In this interview, Skye Cleary, lecturer at Columbia University, discusses honesty and religion, the Magic Faraway Tree, taekwondo, anxiety, going to Sydney University to study German and economics, a priori duties, becoming an equity arbitrage trader, going to Macquarie Graduate School of Management and taking philosophical business classes, Homeric armies, getting an MBA and pursuing a PhD in philosophy after a conversation about love with a teacher, existentialism, love, moving to NYC, teaching at Columbia, grading on a curve, teaching in prison, Theatre of the Oppressed, editing the APA Blog, philosophy on the internet, working on a series of Great Courses lectures on Existentialism, The Outsider, DJing, and dancing…
[9/12/2024]
So, where did you grow up?
In Sydney, Australia.
Religious household?
No. My grandmother went to church at Easter and Christmas—“Just in case,” she would say. On rare occasions, when she had convinced me that I ought to hedge my bets too, I joined her.
As a little kid, what were you interested in?
I was interested in gardens, especially secret ones. We had a thick ivy-covered wall and I spent countless hours looking for the secret passage. My grandparents lived next door and I loved climbing their ginormous mulberry trees. Their thick canopies seemed to stretch to infinity. My brother and cousins and I would climb it and feast on mulberries until our bodies and clothes were stained with juice the color of purple void. Silkworms and cicadas loved the tree too. We would collect the silkworms’ discarded cocoons like treasures, taking them for show-and-tell at school. We would (try to) frighten each other by attaching the creepy crunchy scratchy cicada shells to one another’s clothes.
The mulberry trees reminded me of Enid Blyton’s The Magic Faraway Tree. For my eighth birthday, I had a Magic Faraway Tree costume party. I desperately wanted to be Silky the fairy. My parents insisted that all the other girls would be dressed as Silky and it would be a boring costume. “Be an individual!” they said. “Surprise everyone with an unexpected character!” they said. After a great deal of rummaging around the house, they found what they thought was the perfect costume: Dame Washalot—replete with apron and laundry bucket. I wore it. I did not enjoy it. But it was certainly unexpected and unique.
What were you passionate about, if anything?
In high school, I was passionate about taekwondo. My younger brother started first, and we fought a lot, as brothers and sisters do. So I started practicing taekwondo too. Once we realized that we might actually be able to kill one another, the arguing ceased, and we became friends.
Any sign you'd grow up to be a philosopher?
No. Unless you count that my parents would tell me I’m “the original REBT baby” because when I was very young they had learned about Albert Ellis’s psychotherapy and would ask me things like “why are you upsetting yourself?” when I was upset.
Ha! What did you worry about?
Everything. Especially school and grades. As early as elementary school, I remember getting debilitating stomach cramps. People always thought I was feigning illness out of laziness, or to get out of exams or events. Now I realize the cramps were a symptom of anxiety. I still get them, but I know what they are and how to manage them.
How do you deal?
Immersing myself in water (baths or the ocean).
Did you start thinking about what you wanted to do in college, if college was even on the table?
College was absolutely on the table. I assumed I would go. All my friends were going. In Australia at the time, the cost of going to college was very low (although it has changed now). It was just a question of where and what to study.
Where did you apply? What was the plan?
Sydney University. My parents wanted me to study medicine or law but I didn’t get in, so I did a Bachelor of Arts. I wanted to work in international finance, in Europe, in a job where I could speak German.
Why German?
When I was three, my parents and I lived in Switzerland for a year, for my father’s engineering job. Apparently one day I came home from the playground speaking Swiss-German. They couldn’t understand me and we were all confused. They joked that from then on, I had Swiss chocolate and German language running through my veins.
Ha! If the person you were when you graduated high school met the person you are now, what would surprise her?
That I ended up being a philosopher. I took a year of philosophy in college but found it disappointing.
Why was philosophy disappointing?
I loved logic, but the curriculum was heavily analytical. If only I had learned more about existentialism back then!
Any advice for young Skye?
You’re going to be ok. You don’t have to be or to marry a lawyer or doctor to be happy and successful. (Not that there’s anything wrong with either of those things.) And logical family is more important than biological family. You don’t have to respect horrible people, even if it’s your so-called duty. I want to tell her what Simone de Beauvoir taught me many years later: That there are no a priori duties. So many of the so-called duties imposed on us are patriarchal constructs, designed to control us.
Logical family! Love it. So, what didn’t you dig about analytic philosophy?
