In this interview, Kathleen Higgins, Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, talks about growing up in Kansas City in a big, Catholic household, developing an interest in music (specifically piano), the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam, debate team, Chopin, Zappa, Franny and Zooey, contemplating a career in chemistry, Aquinas, Krishnamurti, studying music theory at University of Missouri-Kansas City, the link between music and chemistry and the universe, getting into Nietzsche, studying Neo-Confucian philosophy at Yale, deconstruction, Julia Ching, working with Karsten Harries on Thus Spoke Zarathustra, landing a job at University of Texas at Austin, a place she has been for over 30 years, starting off as the only woman on the regular faculty, The Golden Ass, the idiosyncratic and universal features of music, her late husband Robert Solomon, thinking about Nietzsche at 4:00 AM, philosophical advice, perspectivism, her supremely beautiful new project, the nature of philosophy, the analytic/continental distinction, climate change, Chuang Tzu, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Love Supreme, “Shango”, Six Feet Under, election night 2016, and her last meal…
[2/27/2020]
Where did you grow up?
My Dad was in the Navy until I was 10, so I grew up in various places before that time. But Dad got a job in Kansas City, so I lived there from then until I was 23.
What was your family like?
It was a large family by today’s standards. I was the oldest of six children. I have two brothers and three sisters.
Big family! Religious household?
Yes, a Catholic one. I went to Catholic schools much of the time up until the tenth grade, but this depended a lot on our moving from place to place. In those days, Catholic schools were overcrowded, so sometimes we couldn’t enroll in the local Catholic school when we arrived in a new location. We had to wait until there were vacancies.
As a little kid, what were you interested in?
I was interested in music, wishing I could take piano lessons (which happened after we stopped moving so much and got a piano). I liked to read a lot, especially biographies and stories about life in other places. In school I liked religion and literature especially. I was also intrigued by the differences in ideas and attitudes I found in the various places we lived.
Favorite autobiography from then?
Mostly I read biographies by others. I loved the St. Thérèse of Lisieux and the St. Augustine biographies I read from a series of biographies of saints for children. The latter was loosely based on the story of Augustine’s life in his Confessions.
What was going on in the world when you were a kid?
The admission of Hawaii and Alaska into the United States…I think I was in kindergarten. It was surprising that there could be states that weren’t contiguous with the others. The Cuban missile crisis terrified me. I wasn’t sure who exactly might drop bombs on us, but the air raid drills were very scary. The Kennedy assassination was really shocking to me, as to everyone else. The Vietnam War was going on when I was in what would now be called middle school and beyond. I don’t think anyone was not feeling the impact of that, on a personal level as well as in more abstract political terms, since family members and teachers were subject to the draft. My high school had a big environmental consciousness-raising event during the first Earth Day, and that made a big impression, too. Vatican II was also exciting because it indicated a willingness to reconsider the details of basic practices and emphases.
As a teenager, did you get into any trouble?
Not really. I enjoyed being in the know about other people’s pranks (and worse), but not being part of them myself.
Favorite subjects in high school?
English, debate, and chemistry.
Memorable debates from your high school years?
The first time I was slated to debate on a team with the woman who was to become my best friend, Paula. Illness in my extended family meant that my parents, and thus my immediate family, needed to go from Kansas City to Nebraska for the weekend. Paula’s parents suggested that I stay at their house so that I could go to the second day of the debate tournament, which had already begun. I did, and Paula and I won the tournament. Another first-time victory happened the following year, our senior year. One of our classmates had been a member of the star team the previous year, and the debate coach was trying to decide whether Paula or I should be his partner senior year. The first time I was put on the same team as he was, we won the final round of the tournament on a 7-0 decision (though Paula ended up being the “star” guy’s partner). In those days each member of each team would give a brief opening speech, and after each of these someone from the other team would cross-examine the person who had given it. I made an embarrassing Freudian slip when I was starting the cross-examination in a debate against a team from another school that included a guy I was infatuated with. I began with, “Okay, Jim, I have a few questions.” The person I was addressing responded with a shocked, “My name is Jeff!”
Ha! Why did you dig chemistry?
It struck me as quite beautiful that elements were preserved despite major transformations, and the idea that on a deeper level things operated very differently from the way they appear fascinated me.
As a teenager, what music were you into?
