Hi John and all,As a recent PhD myself, I just found myself saying in my head, "Wow, this man (John Flowers) has written what I wish I could have even begun to articulate in the privacy of my own head, let alone in a mass email." At least I managed to get that thought out "on paper" (i.e. as pixels on a screen).Thank you, John.-AbigailDr. a.r. (Abigail/Abi) Klassen - pronouns: ze/they/theirsFaculty, Department of Philosophy and Honors CollegeUniversity of Nevada, Las Vegas, Central Desert Complex 4, 424Lab Affiliate, Laboratory forPerceptual and Cognitive Systems, Faculty of Computing University of LatviaOn Tue, May 30, 2017 at 6:52 AM, John Flowers <[log in to unmask]> wrote:As one of the junior scholars on the list, I've been following this conversation with interest, specifically with regards to how senior scholars in the field take up their obligation to mentor and cultivate junior scholars. In my mind, this also includes the defense of those scholars from retaliation within and outside of the field.However, something about the direction of this conversation has troubled me, and I think this troubled sensation can be summed up in a quotation from Sara Ahmed's text Living A Feminist Life which I think is apropos of the situation:"When we have to think strategically, we also have to accept our complicity: we forgo any illusions of purity; we give up the safety of exteriority. If we are not exterior to the problem under investigation, we too are the problem under investigation."We are all implicated in the situation that has given rise to the letter above (which, as a black junior scholar, is a frightening reality), as well as the need for conversations about the editorial practices of Hypatia, and the response of our field to Tuvel's article, and we must all look at how we allowed this to happen within our own community. That is, we must all examine the ways we bear some collective responsibility for the situation, and then do the hard work to change it.Again, as Ahmed says, we need to give up the "safety of exteriority" if we're going to make any actual headway at eliminating the conditions that allowed for this situation to arise in the first place. We need to ask how we, as a community of scholars, created the conditions for this entire situation to arise, and that requires us to accept some responsibility for it.Even if, as Dr. Tirrell notes above, this letter was meant to "scare and waste time and energy," and even if it is an elaborate hoax as Dr. Scheman suggests, some of us do not have the luxury of treating it as "exterior" to our future scholarship: I, as an example, have no choice but to treat this as a cautionary tale for what might happen to me should I get scholarship wrong, as a junior scholar.That being said, while I agree with Dr. Springer on the need for individual conversations, we must not forget that statements from institutions (and I would treat Hypatia and FEAST itself as institutions) generally carry the weight of the individuals who make up those institutions. While individual conversations are necessary, statements from institutions, supported by action, are also necessary.An institutional commitment to resolving a this situation in a way that promotes the elimination of the kinds of conditions that have given rise to this situation is something that can be used to hold not only the institution accountable, but those individuals who claim to be part of the institution as well. However, as I said above, a institution must be willing to support said statement with action (which is something I also claim of individuals) if the statement is to be effective.I do want to conclude by stating that I am heartened by the number of responses to the letter that pointed out its attempts to target vulnerable junior scholars: many of my colleagues have expressed concern about weighing in on the situation out of fear that they, too, might become targets before they've managed to establish themselves within the field.John FlowersPh.D Candidate,Southern Illinois University, Carbondale.On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 11:35 PM, Reiheld, Alison <[log in to unmask]> wrote:Yes, the work involved in tracking down the provosts and admins is a remarkable investment. And, so far as I can tell, an accurate one.
That said, I look forward to a conversation with my Provost about how my concerns over the Hypatia issues (as symptomatic of the profession, but hoping for much better from our beloved flagship journal of feminist philosophy) undermine the study of female materiality and women's issues in the academy. I mean, speaking as the Director of Women's Studies, this seems like a serious problem that the Provost and I should take up with Prof. Reiheld.
