show, at least, that you can have intelligent conversations with your future colleagues.
I suppose the same could be said in reverse: If your area is philosophy of economics or decision theory, and you're applying to a department with a Continental leaning, it would be smart to show that you've read some Marx (say).
Applied ethics, in many ways, doesn't suffer the same problem. It seems, instead, to suffer from the accusation that it's not "philosophically rigorous" enough, particularly in business ethics and bioethics.
Basically, the govering thought here should be that whatever the standard prejudice against your area is, you should strive to show, at least, that you're not of this stereotypical sort.
Has anyone heard either accepted or rejected from APA Eastern paper submissions?
Received a rejection letter yesterday along with an acceptance letter. I guess they want to cover their bases. From what I can tell, some acceptance letters have gone out. I don't think that they send them all out at once as a rule. Mass rejection letters that do not necessarily mean real rejection were also sent out. The latest email I've received read as follows:
Dear Colleague,
I am writing to apologize for the letter that you recently received stating that your paper had not been accepted for the 2008 Eastern Division APA Program. As you probably recognized, this letter was sent to you in error: it was addressed to you as the result of a computer glitch that has since been corrected.
Though the error was inadvertent and the letter was misdirected, I realize that it must have been disconcerting for you to receive it. On behalf of the Eastern Division and the APA National Office, I sincerely apologize for your receiving a letter that did not apply to you.
I would like to also state that Tamar Gendler (the 2008 Eastern Division Program Committee Chair, whose name was printed at the bottom of the previous letter) played no role in this process. She is responsible for coordinating the activities of our Program Committee, and was in no way associated with the letter that you received.
This email went to quite a long list of people (it wasn't anonymous). I can't tell whether it was sent to all and only those who received acceptance and rejection letters or if it was sent to all those who received rejection letters. If the latter, I suppose there is still a chance of receiving a second rejection letter.
Got it?
Weird -- I didn't get the rejection letter, which makes sense, since I didn't even submit a paper. But I did get an apology for the non-existent rejection of my non-existent paper.
Obviously, the paper was on Meinong.
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