I liked classical music generally, especially Chopin and Beethoven. I liked popular music, too. Some of my favorites were Janis Joplin, Simon & Garfunkel, Jethro Tull, and Frank Zappa.
Favorite Zappa jam?
Burnt Weeny Sandwich. I liked the two versions of “Holiday in Berlin” on that album so much that I joked with friends that I’d like to have it played at my wedding. I didn’t do that, in fact, but I did spend the beginning of my honeymoon in Berlin, so maybe my ambition had a curious impact on my life after all.
Nice choice! Art?
Yes, but since I was taking music classes, I was steered away from art classes, since I was aiming to take what was advised as good for college preparation. Fortunately, my brother is an artist, and Kansas City’s Nelson-Atkins Museum is wonderful, so I got a lot of exposure to art, even if rather passively.
Books?
Salinger’s Franny and Zooey; Life Ahead by J. Krishnamurti; Hermann Hesse’s novels.
Interested in sports?
No.
Politics?
I’ve always enjoyed thinking about political issues. My Dad and I would talk a lot about what was going on in the world, sometimes late into the evening. I’ve stayed interested in how things might look from the perspectives of those who see things very differently from me.
What else would you and your dad talk about?
All kinds of things. Classical and Big Band music, current events, his early years in the Navy, possibilities for what I might do when I got out of school, memories of his youth – lots of things.
As far as what you would do when you were out of school…what were you thinking?
I thought I’d study chemistry. Briefly I thought of being a doctor.
How would you say you are most different from the rest of your family?
Most of the rest of the family probably wouldn’t consider moving away from Kansas City unless they felt they really had to. They also tend to think of higher education as mainly a means of improving job prospects, while I think of it as a life-enhancing project that fortunately coincides with job prospects in many instances. Otherwise, though, I think of my siblings and I as variations on a theme.
What do your siblings do?
My artist brother manages an art supply store. The other is an accountant. One of my sisters taught elementary school, and another taught math in high school. Both have retired, but the math teacher sister now teaches part time at a community college. My third sister has five children and stayed at home with them for quite a while, but since then has worked in a high school (as nurse’s assistant and administrative assistant).
Any interest in philosophy at this point?
Very much so. Even when I went to the early years of elementary school, attending a Catholic school taught by Dominican nuns, I remember liking some of the analyses of religious questions that Doctors of the Church had come up with. Thomas Aquinas was a Dominican, and the nuns would sometimes mention him and the person he referred to as “the Philosopher,” Aristotle.
In high school, I was very much influenced by my sophomore English teacher, who recognized that my interests were philosophical and recommended books to read. One of our options for assigned book reports was to schedule an appointment with him and to do an oral report, so I did this often, with the result that we had lots of philosophical conversations. He had read a passage from a book by J. Krishnamurti in class, and I persuaded him to loan it to me. I was amazed by some of the ideas in it – e.g., that ambition could be bad, or that Krishna would tell Arjuna that it was his duty to begin a battle (these were the days of the Vietnam war, after all). My teacher (who later became a minister) believed that the world’s major religions had a shared ethical vision, and that affected me a lot.
What would your teenage self make of your current self?
I wondered that at the time. I thought my later self would probably look down on my teenage self, and I resented that. But I don’t look down on the person that I was then. I wanted to be an educator, and I loved philosophy. Probably my teenage self would be pleased that my career took the direction it did. And I would have been thrilled that I’ve had the opportunity to travel and to learn more about art.
If you could give yourself advice back then, what would it be?
Don't let the school counselor tell you that you can’t take a course because the computer won’t allow it. Don’t assume that colleges outside the Kansas City area are financially out of reach. Don’t panic about how many deadlines you are facing and worry that you can’t possibly do them all well. (Actually, I should still tell myself that.) Don’t let yourself get bullied into taking on too many obligations. Enjoy things as much as possible.
Where did you apply to college? What was the plan?
I applied to the University of Missouri (where I had a scholarship), Creighton, St. John’s College, and (at my parents’ urging) Saint Mary College in Leavenworth (then an all-women college). One of my letter writers didn’t send a recommendation to St. John’s in time, so though I got accepted, I didn’t get funding, so that was a non-starter. I didn’t get funding at Creighton, either, or not enough. I went to Saint Mary for a year but it was too small for comfort. I went to the University of Missouri – Kansas City after that.
