Year 2: Socialising, Teaching, Conferencing…
Socialising
If my first year marked the start of my intellectual life as a PhD student, my second year was defined by the flourishing of my social life. A new year means a new influx of PhD students, and it was down to this that I met Rae Fielding, Ben Jenkins, and Tareeq Jalloh. I should probably say something about what each of them is like. I believe I had also met Anna Klieber by this point, who certainly deserves a mention too!
Anna Klieber works on feminist philosophy of language. They are wonderfully friendly and usually quite stressed. We actually met in my first year (though only virtually) via the online meetings for the feminism reading group. This is a fortnightly meeting where postgraduate students and lecturers interested in topics in feminist philosophy meet to discuss a different paper (or other kind of media) each time. The conversations are casual but informative and hearing everyone’s perspective on the issues is always illuminating. As far as Philosophy is concerned, Anna is surely the most hard-working person in show business. They recently got a permanent job at The University of Cardiff - only two years after their PhD! I cannot think of anyone who deserves it more. I don’t see Anna very much now because Cardiff is obviously not that near to Sheffield. But it is always a delight when I do!
As for Rae, she works on feminist philosophy, specifically on the ethics of sexual consent. She is surely one of the loveliest people I have ever met, and probably amongst the loveliest people you will ever meet too. I was once trying to decide what her overall vibe is and I ended up going with ‘former bassist in an all girl punk band turned secondary school english teacher. In short: her hair is always pink, she is often in brightly coloured dungarees, and she is always looking out for everyone. When it is your birthday, she will be baking you a cake.
Ben’s research aims at giving an account of implicit bias. He is the kind of guy who always wears a beanie, makes his own pottery, and likes to know where his coffee beans are coming from. He’s also obsessed with Ultimate Frisby, but don’t let that put you off. I recently heard from him that he has become friends with his mate’s dad and now they meet up to make shelves together. Perhaps it says something about him that this was not remotely surprising. Ben works on implicit bias and, based on my conversations with him about this, I can say that I am both implicitly and explicitly biased towards this man.
Tareeq works on the question of whether the critical scrutiny that Drill music receives is justified (spoiler: he reckons it isn’t). He is one of the best people I know. He is not only incredibly cool, but admirably, frustratingly, humble (and I say this as someone who researches humility for a living!) Tareeq is the kind of guy that will insist that he is bad at something only to then be better at it than you could ever hope to be in your life. Do not play this man at bowling. The fact that we shared similar research interests - in feminist philosophy, philosophy of race, and social epistemology and ontology - also made for some really fruitful conversations. Each of them has compelling things to say on their respective topics and I have learned a lot from them all. Rae, Ben, Tareeq and I would all work in the philosophy department postgrad attic together, with this regularly being punctuated by games of table tennis (a worthy investment of mine if ever there was one!)
Eventually, one of us would try and persuade the rest of us to knock off early and go play pool in The Cavendish, a local pub nearby. These were good days and a welcome contrast to the isolation and monotony I experienced in my first year due to covid.
Conferencing
Other developments: conferences! I spoke at my first conference towards the end of my second year - Rae and I jetted off to Manchester for the MANCEPT conference on Equality In Intimate Life. Happily, my talk was well-received. I particularly recall one lecturer in the audience who I can only describe as having what I would call ‘resting sceptical face’. The more I made eye contact with him, the more worried I became that he would try and DEMOLISH my argument when the Q&A came. Then when it did, he asked a question, and his first remark was ‘well I agreed with basically all of that’. Which was a great relief! (although, next time, tell your face!)
I met many lovely people and greatly enjoyed chatting to them about their work when we went for the informal dinner (pro tip: if there’s a conference with a formal and an informal dinner and you only want to go to one, pick the informal one. In my experience, the atmosphere will be better, you’ll feel less nervous about meeting new people, and the food will usually be cheaper and tastier. I learned that at this conference).
Teaching
I also began teaching in my second year. I led seminars as a GTA (Graduate Teaching Assistant) for modules on Philosophy of Sex, Death, and Religion (I only study the important things in life). As a GTA, I was given some helpful training in how to field seminars - though it can’t be overstated how much of this you learn by doing it. I was definitely nervous when I first started. The funny thing about having to lead my own seminars is that I often felt very similar to how I felt when I was a first year student: anxious about talking to the class, worried that I wasn’t sufficiently prepared (at times, I’d say this was justified), and desperately hoping that someone else will say something. At least this time round, I wasn’t hungover.
I learned certain things through this. Try and get the students talking casually at the start of the seminar, as people are still filling in, to make them feel more comfortable. Don’t be too deterred by unsmiling, stoical faces, or one word answers. If in doubt, use a provocative example to really get them talking. I remember asking a group of students taking the Death module what would be wrong with a game show in which dead bodies were beaten up on television, if (we stipulate) all the dead people had consented to it before they died? In retrospect, I do hope no one in the room was grieving.
