The broad, well-established, interdisciplinary scholarly fields
But wait, there’s more. One of the people who signed the letter attacking Rebecca Tuvel – one of the “colleagues” who signed it – wrote a piece for the CHE saying why the signers were right to sign it.
As one of the many scholars involved in writing the open letter calling on Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy to retract the essay “In Defense of Transracialism,” by Rebecca Tuvel, I am compelled to come forward and attempt to reclaim a narrative spinning increasingly out of control.
Five words in the bullying starts – she has to make clear that it was many scholars. (I’m not sure they are all genuine scholars; I think some are adherents rather than scholars, adherents of a political view as opposed to scholars in a discipline.) Many scholars; we all hate you – it might as well be the playground.
And she’s not “compelled,” and nobody stole anything so there’s nothing to “reclaim,” and it’s not a “narrative,” it’s arguments. And it’s not out of control, it’s just not what the “many scholars” had in mind.
Many of us became involved at the request of black and/or trans scholars who feel completely demoralized by Tuvel’s article and the failure of peer review that it represents. Speaking for myself, I signed and circulated the letter because I know, firsthand, of the damage this kind of scholarship does to marginalized groups, especially black and trans scholars, in philosophy.
Tuvel’s article is not a reason to feel “completely demoralized.” That’s more bullying language. It would be fair if she had written a vituperative attack on black and/or trans scholars or people, but she didn’t do anything like that. Saying her article does “damage” is just more of the same bullying rhetoric. It is not reasonable.
Tuvel received substantive critical feedback at conferences from scholars in critical race theory and trans studies. We do not understand how this failed to shape the review process and can only assume that such scholars were not selected as peer reviewers.
Why should they have been? Tuvel wasn’t writing critical theory or trans studies, she was writing philosophy.
[T]he article’s publication signals an arrogant disregard for the broad, well-established, interdisciplinary scholarly fields of both critical race theory and trans studies.
But philosophers are allowed to write about philosophy. They’re not required to write about other fields. Also I have my doubts about the “well-established” bit.
While feminist philosophy should imply a critique of the field of philosophy itself, the open letter to Hypatia wasn’t aimed at the discipline over all. None of us ever expected it to circulate so widely, to garner so many signatures, or to become the object of news stories.
No, you wanted to bully Tuvel in private with nobody watching.
[T]he lightning-fast vituperative response by scholars who would never consider publishing in Hypatia (and who may not respect feminist philosophy) is suspect, to say the least. We authors of the open letter, and the associate editors of Hypatia, are accused of poor reasoning, poor scholarship, and lack of integrity. In other words, the overwhelmingly sexist, male, and white discipline has, once again, called out the feminists as irrational, hysterical, and immoral. To say that we’re engaging in a “witch hunt” couldn’t be more paradoxical when we, the feminist philosophers, have long been treated like the witches of the discipline.
But what about the feminist philosophers and other feminists who think the open letter is horrible? What about the feminists who think the treatment of Tuvel has been unbelievably shitty?
I signed the open letter as part of a continuing effort to make feminist philosophy something other than a damaged, dutiful daughter to the deeply troubled discipline of philosophy. I also signed it as part of continuing efforts to change philosophy’s practices. After all, the methodological insularity evidenced in Tuvel’s article and its publication effectively render ignored and disrespected black, trans, and other minority scholars who work in these fields doubly marginalized. The inequalities perpetuated are both conceptual and practical.
What about the business school? What about geology? What about chemical engineering?
The first comment is useful:
“The fundamental problem with Tuvel’s article isn’t her ability to construct a rational argument but rather the omission of any sustained engagement with the well-developed, interdisciplinary scholarship on race and gender, particularly by black and trans scholars.”
This seems to be a major point of disagreement among those who oppose the call for retraction and those who support it. I fall into the former category, and I do not think she had any obligation to ‘engage’ with the fields you mentioned. Hers was an analytic paper and is no different from other work, even on similar topics, in the field. Philosophers need to have the freedom to choose what method and framework they’re going to work within. Her method is a — though not the only — legitimate one, and this witch hunt (yes that’s what it is) is an attempt to violate her right to choose to use it.
It’s not voting or real estate or schools; it doesn’t have to be representative.
