PEA Soup

Call on the New York Times to publish an obituary for Ruth Marcus

Michael Della Rocca has given me permission to post this request, which he sent to a number of Marcus-admirers and friends, to PEA Soup.

 

Dear Friends and admirers of Ruth Marcus,

Forgive the mass e-mailing, any duplications, or omissions.  As you
know, Ruth Marcus died over two weeks ago and an obituary has yet to
appear in the New York Times.  This failure to recognize one of the most
prominent and pioneering philosophers of the last 60 years is
appalling.  There have been multiple communications between Yale and
also NYU (Ruth's undergraduate alma mater) with the obituary editors at
the Times.  The Times has received a wealth of information from these
sources and still no obituary.  I fear that they have decided or are in
the process of deciding that Ruth is not a significant enough figure to
warrant the recognition of an obituary in the Times.  Don't get me
started on this -- it's simply outrageous.  Don Garrett, Diana Raffman
and I  have sent to the Times' obituary editors a strongly worded
message -- see below.  If you would like to endorse the sentiments in
this message please let me know and we will pass on this information to
the Times.  I plan to be in touch with them again soon.  Or if you would
like to write a message of your own to the Times that would be great.
The obituary editors are Bill McDonald<wmcdon@nytimes.com>   and Jack
Kadden<kadden@nytimes.com>.

If there are other philosophers you know of who might be interested in
helping out here, please feel free to forward this message and to
encourage them to be in touch with me or Diana or Don.

Don, Diana, and I will be in touch directly with the APA leadership
about this matter so that they may contact the Times too.

best,
Michael (and Diana and Don)

Below the fold is the message that was sent yesterday to the Obituary editors at the Times:

Announcing the Character Essay and Book Prize

The Character Project at Wake Forest University is pleased to announce The Character Essay and Book Prize. This prize is aimed at essays or books on character which are accessible to non-academic audiences in venues with a wide readership. The competition will award $3,000 to each winning submission. We aim to make nine awards total. Three awards will be for submissions which address themes related to the psychology of character, three for submissions related to the philosophy of character, and three for submissions related to the theology of character. Winners will be invited (all expenses paid) to the Character Project’s Final Research Conference in June 2013 at the Graylyn International Conference Center in Winston-Salem, NC (http://www.graylyn.com), and awards will be presented at this event. Deadline for submission is February 1, 2013. For further details, please visit: http://www.thecharacterproject.com/prizes.php . The Character Project is funded by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.

The Smoker: A Proposal

The "smoker" has been getting a lot of bad press and deservedly so. See here for some of the relevant links. I have a proposal. Either members of the interview teams should not attend the reception/"smoker" or they should refuse to talk to prospective job candidates during the reception. They should, then, let all their interviewees know that they will not be attending (or talking to them during) the reception. This is what I would propose to my department if we were conducting APA interviews.

I take it that there is no point in getting rid of the reception. What's problematic is not the reception itself; rather, it's that many schools treat the reception/"smoker" as an extended part of the interview process. We should put an end to that, and it seems that my proposal would do that. What do others think?

JESP Discussion Notes - new editor

As many of you know, for approximately the last four years the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy has been publishing shorter discussion notes. Starting this month, I will be taking over as editor for the discussion notes section on JESP, taking over from Julia Driver.

Final Call: Philosophy of Character Funding Competition

This is a final call for proposals for the "New Frontiers in the Philosophy of Character" funding competition sponsored by the Character Project at Wake Forest University and funded by the John Templeton Foundation.

Initial letters of intent are due by September 1. More details can be found at www.thecharacterproject.com.

Petition: Philosophy of Race in the PGR

For those of you who have not yet seen it, I'd like to encourage you to consider signing this petition, advocating for the inclusion of the Philosophy of Race as a specialty in the Philosophical Gourmet Report.  There is some discussion of the petition here, at Feminist Philosophers.  One note I'd add is that a number of departments that are already highly esteemed by the PGR -- including, by my count, six of the top seven programs in the overall rankings, which says something -- have people doing interesting and important work in this area, as do a number of other departments.  In any event, it is a thriving, important field, which anecdotal evidence suggests has increasing interest for potential graduate students and hiring schools.

