Sabbatical: The True Meaning of Time

So no apologies or grand statements regarding that my quiet academic blog is now alive and awake again. No promises as to what it will become, or how often I will update. I'm going to let this evolve on its own. Like all the best things I do, I have a sketch in my head as to what I'd like this blog to be while I'm sabbatical -- as I research and write what will hopefully be another book. But, things happen and unfold in interesting and unpredictable ways. I have been doing a great deal of research in the past several months, all in preparation for what will be several months of concentrated work.

For those who may not be familiar with what a sabbatical is or how it works, it's basically a paid leave from one's usual responsibilities on campus in order to do intensive research or writing. Most universities grant year-long sabbaticals; but since Western isn't the most cash-flush or research-oriented university, our sabbaticals are one semester long ... we can take a year if we'd like, but at half-pay. Since I can't afford to live on half of my salary, I opted for the semester-long sabbatical. Sabbaticals are something for which faculty have to apply and be approved. It's a multi-step process that requires proposals and evidence that one has actually done research while they're gone. Once you are on the tenure track, you can apply for a sabbatical once every 7 years. 

This is my first sabbatical. So I have no idea what to expect nor can I wax philosophical on what it's like. 

I can say, however, that this will be the first time I'm not on an academic schedule since I first started going to school. And I don't mean grad school. I mean Pre-K. My years have been portioned by the academic calendar since I was 4. Elementary school. High school. College. Grad school. Teaching. There were no breaks. I have always either been in a classroom as a student or as an instructor since I was 4 years old. I am now 46. You do the math. Sure, there are semester breaks, but this was the first time I entered a semester break without having to think about the next semester's classes. It was less disorienting than I thought it would be. 

Not many people who aren't teachers understand exactly how much time and energy teaching requires. I normally have a teaching load of 4 classes per semester. I'm physically in the classroom for 3 hours per course per week (spread out over a Monday/Wednesday/Friday or Tuesday/Thursday schedule for each). I am also required to have at least 5 hours per week of "office hours" for students. So that's 17 hours per week of teaching/office hours. That doesn't include class preps, grading, committee work, meetings, and the administrative side of directing the philosophy program. Most days, I arrive on campus by 8:30am and leave after 5pm. Most days before or after that I'm prepping/reading for classes, grading, or doing paperwork. Weekends are the same. When I leave for the day, I bring work with me. 

I get up at 5am on weekdays in order to have a little under 60 minutes to do my own research. Semester breaks are also times when I've been able to do my own research. But 1/3rd to 1/2 of those breaks are filled with writing recommendations for students, prepping for the next semester's classes, and dealing with the inevitable committee work that brings me to campus during those breaks. 

With a sabbatical, 85%-90% of the above work goes away. 

This is why sabbatical are precious ... because it gives us time. 

Time to let the big thoughts develop. Time to sit down and THINK. Time to actually read something that isn't a student paper or a committee report. Time to write through a problem without looking at the clock and thinking about how you're going to make Kant into a remotely interesting class. Time to focus on your own work instead of the at-risk student who has been looking really tired in class and probably isn't eating because they just got dumped by their fiancee or their dog is sick or they flipped their car over for the 3rd time in 2 years. Time to sit in quiet instead of dealing with yet another new directive from administration to fund raise or recruit even though you have zero experience or expertise in doing so. Time to read relevant writing in your field instead of being asked to justify the importance of your field or to report back as to exactly where your students from 7 years ago are working now and how your classes got them that particular job. 

There is time. 

Time to recharge myself so that when I do return, Kant will be an interesting class. Time to become re-invested in my field and feel legitimate as an academic again so that I can pay better attention to my students and reach out when I know they're at risk. Time to research so that when I return I have evidence of exactly how important my field is, and exactly why studying it isn't just important, but imperative to making students marketable to employers. 

There is time for me to focus on me, so that I can eventually focus better on my job and doing it well. 

That's what sabbatical is all about, Charlie Brown. 

Posthuman Determinism: Possibility through Boundaries

In my "Posthuman Topologies: Thinking Through The Hoard," I end on a somewhat cryptic note about "posthuman determinism." In all honesty, that was one of those terms that just came out as I was writing that I hadn't thought about before. For me, it was a concept that served as a good point of departure for more writing.

As I'm deep into a new project (and heading toward a sabbatical for the Spring semester), the idea has come to the forefront, with the help of a wonderful book called The Incorporeal: Ontology, Ethics, and the Limits of Materialism, by Elizabeth Grosz. As she questions and re-frames the realtionship between the ideal and the material in the works of the Stoics, Spinoza, Nietzsche, Deleuze, Simondon, and Ruyer, she provides a thoughtful critique of materialism (and, consequently "new materialism" -- my own sub-specialty) that reinvigorates certain points of idealism while maintaining the importance of the material substrate of existence. It's a similar maneuver to Kant's critique of the rational/empirical dichotomy in the 1700s. 