There are many excellent comments at Brian Leiter’s too. Such as:
Chris Surprenant said…The two points that this article raises as defenses–the number of straight, white males in philosophy and that Tuvel supposedly didn’t cite the appropriate literature–both seem like distractions and are otherwise irrelevant. What was done by the associate editors, letter-writers, and letter-signers was egregious, professional misconduct.
Winnubst’s response is entirely tone deaf to the reasons why there was such a quick backlash from many members of our community on all sides of the spectrum: What was done not only violated clear professional norms, but it also violated norms of decency and kindness that we should show to other people, especially other people who are especially vulnerable in our discipline (untenured, female, etc.).
Oh but decency and kindness aren’t “well-developed, interdisciplinary scholarship on race and gender” so they don’t count.
None of us ever expected it to circulate so widely, to garner so many signatures, or to become the object of news stories.
That line struck me too when I first read the piece. I read it as “None of us ever expected that the fire that we deliberately started in order to burn Rebecca Tuvel would burn us as well.”
Or, even more crisply, “we didn’t think we’d get caught.”
What Ophelia said, but also: This is so disingenuous. Look, I have no doubt that the fact that most of the letter-writers are women is part of the reason there’s been such an outcry about the open letter. People love to pile on women, after all. But: That does not mean that the critics of the letter are wrong! What a cop-out.
Seriously, how “well-established” can trans studies be?
Per Wikipedia:
So, not very.
No, your craven reaction to such a bad faith interpretation of Tuvel’s work – so bad that one can but assume that the authors of the demands learned their critical thinking skills by reading the comments section of Pharyngula – signals an arrogant disregard for honesty, decency, respect for a colleague; for feminism, for academia and its accepted standards and norms of behaviour, and for your own reputation as a scholar, a reputation that deserves to remain sullied at least until you have realised exactly what you have done and the genuine harm you and your co-signers have caused to a woman and to her future academic career for what she hasn’t said , and certainly not before you have the common decency to issue a very public, sincere apology to Ms. Tuvel.
Until then, your disgraceful actions leave you undeserving of the title of ‘scholar’.
Wait wait, one of the signers of that open letter is describing the opposition as vituperative? Holy lack of self-awareness, batman.
But what if they are correct to do so? And I too am wondering if this cosigner is aware that there are feminists on both sides of this. Perhaps they are just being dismissed as not being real feminists by virtue of the fact that they dare disagree with that open letter; nasty white feminists versus the wise and scholarly intersectional feminists.
How many citations would you expect such a short article to have? From the way they’re reacting, you’d think Tuvel had published a book and failed to engage with trans and black scholars, which would be a noteworthy omission. The fact is, the critics don’t want to see engagement unless it accepts their views on race and gender. I expect that a critical article that did engage more with those fields would be far more offensive to them than the article Tuvel wrote.
For some reason the last panel of http://www.jesusandmo.net/comic/marry2/ seems to sum up the technique of the bullies.
Nice, Shank has weighed in on the issue now. Her chief complaint: don’t describe the reaction against Tuvel as a witch hunt, because she is not literally being burned at the stake. Wow, useful.
Shank?
Also known as Shiv.
‘omission of any sustained engagement with the well-developed, interdisciplinary scholarship on race and gender, particularly by black and trans scholars.’
Well then fking engage her, ffs.
Whatever the original damage, it seems to me that the final outcome might be a net positive. The petition signers thought they were simply hopping on a popular bandwagon (I can hardly see any genuine philosophical impetus) and were surprised when it began backfiring. In any case, it certainly raised Tuvel’s profile and, given that her paper was well argued, made interesting points and her field is philosophy, the only academic departments that might be cowed by her honesty and “notoriety” are departments she wouldn’t be joining anyway. And departments of philosophy might actually be attracted. Not to mention that it brought to wider attention the (dare I say Trumpian, “lock-her-up!” style) bullying that has accompanied the whole “trans” topic. I would trot out the old adage about academic disputes being so vicious because the stakes are so small, but for Tuvel that wouldn’t be true. And, I think now, that’s good news.
Holms, would this be the dishonest piece of crap to which you refer http://freethoughtblogs.com/atg/2017/05/12/oh-the-slightest-criticism-obviously-equivalent-to-being-burned-alive/ ?
Yeah, when the open letter is described as ‘mild’ then you just know it’s going to be a somewhat less than balanced article. I did learn one thing, though; apparently the term ‘transgender’ is wrong and only used by ignorant cis people who insist oon not using the approved term. The fact that Shiv, a trans person herself, then goes on to mention her vast experience of ‘transgender hysteria’ kind of nullifies that.