Was college what you expected?
In many ways, yes, though my expectations were somewhat based on TV shows I saw when I was a kid, and those were not very accurate. I thought college classes would be much more formal than they were (as they might have been a decade earlier). I also thought that there would be more eccentric people than I found (basing this on a beatnik figure in a TV show). There were plenty of people whose style was influenced by the hippies and rock stars, but they didn’t seem all that eccentric. That is, unless I got to know them better. I think that if you get to know just about anyone, eccentricities stand out loud and clear.
You were interested in philosophy in high school, but when and why did you decide to major?
I didn’t major in philosophy, though I was very interested in it. I was initially a chemistry major, since I had really enjoyed two years of chemistry in high school and found the equations and theory very satisfying and beautiful. I briefly though about becoming a medical doctor, and the chemistry major would have been useful background for that, too. But when I was taking a music theory class my second year of college, I realized that I wanted to take more music and that majoring in something that required long labs would limit the number of electives I could take. I also realized that I didn’t really want to spend the rest of my life in a lab. I changed my major to English, since I loved literature. Toward the end of my college career, however, I wanted to take more counterpoint courses from a music professor I liked, so I switched to a music major. But I was taking a lot of English and philosophy courses, and I was far from sure which of these areas I wanted to pursue after college.
What was your intro philosophy class like?
It was great, touching on all kinds of problems that had already interested me and many others besides. Doing readings for class, I felt at home, and I even wished at the time that there was more of a niche for philosophers in this day and age. Of course, I should have realized that being a professor could be exactly such a niche. The professor who taught the class was enthusiastic about the material and made it captivating. We were close friends from then on.
Who’s the professor?
Henry Frankel. Sadly, he died this past November.
How were your interests in music and chemistry and philosophy connected?
In college I became intrigued with the way that music reflected and communicated ideas about so many other things in life. Music theory struck me as describing basic structures of the universe (one of the concerns that had led me to start out majoring in chemistry). So I found it a revelation when the same teacher who had taught me so much theory taught a course on the music of India, which made it obvious that there were many alternative ways of structuring music, and that these could reflect differences of worldview and emphasize different kinds of values.
How very Pythagorean! What did you do for fun in college?
Go on hikes. Ride my bike. Read things that weren’t assigned. Get together with friends and go out for meals with them. Play the piano – but I was taking piano, so that was “homework” in a way, too. And I was often taking an overload in terms of course hours. Fortunately, I found the subject matter of most of my classes fun.
Who’d you hang with?
I made friends with some of the music majors. The conservatory was about a mile away from the rest of the campus, so we rode a shuttle back and forth – a good place to get acquainted with people. I was going to a commuter school, so there weren’t as many places to meet people as is the case at many colleges. I made a good friend in philosophy, too – we were both student assistants in the department.
Any room for romance?
Not much (except for fantasies). But I dated a bit at different points.
Politically active?
I knocked on doors on election day during my first year of college, even though I was too young to vote. But I wasn’t active in a very organized way beyond that, except for working for “Watch, Inc.,” an organization that stationed people around the community in the hope of cooling down any turmoil that might emerge on the streets during protests in connection with the Republican National Convention, which was held in Kansas City in 1976. The Chicago convention of 1968 was still very present in people’s minds.
When exactly did you decide to go to grad school for philosophy?
Actually, I decided the spring semester of my final year of college, after I had already applied for graduate programs in several fields. I actually got accepted to the University of Michigan’s graduate program in English. But I finally decided that, given my interests in music, literature, and philosophy, philosophy would be the best option, since I could do philosophy of music and philosophy of literature as well as working on other topics of interest. Philosophy seemed the biggest umbrella.
Whoa! So, who helped you through the process of applying to grad school?
Various professors, including Hank Frankel, some of whom wrote letters for me. Also a man who was on the Rhodes Scholarship committee for the state of Missouri and also on the larger committee for the region. I got the state nomination but not the scholarship, and he had suggestions for how I might approach the grad school application process. He also wrote a letter of recommendation for me.
What was your writing sample on?
Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra (which I also ended up being the topic of my dissertation).
Wait a minute! When did you get into Nietzsche?