Thankfully, as I started taking notes on Grosz's book, the idea of "posthuman determinism" kept coming back, and with it, a journey back to the core of my philosophical worldview: how do the artifacts which we use -- and which surround us -- contribute to the self. Note here, I'm not saying "contribute to the idea of the self." While we may have ideas of who we are, my position -- as a posthumanist, post-phenomenologist, and new materialist -- is that the objects which surround us and their systems of use are essential and intrinsic parts of the very mechanisms that allow ideas themselves to arise. Ideas may be representations of phenomena or mental processes, but the material of which we are made and that surrounds us make representation itself possible. This means that -- unlike a Cartesian worldview that puts mind over matter, and privileges thought over the material body which supports it -- I place my emphasis on the material that supports thought. That includes the body as well as the physical environments that body occupies.

In that context, a "posthuman determinism" is a way of saying that the combination of our physical bodies and physical spaces those bodies occupy create the boundaries and parameters of experience; and, to a certain extent, create boundaries and parameters of the choices we have and our capacity to make those choices. Our experiences are determined -- not predetermined -- by the material of which we are composed. The trick is to think about the difference between "determinism" and "predeterminism." In relation to the human, the former states only that all events are determined by causes which are external (read, material) to the will; while the latter implies that all human action is established in advance. Determinism emphasizes causality while predeterminism emphasizes result. That is to say, ascribing to a deterministic philosophy implies only that human action always has a cause: that specific factors guide how human beings express their will. Predeterminism implies that the specific choices that humans make are somehow established in advance and that each of us is moving toward a specific, fixed point. That would mean that our choices are themselves illusory, and that regardless of what we choose, we will arrive at a specific end.

Ascribing to a deterministic worldview does not mean -- despite what people critical of philosophy  may tell you -- that nothing matters and that we are not responsible for our choices. In fact, quite the opposite: in a deterministic philosophy everything literally matters. We are responsible for our actions by understanding the causes and conditions that supervene on our decisions. What factors affect the choices I have, and how do those factors contribute to my own decision-making processes? That is to say, What factors instantiate the mechanisms through which I make my choices? From my materialist point of view, I believe that our ability to think and our ability to choose are bounded by the material properties of our bodies and the world around us.*

So although I may ascribe to a certain posthuman determinism, I still believe in "free will," but one that has specific limits and boundaries. To us, there may seem to be infinite choices we can make in any given situation; and, indeed, there may be many choices we can make, but those choices are not unlimited. A person can't imagine a color that isn't a shade, variation, or combination of a color (or colors) that person has already seen. We can't imagine an object that isn't some component, combination, or variation of an object that we've experienced before.

None of the above is new. Both Hume and Descartes say similar things, although Descartes's (and to some extent, Kant's) valorization of the mind's ability to conceive of things like infinity and perfection prove that the mind can move beyond its physical limitations.For me, however, that's the mind moving within them. Infinity is a concept that is born of ones learned awareness of time and space.

All in all, there are limits and boundaries to free will. But those boundaries are what make volition itself possible. We can only think and act through the physical bodies and physical world those bodies occupy. Boundaries are not necessarily prohibitive, they make things possible, and give shape to the specific qualia of experience itself.







*Someday, will our computers be powerful enough to calculate the myriad physical properties around us and predict our behavior based solely on our brain chemistries coupled with the properties of the physical world around us? I think if humans survive long enough to develop that technology, then, yes. At that point, I do think the machines will literally think FOR us; transforming the human species into something very different than it is now -- something beyond the realm of our imagining ... literally. We can't think of what that thinking would be like because we literally do not have the biological capacity nor the material support to allow us to think that way.

Research, Sabbaticals, and the Reality of Higher Ed

It has been quite a while since I've posted, and -- for once -- it's for a good reason. I've been working on some new research which is very timely and somewhat sensitive, in that I am hoping that it is the start to a new larger, hopefully book-length, piece. I was recently granted a sabbatical for the Spring semester of 2019. While a year's sabbatical would be more conducive to research, my university only grants year-long sabbaticals at half-pay, which wasn't feasible financially.

I won't get into the details of my current project work here, but I hope to be posting more often, writing what I envision to be "parallel" pieces that indirectly relate to what I'm working on. Apologies for the intrigue, but sometimes when you've got a really good project that you think has legs, you want to keep it under wraps for fear of being distracted or getting "scooped." It's an aspect of posthumanism that hasn't really been explored in any meaningful way, and I'm hoping to be one of the first to do so.