It seemed very dry and abstract. It had no meaningful relation to my existence.
Was Sydney University what you expected?
I loved my undergraduate experience. I had a lot of fun, often revolving around the Army Reserve, which is where I worked, part-time, while studying.
What did you do there?
I went through the officer training program and then, as a Lieutenant, taught new recruits until I graduated from college.
So, what did you end up majoring in?
I majored in Economics and German Language and minored in mathematics. I wanted to work in international finance. After college, I travelled to Germany on a university exchange program and worked as an intern for about a year. After Germany, I moved to New York and worked in financial markets – first as an institutional broker and then as an equity arbitrage trader. When my work visa ran out after six years, I moved back to Sydney and worked for the same company there for a year. After a year I was so tired of being up all night every weeknight trading international markets, so I quit to study journalism, and then did an MBA.
Trading…exciting? Boring? How much does success in finance depend on luck in your estimation?
It was incredibly exciting and stressful. The highs were super high, and the lows were so very low. Some days I’d cry all the way home. Other days I’d float with joy. There was a saying on the trading desk: “You’re only ever as good as your last trade.” The statement is not entirely accurate, but that’s what it felt like. Luck definitely plays a part. Research, relationships, courage, and risk assessment also play parts.
Were you still reading and thinking about philosophy during your business stint?
I wasn’t paying much attention to philosophy during my business phase of life.
You ended up pursuing an MBA…a breeze, given your business experience?
I wouldn’t say that exactly. The business school I went to (Macquarie Graduate School of Management) required having a few years of experience first. Being one of the youngest made me extremely self-conscious and intimidated. I thought I was the least intelligent and the least experienced. It seemed to me that everyone else knew more than me. My goal was not to fail. So I studied harder than I had ever studied in my life, and it paid off. After giving the graduation speech and receiving the top award, a male classmate said to me, “I didn’t know you were smart.” I didn’t know either. But it was only then that I realized that being the loudest person in the room does not correlate with being the smartest.
Did you dig business school?
Yes, I loved it. I loved learning a little about a lot of things, including existential philosophy. My professors were wonderful.
Favorite classes and teachers?
My favorite classes and teachers were: Foundations of Management Thought (taught by Professor Robert Spillane) where I learned about Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, and things like how General Electric’s organizational structure was similar to Homeric armies; Organizational Behavior (taught by Ann-Maree Moodie), where I learned about freedom and responsibility in the boardroom and was properly introduced to Simone de Beauvoir’s work; and Existentialism and Entrepreneurship (taught by Professor Steven Segal), where we learned about spaces of disruption.
I think a lot of people interested in philosophy figure they will pursue a career in something more lucrative, and then do philosophy on the weekend, for fun. Is an MBA typically philosophical?
Some business schools integrate philosophical elements. Philosophy has been an option at business schools such as Wharton, London Business School, Copenhagen Business School, University of Oxford, as well as Yale, Carnegie Mellon, Duke, and others.
Where did you want to go to grad school for philosophy, and why? What was the goal?
Around my MBA graduation, I was talking with one of my professors about the philosophy of love. I was going through a breakup with a boyfriend and it seemed to me that it was much easier to stop loving someone than to start loving them. I was baffled by the question as to whether we can choose to love. My professor said “some people say that love chooses you”. Then he suggested I do a PhD on the topic. It had never before occurred to me. A PhD seemed so completely out of the realm of possibilities for me. It was something only smart people did. But I did want to write, and I had burning questions, so it seemed like a good idea at the time. This professor was at Macquarie University, so that’s where I applied. I did the first 18 months part-time while I worked in management consulting. When I was awarded a scholarship, I switched to full-time. My goal was to answer the question: Can you choose to love?
Who were your dissertation advisors?
Professor Robert Spillane and Professor Steven Segal were my dissertation advisors.
Tell me a bit more about the dissertation!
My dissertation was “Romantic Loving: An Existential Study”. I had a lot of questions about love. I was wondering about the expectations to get married and have babies. I had internalized the narrative of finding “the one” but was confused about what that person was supposed to be like or what sort of relationship that would create. People talked to me about soulmates but the concept made no sense to me. None of my relationships seemed to have had a lasting sense of harmony. None of the married couples I knew seemed to either. So my goal was to try to untangle some of that mess through my PhD.
So, what is love?