When a debater from another school (a guy I thought was brilliant) told me he was writing his senior term paper on Nietzsche and Hermann Hesse. I thought I’d better catch up.
What drew you to Nietzsche?
He is always pushing the envelope forward, pursuing his trains of thought further, even when he qualifies points he has just made, the result that he transfigurse them entirely. Also, he uses literary style in ways that make it fuse with the content. His experimental use of style to enhance the potential of philosophical communication intrigued me.
Where did you end up? Was grad school what you expected?
Yale. I didn’t have clear expectations, but I expected to meet lots of interesting people with similar interests. In that respect, it was what I’d hoped for and more. The only thing I wasn’t expecting was that there wasn’t much communication about what we should do when we first arrived. The assumption seemed to be that we would find our way to the department sooner or later, and of course, I did, but I was a bit surprised that nothing was said specifically about how to proceed.
Philosophically, what was trending at Yale, and in general?
At Yale, deconstruction was a hot topic in the literature departments and to some extent in philosophy, though mostly (by the time I got to Yale) it was viewed with suspicion and hostility in the department. What came to be called postmodernism was in its nascent stage. Feminism and women’s studies were starting to get institutional recognition.
Favorite classes/teachers?
My first semester, Julia Ching’s class on “Neo-Confucian Philosophy” was by far my favorite. The other courses I’d been encouraged to take were very analytic, and that wasn’t my orientation. The “Neo-Confucian Philosophy” was a major awakening, since I hadn’t previously known much about Chinese philosophy. Chinese philosophy was very much concerned with the big questions, and it put art in the center of considering how to live well.
The next semester, Karsten Harries returned from being on leave, and I loved everything he taught. He, too, was interested in the big questions, the value of philosophy for living a good life, and the role of the arts in helping us to do that. All of his courses, one way or another, dealt with these matters.
I should probably mention Harold Bloom, too. Because I was doing a “modern studies” concentration, and that was inherently interdisciplinary, I took a few courses outside the philosophy department. I took two from Bloom, one of them focusing particularly on Freud. It was really a tour de force.
Obstacles in grad school?
For one thing, at a place like Yale there are so many intellectually stimulating things to do that it is hard to balance the motives of wanting to take advantage of opportunities and being realistic about what you can accomplish. Since I had majored in music, I felt that I had much less background knowledge than my peers. Once I became a teaching assistant, it was easy to find my energies largely taken up by that role. It was also hard to pick a term paper topic early during the semester for courses on topics that were relatively new to me, so getting the papers finalized by the end of the term was always an uphill struggle.
Advice for graduate students?
Find people with whom you have a natural intellectual rapport and bounce your ideas off them. Don’t restrict yourself to people whom you take to have similar interests. Sometimes interacting with someone whose point of departure is quite different is illuminating. Be on the lookout for people with whom you have productive conversations that really stimulate your thinking.
Also, don’t be too frustrated by the fact that there is too much to do. Just work steadily and don’t be too much of a perfectionist. A term paper is just a term paper. It can always be revised before you submit it anywhere for publication or presentation. Avoid taking incompletes if at all possible. Doing that makes it very easy to lose the momentum you have while the material is fresh in mind. I think the results are rarely improved by the extra time.
Were you encouraged to publish?
Julia Ching encouraged me to submit the paper I wrote for her seminar to journals. I did, after consulting with colleagues she’d mentioned who might be willing to look at my draft, and the paper was accepted by International Philosophical Quarterly. That was exciting. But at that time, graduate students were not especially encouraged to publish. The focus was more on finding something to say and building that into a dissertation topic.
Who was your dissertation advisor? What was the dissertation on, exactly?
Karsten Harries. The topic (and title) was “The Philosophical Significance of Nietzsche’s Use of Fiction in Thus Spoke Zarathustra”
What was working with Harries like?
It was wonderful. He has a wonderful way of drawing out his students’ thinking, whatever their starting point. Although I know that grad students often feel that they are not producing enough and start to avoid their dissertation advisors, I always looked forward to opportunities to talk with Karsten. Every time we met, I came away with more enthusiasm for my project.
Who did you hang out with and what did you do to unwind?