Especially when the students are in their first year, know that getting them talking is more important than ensuring that they talk about the material. Of course, you want to try and address any questions they have about what they’ve read, but if you’re struggling, know that just getting them to share their opinions about anything vaguely philosophical is a kind of achievement. My friend and former Philosophy PhD student at Sheffield James Turner told me that he got students talking once by telling them he thought the earth was flat. ‘But that’s wrong!’ they protested. ‘Of course it’s wrong!’ he said. ‘But why is it wrong?!’ This, apparently, got them engaged. You can also break students up into small groups to discuss an issue, and see if that makes them more forthcoming.
In addition, I found there are some general things you can do to make students feel more comfortable. Some students have a mental health diagnosis (like anxiety) or forms of neurodivergence (like dyslexia) that mean they would rather not be called on directly to speak in the class. Thinking that they might be called on to give an answer can, understandably, make them feel especially anxious, and some forms of neurodivergence can make verbally formulating answers in the moment very difficult. While we are often informed of this as GTAs by students’ learning support plans, I find the best strategy is just not to call on students at all. This, to me, is an especially practical solution. It means that I can tell all students that they won’t be called on, thereby putting everyone at ease without leaving them in any doubt.
I’ve also tended to do something similar regarding gender pronouns. Misgendering students, especially those who are trans or nonbinary, is obviously something we should all avoid (it hardly makes for a comfortable environment for students). To prevent this, I’ve come to think that a good strategy is to tell students that they are free to share their gender pronouns when they introduce themselves in the first class, but also let them know that I will tend to refrain from using gendered pronouns in general when referring to them, or else use more gender-neutral language (either using the students’ name or referring to them with ‘they/them’ pronouns). No doubt this is not a perfect solution, and I think different lecturers and GTAs will have different approaches here, but I do think it is a good one. Using students’ names is also something it is useful to get in the habit of if, like me, you are inclined to forget them.
Finally, I also learned the importance of challenging students’ to defend their views in seminars. This was something I was reticent to do at first: I was so anxious about getting them talking that I worried even mild pushback would shut the conversation down. And then I’d be left with another long, punishing silence…
However, it’s important to remember that this is another part of our job as GTAs. We want students to say what they think, of course, but we also want them to be able to explain why they think it - even if these justifications are still a little inchoate. Often the interactions between students can lead them to collectively come up with reasons for holding or doubting a belief that none of them may come up with alone.
The significance of this became especially clear to me when I lead seminars on sex work for Philosophy of Sex. In one seminar group, a number of students seemed especially sceptical of the idea that sex work could ever be legitimate work, or that decriminalising it could be justified. This is of course a position that anyone is entitled to defend, especially in a seminar context. I was also aware of my own views on the topic - that sex work is work, and should be regarded as such - and didn’t want this to bias my responses. However, I found that some student’s views on the matter seemed quite reflexive; and the justifications given often seemed based on poor reasoning (e.g. pointing to contingent negative features that result from sex work being illegal, to justify not legalising or decriminalising it). However, because I didn’t want to shut the conversation down, I did not push them to defend their thoughts.
On reflection, I think this was mistaken. While we shouldn't expect students to have fully fleshed-out, well-defended views on every topic covered, I realised that part of my role was to help encourage greater critical reflection. This seemed particularly pertinent for subjects like sex work, where anti-sex work attitudes have real world consequences for actual people, including the day to day lives of sex workers. Just for example: I once had a friend who did sex work during their studies. Remembering this, for me, highlights that you never know exactly who might be in that seminar room and how they might be affected by the views others express. Gently challenging these views and offering alternative perspectives here therefore seems socially as well as philosophically important.
This is just one insight I gained from teaching and there are probably many more I can share (and I could likely write a whole post just about the process of marking students’ essays!) But in sum: leading seminars can be greatly thought-provoking, rewarding work, as well as being great training for anyone wanting to go into any kind of teaching post-PhD.
Confirmation Review
Another milestone at the start of my second year was that I passed my confirmation review! What’s a confirmation review? Well, it’s sometimes described as a ‘mini viva’, a mock version of the final exam PhD students have after they submit their thesis. In reality, it’s a lot more low-key than this. You send a piece of writing (usually a chapter) to be read over by your supervisors, and two other philosophers in the department. You also send a project proposal (essentially, what your project is all about, what you plan to do for the next two years) as well as an annotated bibliography. Your supervisors help you get these documents together. During the Confirmation Review itself, they ask you questions about your writing and your overall plan for the thesis. This sounds intimidating, and it is, a little. However, it’s generally a helpful exercise and one that feels a lot more daunting until you actually do it!
Conclusion
All in all, this was an exciting year. In many ways, it felt like the year my first year should have been, marked as it was by all the things I didn’t get to do thanks to the pandemic. As for my third year, that was a rockier road - but you’ll have to wait till the next instalment to hear about that (cliff hanger!)...