Love is a passion to be chosen and mastered and, sometimes, to be tipsy with. I like Simone de Beauvoir’s definition of authentic love in The Second Sex: “Authentic love must be founded on reciprocal recognition of two freedoms; each lover would then experience himself as himself and as the other; neither would abdicate his transcendence, they would not mutilate themselves; together they would both reveal values and ends in the world. For each of them, love would be the revelation of self through the gift of self and the enrichment of the universe.”
Any advice for graduate students?
My advice is not to have a baby in the middle of a PhD. Some people told me I’d have plenty of time to work while the baby was sleeping. But he didn’t sleep well, and neither did I.
My other piece of advice is to spend a good amount of time at the beginning to create a research question that will carry you through. It seems obvious, perhaps, but I saw how other candidates switched their topics and doing so derailed their plans and created so much anguish. I tweaked small things along the way, but I was committed enough to the original question that it helped me to stay on track and overcome my lowest points.
What was your lowest point?
My lowest point was towards the end. I had done all the fun researching and writing. Then it was time to write the introduction and conclusion and tie it all together. I was on the verge of quitting, but I had sunk too much energy into it already and I rallied myself to see it through to the end.
Sunk costs baby! Were you encouraged to publish?
Yes, but I wanted to publish my dissertation as a book, which I did: Existentialism and Romantic Love! During my PhD, I was encouraged to participate in conferences and publish conference proceedings, which I did, but my first publication was in a student journal.
Tell me more about the process of getting the book published...
For Existentialism and Romantic Love, my PhD advisor suggested I contact Palgrave Macmillan. I sent them my proposal and they responded positively. I spent a few months editing it and it was a very smooth process. For my more recent book How to Be Authentic: Simone de Beauvoir and the Quest for Fulfillment, I spoke with a friend about my idea and they thought it sounded good too. They put me in touch with a wonderful agent named Tisse Tagaki at the Science Factory who also believed in the idea. I worked on the proposal for over a year. The proposal ended up being over 60 pages.
You moved to NYC?
My partner, my child, and I moved to New York City from Sydney just before I finished my PhD. I wasn’t sure where to even begin looking for a job. I didn’t know anyone in NYC.
Why’d you move to NYC?
My partner was offered a job here.
Did you immediately find a teaching gig or…
I randomly applied to a few roles online. I landed an interview for an administrative role at Columbia University. It was part-time and flexible, which was perfect with a small child. After three interviews, I was offered the job. After the second interview I googled Columbia University and almost died when I saw where it was ranked. I was grateful I didn’t know this before my first interview or I would have been so intimidated and even more nervous that I already was.
What was your first-time teaching in the classroom like?
During my PhD studies, I taught classes in Sydney and found it terrifying and exhilarating at the same time. What if a student asked me a question and I didn’t know the answer?? It took time for me to realize I didn’t have to have all the answers pre-packaged. When I started teaching in New York City (Baruch College, and then Columbia University, Barnard College, and City College of New York. (I still teach at Columbia) it took a minute for me to get used to the grading policies. In Australia, we grade on a curve. Students rarely contest their grades. When I moved to the U.S., I initially graded as I had always done in Australia. Many students were furious and complained about my “harsh” grading. I had to learn to shift my grading practices quickly.
What do you hate about NYC? What do you love?
I hate the stark inequality. I love Central Park, cocktails, restaurants, the chaos, that there are always fun and quirky things to do.
So, how does one end up teaching at New York Public Library?
I noticed they were offering classes so around the time Existentialism and Romantic Love was coming out, I asked if I could offer a course on existentialism and romantic love. After an interview, they said yes. It was fun, albeit a very different (more unruly) experience to a university classroom.
So cool. Also, you taught in a prison?
Yes, when I worked at Columbia University’s Center for New Narratives in Philosophy, one of the Center’s activities was teaching philosophy to incarcerated students. Christia Mercer launched the brilliant initiative that flattens the classroom and, inspired by Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed techniques, creates spaces for exploring philosophical texts, open discussions, and learning through disruptive activities that encourage agency.
In general, how have you evolved as a teacher?
I used to be a lot stricter because that’s what my teachers were like, and I thought that’s what I needed to do to be accepted and respected. But I’ve become a lot more patient. When there’s a problem, I try to think in terms of what’s fair and kind. I don’t always get it right! But it’s generally a good guideline. Students seem to appreciate it and rarely take advantage of it.