The first two years I lived in the Hall of Graduate Studies, a graduate dorm that housed mostly people whose homes were a significant distance from Yale. I met quite a few people from outside my department there and at a graduate school reception held there early on. I hung out with those in the department who were part of a reading group on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, organized by Robert Williams (later Robert Gooding-Williams). I also hung out with a friend in Religious Studies and later with others interested in a new program called “Modern Studies,” which was a concentration one could add to one’s major field of study. At that point, I mostly went to films to unwind. There were lots of film societies on campus, and the opportunity to see so many classic films was wonderful. I also went to some plays at Yale Repertory Theater. In later years, I lived off-campus, for one year with a friend from the philosophy department and after that with some economics grad students. The place where I eventually lived was an apartment building that had lots of grad students, and I started hanging out with a group of them that organized dinner parties as a way of unwinding. I’d never learned to cook, so learning from them expanded my horizons in an unexpected way.
Yale philosophy had a reputation. Bunch of people report it was brutal. Thoughts?
Shortly before my time, I know that there had been a major conflict partly motivated by different conceptions of philosophy and appropriate approaches. Some people who had come up for tenure lost their jobs, and in a manner that was apparently extremely unfair. By the time I got to Yale, things were in the “cold war” phase. I enjoyed learning from people with various methodologies and perspectives. But I was aware that members of the faculty did not necessarily get on very well with each other.
In grad school, how did you change, philosophically?
Mostly, interests I’d had before were intensified, though learning about Chinese philosophy was a great opportunity. Unfortunately, Julia Ching left Yale a few years into my being there, so I didn’t pursue that interest further until much later in my career.
What was your first time teaching like?
The first class for which I was a teaching assistant was the “History of Aesthetics” course that Karsten Harries taught. I found it exciting to interact with such lively, smart students. I was very concerned, though, about being on top of the material, so I probably wasn’t very relaxed.
What was the market like when you finished?
It was bad, but not nearly as bad as it is now. There were tenure-track jobs available. I even got one. At that point, colleges and universities did not depend on adjunct faculty in the way they do now.
What was your ultimate goal at the time?
I wanted to get tenure somewhere and have a career writing books.
Job market horror stories?
One of my fellow graduate students told me that at one of her interviews late in the day, one fellow was sprawled across the bed in the room in which the interview was held. Those were the days in which most interviews were conducted in hotel rooms, and few departments sprang for a suite. So the level of professionalism on display varied quite a lot.
Did anybody help you out during this period?
The encouragement of Karsten Harries, my adviser, was really helpful. But several of my fellow graduate students, such as Robert Gooding-Williams, Judith Butler, and Jorge Valadez, were terrific philosophical interlocutors, keeping me excited about what I was doing.
Was Judith Butler Judith Butler in grad school?
Yes. She was already teaching her own course (which I had the good fortune to audit).
First philosophy gig?
If you mean my first job beyond grad school, that was the job I still hold at the University of Texas at Austin.
Surprises?
I was surprised to be the only woman on the regular faculty in the department. I was glad that three other tenure-track professors were hired in the department at the same time I was, since that made for an automatic peer group. I think it would have been very difficult to feel part of the department without that.
How did you approach teaching at U.T. Austin, in the beginning?
Teaching lecture classes when I arrived at U.T. seemed like a major performance every time, and I was too concerned about not forgetting anything that might help the students understand the materials. Consequently, I was too tied to the script. I was also challenged by the range of different degrees of preparation that students had. It took a while to figure out how to address the whole group. I still find this a problem for certain courses that fulfill a general education requirement, since student interest varies quite a lot.
In your estimation, how have you evolved as a teacher?
I’ve gotten more relaxed and less focused on getting through material. I used to think of teaching more as a matter of conveying information. Now I think of it as ideally an occasion in which productive interaction happens that excites students about ideas. I think I now have more of a sense of how not to lose the forest for the trees in what I present to students. I also used to think that making corrections and suggestions all over student papers was desirable, even obligatory. Now I think that is not so productive, though I still have difficulty not making too many copy-editing suggestions.
In your time at UT-Austin, what are a few things are you most proud of academically, and why?
I pointed out a connection between Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Book 4, and Apuleius’s The Golden Ass that I think is convincing and hadn’t been noticed in previous scholarship. I’m proud of that because it seemed to be a fresh contribution, and also because it involved a certain amount of scholarly detective work.
What’s the connection?
