Late Spring Happenings

First, congratulations:

• Congratulations to Travis Dumsday (Concordia-Edmonton), who has won a Canada Research Chair.
• Congratulations to Marilyn McCord Adams (Rutgers), who has been elected, this spring, to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. (The press release characterizes her position at Rutgers as “a recurring visiting professor in the Department of Philosophy.”)

Second, conferences:

• The Cornell Summer Colloquium in Medieval Philosophy meets May 28-30, 2015 (Ithaca, NY)
• The Representation and Reality group in Gothenburg has announced two workshops for next fall: one on memory (September 5-6) and another on the ethical saying “For the principle does not occur to him” (November 7-8). Their annual conference, as previously announced, is this June 12-14.
• The International Conference on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (a joint meeting of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy and the Society for the Study of Islamic Philosophy) meets October 23-25, 2015 (Fordham)
• Sander de Boer and Han Thomas Adriaenssen are beginning what they hope will be an annual Dutch Seminar in Medieval Philosophy, beginning this fall (October 30-31 in Groningen). The CFP deadline is July 1.

Last, career opportunities:

• The SIEPM is advertising a yearly competition for a stipend to conduct research at the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame. Open only to younger scholars (35 or under). The application deadline is June 1. Details here.
• The American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly is again sponsoring its Rising Scholar Essay Contest, for scholars who have not yet attained the rank of associate professor. Submission deadline is September 1, 2015.
• The University of Helsinki is advertising a four-year position for a doctoral student, focused on medieval theories of perception.
• A week-long summer school has been announced in Saint-Omer (France): “Reconstituer une bibliothèque médiévale aujourd’hui : l’exemple de Saint-Bertin” (August 25-29, 2015).

With all that, this blog goes on summer vacation.

New Hires

Back in January, I posted a list of medieval jobs that were advertised in the US. I haven’t been able to learn how all of these searches came out (despite making a few inquiries), but here is some information, including some positions that I didn’t list in that earlier post.

• Turner Nevitt (Fordham PhD) has been hired as an assistant professor at the University of San Diego.
• Riccardo Strobino (Pisa PhD) has been hired as an assistant professor at Tufts University (in the Classics Department).
• Scott Williams (Oxford PhD) has been hired as an assistant professor at North Carolina/Asheville.
• Stephan Schmid (Humboldt PhD) has been offered a position as an assistant professor at the University of Chicago.

It is excellent to see these good jobs going to some very good people in our field.

What I would like to be able to do, at this point, is make some sage remarks about why some people get jobs and others do not, despite having manifestly excellent credentials. But I find myself utterly unable to do this. It is clear that publications matter tremendously, even for entry-level positions. But beyond that there is clearly just a great deal of luck involved. Some people succeed by working on the most mainstream of topics (e.g., Aquinas), but others work in more exotic areas and yet manage to find a job that fits their profile. There is clearly no magic formula for success.