Best,
Alison
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Alison Reiheld
Associate Professor, Department of PhilosophyDirector, Women's Studies ProgramCollege of Arts and Sciences
Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville
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From: Feminist ethics and social theory <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Naomi Scheman <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, May 28, 2017 10:34:19 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: open letterThe only signatories' names that looked at all familiar to me were Ted Roosevelt and Adam Smith. But the letter specifically says they are not all academics, let alone philosophers, so I don't know if it's a hoax or rather a piece of nastily sophisticated trolling. And someone did a huge amount of work tracking down the provosts at the universities of all the signers of our open letter.
Naomi SchemanProfessor Emerita, Philosophy and Gender, Women, & Sexuality StudiesUniversity of MinnesotaI am wondering if this is a hoax. Did others look at the signatures? Do you know anyone? Only a few have institutional affiliations, and I don't recognize a single name. I don't know everyone in philosophy, of course, but NONE??
This is meant to scare and waste time and energy. I'm walking away. But thank you to everyone who has posted useful analyses.
(Also, my last note was marked a possible fraud on my own iPad, I'm not sure why.sorry if you got that too. )
Lynne TirrellJulianna - Are you sure you provost signed it? They set it up so that the people they are sending it to look like the people who signed it. I think your provost is on there because you signed the original letter and they are trying to rat everyone out to their provosts, because they are rancid pond scum.
Rebecca
On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 10:04 PM, Julinna Oxley <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Thanks to Rebecca, Camisha, Serene, Ann, and others who I may have missed, for your thoughts. I am in complete agreement with the points you raise.
I am writing with a “heads up” to anyone who signed the letter: take caution. My Provost has signed this letter, which means they did circulate the letter to upper administrators. I have a chair and a dean between me and the provost; the provost is the highest person that I would “directly report” to. I am not sure whether this letter was sent to my Dean. To be clear, I did not agree with everything in the original letter to Hypatia, but agreed with its spirit, and signed on in order to support the people whose work and lives I felt were erased in the Hypatia essay.
I am shocked that:(a) this matter has been brought to the awareness of my EMPLOYER. The original letter which I signed was addressed to Hypatia, as it was an academic matter. It was not an employment matter. But now my participation in an academic debate has become a subject of my employment. Great.(b) the letter my employer received framing this debate is completely one-sided, and has the faults that others have identified.(c) the signatories of this counter-letter do not recognize the irony of their own actions with respect to harm, speech, etc.
I am grateful that I am tenured and have a good working relationship with my Provost (at least I did up until now, I hope he did not receive an email saying, “Julinna Oxley is a witch-hunter, you should step in here”!!). My provost is a Business professor by training and I reported to him when I directed our Women’s and Gender Studies program. During that time he was very supportive and open to learning more about gender and feminism, gave us more lines to grow the program—and in fact, we just hired a full-time director to replace me. I personally am not worried about my employment (though I wonder now what his impressions of me and this whole debacle are), but I am pretty irate that they did this, because it could be really harmful for other people who may have signed.
I will not be writing or signing yet a third letter to circulate to the employers of the signatories of THIS LETTER – but the thought did cross my mind.
In solidarity,Julinna——Julinna C. Oxley, Ph.D.Associate Professor of Philosophy
Coastal Carolina University
Edwards Humanities and Fine Arts #280
133 Chanticleer Drive West
P.O. Box 261954
Conway SC 29528
(843) 349-6548
[log in to unmask]
From: Feminist ethics and social theory <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Serene Khader <[log in to unmask]>
Reply-To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Sunday, May 28, 2017 at 8:52 PM
To: "[log in to unmask]" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: open letter
Speaking as an individual (and not as a representative of Hypatia), I want to agree with the concerns raised Ann, Naomi, Rebecca, and Camisha.
I also want to draw attention to something that Rebecca already started to, but that may not be evident to many readers at first blush: the letter is TERFy. Point 3 is all about how "feelings about gender" are making it impossible to talk about sex. So, though the letter paints itself as a defense of academic freedom, I urge people to take note of what is being said in that section of the letter. As far as I can tell, the letter is trying to create outrage about the idea that trans people are silencing "females" and preventing feminist movements from advancing their interests. And I would hope that most people in the feminist philosophy community would find that proposition false and morally suspect--and that those of us who are cis would consider the interests and perspectives of our trans friends and colleagues as we formulate our individual reactions to the letter.