Book 4 of Zarathustra is stylistically quite different from the other three. It includes a lot of characters and more plot. It is also confined to a fairly short span of time. Two of the characters are kings who have an ass carrying their supplies, and the ass keeps being mentioned in what follows. Many of the characters even worship the ass later on in Book IV. I proposed that the role of the ass is partially modeled on that of the ass in Apuleius’s work and suggested what Nietzsche’s rationale for alluding to The Golden Ass might have been.
What else are you proud of?
I wrote an article on idiosyncratic features of listening to music. I think it counterbalances the prevailing tendency to focus on what is common or collective in the experience of music. This served as one of the points of departure for my writing about universality in connection with music, which goes into aspects that are sufficiently universal to make music that initially seems unintelligible potentially accessible, as well as the many non-universal aspects of music.
I’m proud of a paper that I presented at Yale and a couple of other places on Nietzsche’s authorial efforts to induce philosophical thinking in his readers. I’m proud of that because it offers a coherent interpretation of Nietzsche’s work, which goes off in lots of different directions and involves bold authorial moves and experimentation.
You worked with Robert Solomon quite a bit! How did that come about?
Bob had already been in the department for a decade when I arrived in Austin. He also wrote about figures in European philosophy, including Nietzsche, so he was a natural mentor for me. Although he already had a high profile in the field, he was personable and encouraging. He got support from the Dean’s office to hold a Nietzsche conference here, and he asked me to help him organize it. That led to the publication of our first book together, an anthology of papers on Nietzsche’s individual works, many of which had been presented at the conference. That collaboration worked well, and it led to others. It also nurtured a more personal relationship. Bob and I married in 1990. After that, work collaborations proliferated.
How does a philosopher propose to a philosopher?
As I recall, Bob showed me his calendar, pointed to a particular Saturday. and asked what I thought about getting married that day.
I love it. Interesting Bob stories?
Bob was always interesting. But we were probably too close for me to be the best person to tell stories.
So, Bob passed away suddenly in 2007…
Bob was an amazing person. Diagnosed with a congenital heart defect in infancy before open-heart surgery was available, he anticipated a very short life. Perhaps this was why he was so present in everything that he did. That attentiveness certainly contributed to his being a charismatic speaker and an amazing teacher. He took joy in being alive, and the joy was contagious. The headline of his obituary in our local newspaper, the Austin American-Statesman, sums it up: “A Thinker who Had ‘a Whole Lot of Fun.’”
A huge loss. Overall, how are your personal life and philosophy related?
I always know things are not going well in my personal life if I’m thinking about Nietzsche at 4:00 a.m., though he’s been a good companion through many challenging experiences. And when I’m thinking about things in the daytime, I’m glad to have him as a role model for reconsidering the situation. He was once accused of oversubtlety, and while that was probably a curse for him, it makes him a shrewd analyst of human interactions, and I find what I take to be his insights are extremely useful. Often when I’m dealing with personal problems or conundrums, I’m grateful to have read significant figures in philosophy, since they have helped me feel less alone. Even if I don’t think what they write applies directly to my situation, they can help me understand better where other people are coming from. Ideas from the philosophical traditions I’ve explored help me to map out alternative ways of reading a situation. Thinking through problems in my personal life, I often try to see things in general terms, and sometimes an observation I make in these contexts strike me as possibly having broader relevance, worth considering in philosophical terms. I do this sort of thing in connection with fictional accounts, too. Probably many of my students see one of my pedagogical aims as to convince them that the movies and television shows they see bring up philosophical issues. Just about every kind of situation strikes me as a starting point for some philosophical quandary or other.
Most useful bits of philosophical advice you’ve come across?
On a very everyday level, I remember Karsten Harries saying, “I try never to write a sentence that I don’t understand.”
Nietzsche’s “The great epochs of our life come when we gain the courage to rechristen our evil as what is best in us” (Beyond Good and Evil) strikes me as really profound – it’s advice indirectly, in that it encourages reconsidering your traits that you think of as weaknesses and seeing ways that they can be strengths. His “One thing is more important than another” is good to remember, too – though of course the problem is to figure out which thing is more important.
Love the Nietzsche advice. So, how have you evolved as a philosopher?