Agreed. Speaking of kindness…you used to edit the APA Blog…thoughts on philosophy on the internet in general?
It constantly amazes me how toxic philosophy online can be. It’s important to have conversations about controversial topics so people can understand, but I don’t know what the best way to keep conversations online constructive is. I use the mute button a lot.
Any interesting projects on the horizon?
My most recent project, a 24-lecture series on existentialism for The Great Courses/Wondrium, was published in early 2024. It covers many of the usual existential suspects—Soren Kierkegaard, Friedrich Nietzsche, Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Albert Camus, Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, and Toni Morrison.
I’ve also started a new role as Thinking Partner with Philosophy at Work, working with organizations to inspire people to think better (more philosophically) about workplace challenges and possibilities.
As for my next project, I’m not ready to talk about it yet!
Favorite books (fiction)?
My current favorite is Richard Wright’s The Outsider. It’s a kind of existential murder mystery and Wright’s writing is so beautifully vivacious and exciting. It can be read as a thought experiment: what would happen if you cut ties with everything around you and started your life completely afresh? How might it be possible? What would you gain? What would you have to give up? Wright deals with a lot of existential themes including death, dread, identity, authenticity, radical freedom, momentous choices, extreme consequences, responsibility to oneself and others, as well as politics, religion, and art. It’s been called “The first existentialist novel written by an American” and I love it.
Nowadays, what do you do to unwind?
DJing. I can’t help but laugh when I say that out loud. One night after a lot of cocktails and dancing, a friend said to me “We should learn to be DJs!!” And now, I’m playing at philosophy salons, book launches, retreats, Hamptons beach parties, and clubs.
Anna Gat (Founder of Interintellect) and I hosted a Nietzsche salon where we played philosophical games, I curated a DJ performance loosely inspired by Nietzschean themes, and we all danced until 2am. I’m working on more events in the nexus of philosophy, music, and dance, because it’s so much fun, feels liberating, and it fires up so many dimensions of our bodies and brains. Nietzsche’s one of my main inspirations: “You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star” and “Let each day be a loss to us on which we did not dance once!” I’m calling myself “Existential DJ” or “⚡️Skye⚡️” depending on the gig.
What are you listening to nowadays?
Mostly beach house and electropop. Sofi Tukker is a favorite.
Which existentialist is closest to your heart (and why)?
Simone de Beauvoir. Not only is she a wonderful writer, but I love how she explores the tension between being ourselves and what others want us to be, how she brings ethics into existential thinking, how philosophy and life are deeply intertwined, and how authenticity is creative.
How does one create meaning in a meaningless world? Not an expert, but it seems like it involves self-deception, given the existential commitment to authenticity, shouldn’t this be frowned upon?
That’s the gist of Albert Camus’s argument against existentialism and one of the main reasons he didn’t consider himself an existentialist. For Camus, the existential leap is an escape from the absurd world. He thought it’d be more honest to remain lucid on the dizzying crest of absurdity and rebel against the humiliating adventure of human existence. I do wonder: how is it possible to live constantly staring into that kind of abyss? Nietzsche had already written that if you stare too long into the abyss, the abyss stares into you. And isn’t rebellion a form of meaning? And why you can’t be lucid about the absurdity of the world and strive to live in ways that are meaningful to us? The anxiety of the existential leap—making decisions that shape our lives—is about accepting that the world is uncertain, that everything might be absurd, all our actions might be futile, but trying it anyway because we’re here, existing, with death looming. Existential authenticity is holding ourselves and existence in question while also creating meaning in our lives along the way.
Are you scared of death?
I’m scared of dying at the wrong time. Like Nietzsche wrote, “Many die too late, and some die too early. The doctrine still sounds strange: ‘Die at the right time!’” I don’t want to die too late, but I’m not done with living, so I mostly worry about dying too soon. I’m not (yet?) scared of death itself. Sometimes I feel so despondent about suffering in the world that death seems like it would be a relief.
Queen of the world, first move?
Abolish cruelty and suffering, starting with banning guns, seal hunting, and whaling.
If you could ask an omniscient, omnibenevolent, perfectly honest being one question and get an answer, what would it be?
Their existence would answer a lot in itself. I’d ask: “wtf?” But seriously, why? Why are we? Why am I? I imagine her answer might be “why not?” Still, it’d be helpful to have confirmation of that.
Thanks Skye!
[interviewer: Cliff Sosis]