Once my PhD supervisor did not invite me along to a fancy overseas trip to a Summer program. I was surprised and hurt by this, especially because he did bring a more junior-to-me-fellow-graduate student; I was at the time, my supervisor's then-senior-(as it were)-PhD student, and I figured it was 'my turn.' Both hypotheses I formed about this event -- [(a) he thinks my work is crap; (b) he dislikes me] -- did not inspire much confidence for my future on the job-market and undoubtedly contributed to my existential gloom (recall). Eventually, I asked him about his choice; he noticed my anguish, expressed surprise and laconically mentioned, "I didn't expect you to be interested in the topic" (or something to that effect).*
Fair enough.
I am still extremely fond of my supervisor (recall), and much of his mentoring of me was more by example than by explicit communication. In fact, if I wanted professional advice without feeling vulnerable about asking, I would often call some of my undergraduate teachers--many of which have mentored me throughout my life in the profession. However, the more direct daily mentoring occurred mostly through my interaction with fellow PhD students in reading groups, writing seminars, basketball time-outs, and countless bar conversations. But I do recall one of the few significant professional conversations my supervisor and I had in the context of my return from an on-campus visit (and accompanying job offer that I had received). He said something to the effect that often, if one is lucky, one's most important professional mentor(s) will be a senior figure(s) in one's new department. How right that prediction turned out to be!
I have worked in four previous departments (at Wesleyan, WashU, Syracuse, and Leiden) prior to my present position. For example, at Wesleyan, practically the whole department took me under its collective wings and 'professionalized' me: they taught me how to write academic papers, how to teach recalcitrant undergrads, and -- non trivially -- that philosophy need not be a bruising contact sport. At WashU, 'Red' Watson, then already in retirement, basically extensively edited each paper I wrote before I submitted it to journals; he managed always to cut 25% of my word-count and simultaneously increase clarity. (I was heartbroken when Red moved to an internet-free zone near a deep cave.) At Syracuse José Benardete met with me for a weekly lunch and re-oriented my ambitions (see here for my account). And at Leiden Pauline Kleingeld, a fellow Dutch philosopher, whom I had met at WashU, eased me into the similar looking, albeit oddly different from the US, academic culture of the Netherlands. (There were more folk who were helpful and generous, of course.) Now, the common-theme among these professional mentors is not just their unexpectedly deep generosity, but also (with the exception of Kleingeld) their identity. Upon arriving at a new place, I would naturally gravitate to folk with whom I had a prior history or pre-existing shared professional interest; but surprisingly the professional mentors were not them (again Kleingeld being the exception). These mentors also taught me a lot of new ways of doing philosophy (at Syracuse much of the department conspired in giving me a crash course on contemporary philosophy that had simply bypassed Chicago). If you look at the acknowledgments of my early papers, they are filled with the names of non-specialist senior colleagues (as well as fellow junior colleagues). Professional philosophy can be a truly collective enterprise!
But the most unexpected, enduring professional mentors turned out to be senior scholars I would meet on the road at workshops, conferences (recall here), and even job-talks. (They are more enduring, in part, because I was a partially involuntary job-hopper during my first decade in professional philosophy.) For example, I'll never forget how out of place I felt in an early modern workshop (my own area of specialization): my talk had flopped (no interesting questions), I felt, and my questions at other people's talks (mostly fellow young scholars) were met with confusion or dismissiveness (I thought). On the last night of the workshop, Lex Newman (the keynote), took me out for drinks in order to argue with me about my paper. Half way through the evening, I muttered something to the effect, "If you are spending this much time trying to refute this paper, you must take it seriously." I shared some of my gloom over how the conference had gone, and to my utter bewilderment Lex insisted how impressive I had been. (I knew he was serious when, to my amazement, not long thereafter, I had no tenure track job yet, he invited me to give a department colloquium at Utah and meet with his students.)
At the time (a decade ago), Lex was on the other side of the contextual-rational reconstruction divide that we take (took?) very seriously in early modern. While we both have a somewhat irrational sideline-fondness for Berkeley, and, in particular, Berkeley's unappreciated greatness, our strictly philosophical and historical interests were very much divergent. (I suspect our politics, too.) Even so, for a few years, in the crucial period in which one needs publications for tenure, I would send Lex advanced drafts of papers, and he would improve them through his criticism. I have been blessed that there have been more Lex-es (you know who you are!) in my professional life.
Now, there is no doubt that in addition to luck, and often accompanying luck, access to professional resources is an important, if not key variable to professional success. (I tend to think of my professional success as being a winner in a rigged lottery.) While some mentors have been involved in helping me land jobs, the more significant role they have played is more diffuse and better understood in terms of what happens after one has obtained a job: I have already emphasized the professional and intellectual benefits, but the sheer joyful camaraderie and generating the feeling that one belongs was vital to me and kept me in the profession when I could have easily (well, painfully) dropped out.
Obviously, the narrative above suppresses lots of institutional politics, the role of self-replicating tacit (gender, racial, class, hetero-normative, etc.) biases, and the eros of intellectual attraction--that is, the stuff I tend to blog frequently about. In re-reading the above (before I press 'publish'), I am struck by the lack of my own agency in all of this. Undoubtedly, if one has some social intelligence, one can cultivate and maintain mentors, but if I am right that at least part of the profession still operates in a gift-giving economy, being the recipient of mentoring is, in part, recognizing that some gifts are too good, yet true.
And, if you have kept count, you might ask...what about the sixth? This kind of professional mentor turned out to be the most surprising of all: my fellow bloggers at NewAPPS.
Happy 2015!
I was especially glad to see the nice appreciation of Lex Newman (my very first PhD student!).
Posted by: Alan Nelson | 01/04/2015 at 04:30 PM