Probably the topics I’ve worked on have become more interconnected than they were earlier on. Even though my interests vary a lot, I think the various projects I’ve undertaken have had more influence on each other than would be obvious from just a list of the topics. My work on Nietzsche’s perspectivism, for example, probably influenced me in thinking about the ways that a person’s musical background is shaped by the specific musical experiences the person has had, even though people around the globe can now access the same music through YouTube, for example.
Probably I can more quickly anticipate what others will accept as a philosophical problem (or a possible solution to a problem) when considering some general topic area. I’m better acquainted with the trends and biases of the profession. I’ve become more comfortable with seeing philosophical projects as perpetually on-going, not tasks that can be definitely finished. Over time, I think I’ve made my writing style more my own than when I started. These are probably pretty common tendencies in lots of philosophers’ careers. One gets acquainted with other people’s work and point of view and simultaneously develops one’s own distinctive outlook.
How would you describe Austin to somebody who has never been?
It is currently very hip, with lots of high-tech firms hiring lots of computer savvy people (especially young people). It’s gotten bigger and more booming than when I came here, with both good and bad consequences (escalating real estate prices forcing long-term residents to leave and clogged freeways being some of the latter). It is the capital of Texas, with state government and the University of Texas being major presences. It bills itself as the Live Music Capital of the World, and it is a great place for hearing live music of many varieties. The Austin Independent Business Alliance came up with the slogan “Keep Austin Weird,” supposedly in an effort to support small businesses. Austin had long been thought of as a center of laid-back hippies and intellectuals, and that legacy of is also part of its “weirdness.” When I got here, TexMex and steak houses were the predominant kind of eatery. They are still here in large numbers, but Austin has become much more of a “foodie” center, with restaurants of all sorts, many of them very upscale.
Any major world events that had a significant impact on your life and worldview in your time in Austin?
The development of such things as personal computers and smart phones has had a massive impact on my life, and not entirely for the better. I used to feel able to take breaks from the pressures of working life or some parts of it. Now they hound me wherever I go. However, the fact that it is easy to look up all sorts of things on the internet (instruction manuals, weather forecasts, scholarly articles, etc.) has transformed the way I go about all sorts of things, from scholarly research to dealing with practical problems that emerge around the house. This is largely a great boon, but I think it has the tendency to make one too content with superficial discussion.
The changing role of women in American society and in certain kinds of careers has also certainly had a major impact on me. I was only the fourth woman ever to be hired in a tenure-track position in my department at UT, and I was the first of those to get tenure. That experience made me aware of the subtle ways in which people (sometimes unwittingly) can make other people feel excluded from a group, as well as the small gestures that can be perceived as welcoming, and I try to be mindful of this experience when interacting with other people.
What would Nietzsche be most surprised by in the contemporary world?
I keep trying to think of something, but I’m confident he’d have some wry way of describing just about any development as more of the same. Some technological developments might surprise him (for example, the cellphone, the rocket, the atom bomb), but probably not the motives or uses people make of them.
What would he be least surprised by?
Social media and other contemporary echo chambers.
Truth! So, ever consider leaving Austin?
Once I was married to Bob, it was likely that I would stay in Austin, since to move we would need to get two academic jobs in the same city, which would have been a real challenge. In general, it was hard to realistically envision setting up a life elsewhere that would be as congenial the one we had in Austin. I think moving grows less desirable as one gets older and it becomes more difficult to meet people in anything other than passing ways. I could imagine moving to a place where I already have a circle of friends and (preferably) family members, but there aren’t so many places that would qualify, and even fewer in which a good academic job would be available.
What are your writing habits?
I wish I had more steady habits. I’m not sure that the way I write takes a definite form, though I have certain habits. I like to write, fortunately, but how I write depends on how much time I have for each project. I dislike deadlines, and so I don’t usually like to get contracts for books prior to writing them, preferring to let the writing of each develop as it will. Although I can write bits of projects at a time, I dislike that. I always want to have an open-ended time frame for a project and hours on end ahead of me while writing. Rarely do things work out this way, but to wrap up a long project, I really need long spans of uninterrupted time to put the pieces together. This makes it difficult to get large projects done during the semester when I’m teaching, although during the term I can write shorter pieces.
What are you working on nowadays? Exciting new projects in the works?