On Mon, May 29, 2017 at 8:17 AM, Lynne Tirrell <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I agree with Ann and think Naomi and Rebecca are right on. Thanks especially, Naomi.
LynneSent from my iPad, by dictationi'm coming to this only after seeing a number of responses. Let's not give these people any more publicity. Ann
On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 1:53 PM, Rebecca Kukla <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
The more I am processing this the angrier I am getting. So they are sending this stupid letter to the provosts and deans of untenured people, trans and other minority scholars, and grad students who signed - presumably to get them in trouble? To fuck up their lives? To what end? How does this even conceivably help the causes that they themselves claim to champion? What the hell?
And they are using THIS LIST to try to get feminist scholars to throw vulnerable people under the bus at their own institutions, quite possibly without even noticing that that's what they are doing.
With Naomi's clarification I am now about a thousand times more angry and disgusted than I was at the start.
Rebecca
On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 4:47 PM, Rebecca Kukla <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
I didn't understand the list either! Weird! Thanks, Naomi.
I agree with several others on this thread that (even though I started it) a back and forth over email is unlikely to be a wonderful idea, and things will only get more and more meta. The more I read this letter the worse it gets, It's TERFy and ignorant and doing even Tuvel herself no favors. I'm pretty furious it exists.
I'll just once more renew my call for people to actually work on these issues and on communicating and listening better.
Rebecca
On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 4:40 PM, Naomi Scheman <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Just a quick note lest anyone make the mistake I made: the list of names at the bottom of the open letter are the addressees, not the signers!
Naomi SchemanProfessor Emerita, Philosophy and Gender, Women, & Sexuality StudiesUniversity of MinnesotaI agree 100 percent with Rebecca. Let's just stop tearing the feminist philosophy community apart. Enough with letters, petitions, defensiveness, and attacks. We need to think constructively about editorial practices going forward. Feminists ought to understand that if a group of colleagues are deeply offended by something then we all need to take notice and be honest and charitable and try to appreciate what is going on. This may call for a conference to sort it out.
Sent from my iPhoneSo people are angry about an open letter that they felt attacked a junior person so they thought the best solution was yet another open letter attacking what was mostly junior people? This has to stop somewhere. And this affair has to be allowed to die already.
I didn't sign the first letter and I am not signing this one either.
People need to stop trying to settle their academic and political disagreements via open letters designed to publicly shame by ganging up on other people. It's not even clear what action item this one is calling for. (The article is already being published, with only tiny word changes to bring it in line with current linguistic conventions that avoid slurs, and the other two items are too vague to be actionable.)
The issues in this area are super important, so let's actually work on them, rather than devoting our productive hours to metametametacritiques.
Rebecca
On Sun, May 28, 2017 at 10:39 AM, Veltman, Andrea - veltmaal <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Hi all,
Julian Vigo ([log in to unmask]) asked me to forward the following message to the FEAST listserv.
Best wishes,
Andrea
______________________________________ Dr. Andrea VeltmanAssociate Professor of PhilosophyDepartment of Philosophy & ReligionJames Madison UniversityMSC 8006Harrisonburg, VA 22807Office phone: 540-568-4236[log in to unmask]
My latest book, Meaningful Work, is recently published by Oxford University Press:
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/meaningful-work-9780 190618179?cc=us&lang=en&
From: Julian Vigo <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, May 27, 2017 3:54 PM
To: Veltman, Andrea - veltmaal
Subject: open letterDear Andrea,
I am writing to ask if you could sign & share this open letter to protect academic freedom related to the Tuvel affair with consequences far beyond:
Your collaboration in signing and sharing this on social media, with colleagues and the Listserv would be creating appreciated!
Warmly,
Julian Vigo
˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚ ˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚Dr. Julian Vigo, PhD, FRSA˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚˚
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