PIKSI Call for Graduate Assistant Applications 2011

PIKSI 2011 GRADUATE ASSISTANT
CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

The sixth annual meeting of Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Summer Institute
(PIKSI) will take place from July 31 – August 6, 2011, at the Rock Ethics
Institute on the campus of Penn State University in State College, PA. At
least two graduate students will assist Ladelle McWhorter, who will direct
the Institute. In addition, one graduate assistant will come from the Penn
State philosophy department. We expect that, as was the case in previous
summers, the home institution of the other graduate assistants will fund
their positions. (The philosophy departments of the University of Memphis,
Binghamton University, Villanova University, Michigan State University,
University of Colorado at Boulder, Stony Brook University, Dalhousie,
American University, and DePaul University generously supported PIKSI
graduate assistants in 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, and 2010.)

We invite those of you teaching in graduate programs to nominate graduate
student assistants for PIKSI. The applications will be screened according to
the graduate student’s accomplishments as a researcher, a teacher, and
mentor; the relevance of her or his research to the topics of the institute;
and the home institution’s willingness to fund the student (approximately
$2000, including travel, housing, and stipend).

Applications should include a cover letter from the graduate student in
which they discuss why they would like to be a graduate assistant for PIKSI,
the graduate student’s CV, a letter of support from a faculty member, and
documentation of institutional support, if available. Please email complete
applications to Ladelle McWhorter, Philosophy Department, University of
Richmond, 28 Westhampton Way, Richmond, VA 23173, by March 7, 2011. If you
have any further questions please contact Eva Feder Kittay, PIKSI Board
Chair, at eva.kittay@stonybrook.edu <us003667@mindspring.com> or Ladelle
McWhorter, Director of PIKSI Summer 2011, at lmcwhort@richmond.edu

Speeding up the journal review process: How economists are doing it

Leave it to our colleagues in economics to find an efficient way to speed up the journal review and publication process. Inside Higher Ed reports that authors whose papers are rejected by the American Economic Review, one of that discipline's most prominent journals, can opt to have the referee reports forwarded to one of four other journals published by the American Economics Association. The second journal can then use those reports (augmented in some cases by referee reports it solicits) to make a relatively quick publication decision.

SLACRR program

St. Louis Annual Conference on Reason and Rationality

UM-St. Louis

May 23-25, 2010

Moonrise Hotel

The Department of Philosophy at UM-St. Louis is pleased to announce the first St. Louis Annual Conference on Reasons and Rationality (SLACRR), which will take place May 23-25, 2010.  Information about the conference is available on our website: http://www.umsl.edu/~slacrr/  

Our keynote address will be given by Michael Bratman, and we'll have talks by Mark Schroeder, Agnes Callard, David McNaughton & Piers Rawling, Michael Titelbaum, Ruth Chang, Anton Ford, Eric Marcus, Stephen Kearns & Daniel Star, Garrett Cullity and Paul Weirich. 

 
There is no fee to attend SLACRR, but since space is limited, we ask that you register, which you can do simply by emailing John Brunero or Eric Wiland at SLACRR@gmail.com

Interviews for grad school admissions?

I've recently been advising a student who is trying to gain admission to philosophy grad school. One of the programs to which he has applied has invited him for a campus visit, one component of which will be an interview with the department's faculty.

I must admit I was a bit taken aback when he told me about the interview, since it does not seem to be a common practice for grad school admissions (at least in philosophy — I'm not sure about the norms in other disciplines). With that in mind, I was hoping readers might have advice or insight about these interviews.

If you were interviewed as part of the graduate school admissions process, what kinds of questions were you asked and how might a student best prepare for such an interview?

If you've been on 'the other side' and have conducted such interviews, what are faculty hoping to learn from them and what would you recommend students do to prepare for them?