It's an interesting feeling now, post-promotion to full professor, to establish a research agenda that -- while tempered by demands of my own field -- is my own. As academics, we often find ourselves driven by the desire to land positions that offer some kind of security amid various market pressures and political attacks. And even when we do find those positions, we're faced with internal pressures to engage in research that will ensure tenure and promotion. In most cases, academic freedom allows us to research what we'd like, but we also know that it has to be something publishable. And even then, as economic pressures on higher ed tempt universities to re-create themselves according to certain "identities" (i.e. we are a "destination" or "technical" or "public service" university etc), we find that rushed and panicked marketing campaigns begin to trickle down into discussions of liberal arts and general education: "perhaps if we taught more of [insert fundraising magnet field here], then we'd get more money."

It's especially frustrating for me when the perspective and knowledge I've gained from posthuman studies shows that competing and popular fields pushing these discussions forward are doomed given the demands of the coming decades. You can see the paths ahead to create curricula and programs that could make an institution a real force, but you're told -- directly -- that there have to be donors to support those changes. "Show us a donor with eight million dollars and we can talk about it." When those words can be spoken aloud -- to faculty --  at a university, it's hard to engage in research agenda not affected by those forces (whether it's to try to attract money or to purposely entrench in one's own research agenda out of classic academic spite).

Both extremes are destructive.

I'm not going to stand on the perspective of tenure or promotion to justify my position, because tenure and promotion mean nothing when your program is eliminated. But I can and will speak from the perspective of two decades' worth of experience. I know that to be an effective instructor and researcher, I need to engage in the research that speaks to my own passions and interests. I also know professionally that I have to adapt and shape those results into something that is marketable. And if it doesn't fit into the newest identity one's university is trying on for size, it has to be marketable enough to be published, and perhaps get a little attention. Even if a professor isn't publishing in the most popular majors, universities will still plaster their pictures up on website splash pages to tout their faculty's achievements.

My own research has taken a turn into something that is both meaningful and important to me but could also be timely and popular (well, as popular as academic writing can get). And my upcoming sabbatical is a chance for me to lose myself in it without dealing with the institutional noise and growing list of tasks that are being heaped upon faculty on a daily basis: write the copy for your program for our marketing materials for the 6th time in five years because we've fired the last five marketing people and have no idea where any of that information is; come to this campus discussion about how we're going to revolutionize our curriculum to the point where we're "encouraging" you to add certain content into your own classes; call prospective students to convince them to come.

At a teaching university, all of those are things that take me out of the classroom and interfere with my primary duties as in instructor. All of those are things that directly interfere with my face-time with students. All of those are things that contribute to the fatigue that makes me pass on sitting on committees that could actually make a difference. Some instructors make the transition from professor to fundraiser, although the titles they are given mask that fact: "Director" or "Dean" of something seems much more palatable than "chief fundraiser." The one token course they might teach a year become pegs upon which whatever pedagogical integrity they had is precariously hung.

I do, however, understand the need for people who can chase millionaires and billionaires for funds which are desperately needed to keep universities afloat. It's become a sad reality. And I have no problem speaking to parents and prospective students when they visit campus; I do see that as an aspect of what I need to do in order to actually remain employed. But my old mantra which I've said to the multiple marketing people who have come and gone has been "you get them into the classroom and I'll keep them here." That, sadly, is no longer enough.

It's ironic that sabbatical will take me out of the classroom which I so enjoy -- and have always enjoyed. It's not the classroom or the students from which I need a break, it's literally everything else. I am, in fact, very nervous to be without that classroom energy for a semester, because my students have always sustained and inspired me. But, in the bigger picture, losing myself in research will be a way for me to re-charge my classes and give the students the experience they all deserve.

"Your sabbatical isn't a break," I was told by an administrator at my university, who weeks before had told me that despite my "excellent proposal" I had "about a 50/50 shot" at getting sabbatical due to budget cuts.

But it is a break. A break from the things that distract me from what I do best. When the burdens of non-teaching duties and increased pressure to do the jobs of others encroaches on my class preps and time with students, then stepping away from that for even a semester IS a break. And during that time, I'll tap into the excitement of research that was the core of what allowed me to become a professor in the first place. As I said to a student recently, I knew early on that I wanted to be a professor, but my initial problem was that I saw research and the dissertation as a hurdle or impediment to that goal rather than the path to it. That research was a foundation upon which to build a career; a springboard for my passion to teach.

So, after twenty years, it's time to revisit my foundation, inspect it, and shore it up where necessary. I know I'll be a better professor for it.