My main project (often interrupted by shorter articles that I agree to write) has to do with what I’m calling “the aesthetics of loss and mourning.” It has to do with the many ways in which people gravitate toward aesthetic practices in attempting to recover from loss, particularly in the context of bereavement. I’ve also written, in many drafts, a book about grief and recovery in the form of letters to Bob. The current draft is still being written.
That sounds supremely beautiful.
Thanks.
So, in your mind, what is philosophy?
I think of it as a quest for wisdom. On a personal level, this involves an effort to bring one’s reflective life and one’s practical life into attunement with each other. On a more collective scale, it involves efforts to think systematically about problems that we face and to indicate where the trade-offs are as we consider alternative policies that might address them.
Thoughts on the analytic continental distinction?
It’s an unfortunate distinction, although I think there is a methodological difference between focus on analyzing concepts and more synthetic aims. Too often this is treated as something like a two-party system in philosophy, with partisans on each side. I’m glad to see that there is growing appreciation in the field for the writing of those ‘on the other side of the aisle’. I had never heard of the distinction before I went to grad school, and I don’t think I was missing much beyond insight into the sociology of the field.
How do you see the future of philosophy?
I hope and expect it to involve more attention to concrete problems that people face in the contemporary world, such as climate change and global justice. Philosophy offers many resources for sustained efforts to think clearly about these problems. I also think that attention will increasingly be given to the diverse traditions that have developed across the globe. Recognizing the possibility of more diverse starting points for addressing the big issues in human life will, I think, benefit philosophical thought about virtually any topic.
Exciting/disconcerting trends?
The increasing inclusion of Confucian role ethics and/or Chinese conceptions of virtue in Western philosophical discussions strikes me as exciting. So do contemporary philosophical discussions that acknowledge the role of aesthetics and emotions in political and ethical life.
Favorite books?
The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, the writings of Chuang Tzu, Kundera’s Unbearable Lightness of Being, Salinger’s Franny and Zooey, Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra and The Gay Science, Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, Bob’s Spirituality for the Skeptic.
Movies?
2001: A Space Odyssey, Tarkovsky’s Solaris, In the Mood for Love, Slaughterhouse Five, Waking Life
Music?
My musical tastes are very broad, though the concerts I attend are mostly classical and jazz (though just this past weekend I went to hear a blues concert and a country band). Thanks to a course in college on the music of India, I also seek out classical Indian music concerts. I enjoy learning more about music from elsewhere in the world, and I’ve audited ethnomusicology courses to gain exposure to a broad range of music. But a few specific things I like are Bach’s Magnificat, Coltrane’s A Love Supreme, Josquin’s Missa Pange Lingua, Angelique Kidjo’s Shango, Chopin’s Nocturnes, and the music of Bhimsen Joshi.
TV shows?
Six Feet Under. The Man in the High Castle. Death Note. Electric Dreams. Breaking Bad.
I love Breaking Bad but Six Feet Under kills me. What was your election night like, in 2008? 2016? Who are you rooting for in 2020?
In 2008, I was gathered with friends. We all supported Obama and were delighted at his decisive victory early in the evening. In 2016, it was just the opposite. It was clear that that evening would be long, and the friends I was with were getting more distressed as the evening proceeded. Since I had a long teaching day the next day and did not want to react to anything before there was an outcome, I left the gathering of friends early and went to bed, waiting until the next morning to learn the news. I keep changing my views about whom I’d prefer to root for in the 2020 election, but it will not be the incumbent.
Queen of the world, what's you first move?
Somehow get people to accept the idea that diverse religious traditions (and non-religious stances on religion, such as principled atheism) are siblings rather than enemies, all concerned with addressing the most important matters in life.
Are you religious? Do you think religion can accomplish that goal?
Yes, though heretically so. If religion is grappling with the mysteries and challenges of life (not focusing on doctrines), it could help people to recognize the common enterprise of religious traditions and those concerned with matters of what Paul Tillich calls “ultimate concern.” But very often “religion” is understood as adherence to some parochial creed or another. So understood, it’s part of the problem, not the solution.
Last meal?
Possibly pad thai with shrimp, or maybe trout almondine with asparagus. Almost certainly profiteroles au chocolat for dessert.
If you could ask an omniscient being one question, what would it be?
In the context of the way I’m looking at things, what am I missing?
[interviewer: Cliff Sosis]