I appreciate Rebecca's post, especially the call to work on the issues rather than "metametametacritiques," but, as a committed second-wave feminist and former president of my university's AAUP chapter, I want to make it clear that there is nothing contradictory about my also having signed the original open letter, despite the claims in this one. I don't know how many of the signatories to this letter actually read the original one, still less the continuing discussion around it: had they done so, it should have been obvious just how off-base this letter is.
For a start, every effort has been made by the critics to take the focus off of Rebecca Tuvel and place it where it belongs--on the profession of philosophy and on what those of us who have loved, nurtured, relied on, and been proud of Hypatia see as a lamentable and hopefully correctable lapse in editorial judgment. And, crucially, the problem is NOT with the conclusions Tuvel argues for, nor with her right to make, or Hypatia to publish, arguments for those or any other conclusions. The problem--as has been made clearly over and over again--is with the failure of the article to substantially engage, and, crucially, the failure of the review process to call for substantially engaging, with the work of trans theorists, of critical race theorists, and of Black feminists, all of whom have written extensively on the topics of the article in ways that Tuvel is completely free to disagree with but not to ignore. It is symptomatic of the marginalization of such voices in the profession that such ignorance is passed over rather than being treated in the same way as any other failure to engage with the work of those most knowledgeable about and theoretically sophisticated in the area in which one is writing.
The point is NOT to demand ideological conformity nor to suggest, as was, for example, misleadingly reported in The New York Times, that only members of marginalized groups can write about those groups: the relevant slogan is not "nothing about us except by us" or "nothing about us we don't like"--it's "nothing about us without us." The call is for inclusion, for respect, for intellectual humility, for more--not less--critical thinking and writing. It's for taking seriously the responsibility that goes along with academic freedom. This open letter is a thinly veiled attack on the work of those--many of them professionally vulnerable--who are challenging philosophy and the broader culture to take seriously voices the more privileged among us (and I include myself in that group) have been taught not to listen to, let alone to learn from. Waving the banner of academic freedom to silence criticism and close one's ears to discomforting voices is the height of hypocrisy, and I urge signers of this letter to consider removing their names.
Naomi Scheman
Professor Emerita, Philosophy and Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies
University of Minnesota
So 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.RebeccaOn 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-9780190618179?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