Acolyte of Sagan@14: I was annoyed when I read that linked piece (although par for the course at ftb, which is why this is the first time I’ve visited there in months). It does concern me that part of the fallout of this is folks like the person in that post claiming that this is all “normal” in academia, and that critics are making a big deal out of nothing out of the ordinary. I saw someone else making a similar claim yesterday.
It seems that in order to salvage their own reputations, they’re willing to drag the reputation of academic publishing as a whole down with them.
Or there is this one:
http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2017/05/12/calling-them-transphobic-is-exactly-like-dropping-a-nuclear-bomb-on-them/
PZ has jumped on the bandwagon of piling onto a junior academic who wrote a paper he disliked.
Oh no. No no no no.
God damn it.
The “witch hunt” trope has some history. Dawkins used it of the reaction to his (cough) unpleasant post about how a woman who wants to accuse someone of raping her had better not have been drunk at the time [never mind that it was the rapist who got her drunk]. I objected to that myself at the time, and no doubt PZ did too. But this isn’t that. Rebecca isn’t a senior famous rich retired male academic, she’s a junior obscure pre-tenure female one. Also, what she wrote isn’t comparable to what Dawkins wrote. Dawkins bore little resemblance to the target of a witch hunt; the same cannot be said of Rebecca.
Ophelia, if you’d care to hold your nose and dive into the comments at the post linked to by iknklast, around thirty comments in there”s a rather…erm…interesting revision of the circumstances leading to your departure from ftb. As for the other comments there, a couple of people have tried to inject a little reason into the squawk-fest by pointing out a few facts, but of course they’re obviously transphobes.
Oh, and the whole ‘terf’ nonsense is being recycled in the same thread. I feel that there ought to be a counter-acronym to describe those screaming moaners undermining real feminists, but for the life of me I can’t think of a single suitable suggestion.
What the hell is that post from PZ? Has he jumped the shark? going to read comments here now, I just read there, and came immediately here to say what the hell?
If Ophelia can review the comments in PZs post, I give her kudos. I stopped reading comments at Pharyngula when Ophelia came back here. Tried a few times, always ended in regret. Still, I was shocked to read his article just now. I guess I should be happy I am still capable of being shocked in these interesting times.
http://thephilosophicalsalon.com/if-this-is-feminism-its-been-hijacked-by-the-thought-police/
#14
Yes that’s the one.
#18
Yes yes but she’s a white cis female. Writing academically about trans issues. And talking academically about trans issues without the proper obeisance to the current trend in trans thought is exactly like blaming women for being raped. She’s a fucking monster.
/s
Kelly @ 22 – Thank you, that’s a great piece. I blogged on it twice:
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2017/many-harmful-aspects/
http://www.butterfliesandwheels.org/2017/outrage-has-become-the-new-truth/
All this mouthing off about ‘scholarship’ comes over to me as unbearably pretentious, especially when ‘scholarship’ seems at best to be defined by counting citations. I’ve read the article and it seems like something that, in the Journals I used to read, would have been in the Notes and Comments section. It is however clearly and unambiguously written, which in some academic fields I know will count against it.
Even if we take the claims of the writers of the open letter at face value, that they were concerned about the failure of the editors to maintain scholarly standards and it was not a personal attack on the author, they still demonstrate a breathtaking arrogance. If there are defects in ‘scholarship’ it isn’t enough to simply make the claim. It requires a counter-argument, with evidence that is more than just argument from authority.
I’m not in academia, but I spent 40+ years in a profession where I was expected to make arguments for policy decisions, often in legal or quasi-legal contexts. Had I attempted to make a case such as is presented in the open letter, I would have been almost literally laughed out of court.
I think many of them would do well to read Andreski’s ‘Social Sciences as Sorcery’ – it doesn’t look as if things have improved much since the 70s, when it was published. A quote:
“So long as authority inspires awe, confusion and absurdity enhance conservative tendencies in society. Firstly, because clear and logical thinking leads to a cumulation of knowledge (of which the progress of the natural sciences provides the best example) and the advance of knowledge sooner or later undermines the traditional order. Confused thinking, on the other hand, leads nowhere in particular and can be indulged indefinitely without producing any impact upon the world.”
An earlier example of ‘transracialism’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_Owl
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