Problems with the Academy
I though I had it bad. Out of the four professors whom I was planning on studying with, Prof. Haldane, Prof. Broadie, Prof. Skorupski, and Prof. Ashford. All but Skrorupski are on leave this semester. Ashford is at the Kennedy School at Harvard for the year, Broadie is somewhere (but thank God, will be back next semester to teach a class on classical philosophy), and Haldane got a huge grant from the Templeton Foundation to write for the next three years (hopefully he might still advise me on my thesis though). Lucky for me though the school just hired a new moral philosopher, so I'll study contemporary ethics with him next semester.
I consider my self lucky though only in comparison with the five or six guys who want to study logic, and philosophy of language. Now St. Andrews is a good school for ethics, but it is a great school for logic and language. It is one of the few schools in the world with a handful of world class professors in these areas. These guys have literally written the books on these topics. So it is only natural the the school would attract a fair amount of students that want to work on this area. The peoblem is, all of the professors are on leave next semester. Every last one of the senior factually who are specialists in logic and language are gone; leaving the poor logician students with class choices ranging from philosophy of law to film studies. On top of that most of the them are Scandinavians, so they are trying to be proper and polite about it, but the old Viking blood is coming out. They urge, lying dormant for eons, to start rapping and burning Scotland is about to explode in there souls.
Poor bastards! I should sympathize with them, which in principle I do. I mean couldn't the school make sure that the senior faculty take sabbatical on different years? But it is fun telling Danes, Norwigans, and Iclanders that they will have a great time in film studies class.
NB: Why the hell is a major philosophy department offering a graduate level class on film studies?
I consider my self lucky though only in comparison with the five or six guys who want to study logic, and philosophy of language. Now St. Andrews is a good school for ethics, but it is a great school for logic and language. It is one of the few schools in the world with a handful of world class professors in these areas. These guys have literally written the books on these topics. So it is only natural the the school would attract a fair amount of students that want to work on this area. The peoblem is, all of the professors are on leave next semester. Every last one of the senior factually who are specialists in logic and language are gone; leaving the poor logician students with class choices ranging from philosophy of law to film studies. On top of that most of the them are Scandinavians, so they are trying to be proper and polite about it, but the old Viking blood is coming out. They urge, lying dormant for eons, to start rapping and burning Scotland is about to explode in there souls.
Poor bastards! I should sympathize with them, which in principle I do. I mean couldn't the school make sure that the senior faculty take sabbatical on different years? But it is fun telling Danes, Norwigans, and Iclanders that they will have a great time in film studies class.
NB: Why the hell is a major philosophy department offering a graduate level class on film studies?
2 Comments:
Never mind about the Scandinavians. Just turn the Swedes and the Norwegians against each other, and they'll be too busy bickering to burn Scotland.
Pillage and plunder? I guess we have a thing or two to learn from our proud (and barbaric) ancestors. But even though Vikings were barbaric, they were not stupid: who in their right mind would plunder the treasury of a philosophy department or savage the women of a logic department?
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