Biography
I was born in Galway, in the Republic of Ireland (Éire). My father is the philosopher Joseph Mahon, of The National University of Ireland at Galway, now retired. My mother is the sociologist Evelyn Mahon, now fellow emeritus at Trinity College, Dublin. I have two sisters, both successful (okay, wildly successful) in their fields (history of art and law, respectively).
I received my primary education at three different schools. My first school was the Sathill Montessori School, in the city of Galway, which I attended until I was nine. Fellow pupils included the Berlin-based artist Anne Marie Fives. Going to a Montessori in Ireland, I now realized, was somewhat unusual. The school was co-educational; it was not run by the Catholic Church; and my teachers were all women (shout out to the incredible Miss Cox and the late Mrs. Hosty). Two memories that stand out from those days were figuring out what number out of twenty a teacher wrote upside down on a sheet of paper so that I 'guessed' it correctly and got to go on the school outing, and a plot by the number of pupils to take over the school using rubber band guns. My next school was The Priory, Church of England Primary School in Wimbledon, London. I attended Priory for one year while my mother and father were on sabbatical leave at the London School of Economics and University College London, respectively. My third primary school was Scoil Éinde (St. Enda's School) in Salthill, for three years. Fellow pupils included public speaker Charles Garavan.
I received my primary education at three different schools. My first school was the Sathill Montessori School, in the city of Galway, which I attended until I was nine. Fellow pupils included the Berlin-based artist Anne Marie Fives. Going to a Montessori in Ireland, I now realized, was somewhat unusual. The school was co-educational; it was not run by the Catholic Church; and my teachers were all women (shout out to the incredible Miss Cox and the late Mrs. Hosty). Two memories that stand out from those days were figuring out what number out of twenty a teacher wrote upside down on a sheet of paper so that I 'guessed' it correctly and got to go on the school outing, and a plot by the number of pupils to take over the school using rubber band guns. My next school was The Priory, Church of England Primary School in Wimbledon, London. I attended Priory for one year while my mother and father were on sabbatical leave at the London School of Economics and University College London, respectively. My third primary school was Scoil Éinde (St. Enda's School) in Salthill, for three years. Fellow pupils included public speaker Charles Garavan.
I received my secondary education at Coláiste Éinde (St. Enda's College), a school that, since the 1920's, and since 1937 in its present location in Salthill, had (originally) prepared men to enter teacher training college to eventually become national school teachers. In the early 80's, Enda's still had some pupils who were boarding in its dilapidated rooms, but it had changed considerably from the days when it was an Irish-speaking boarding school, attracting pupils from "far and wide", and traditionally strong in Gaelic Athletic Association (G.A.A.) sports, attended by the likes of my uncle, James "Jim" Regan, a star in hurling and Gaelic football. I overlapped for a year with another uncle, Mark Regan, who later became the principal of an Irish-speaking school. It was still all-male while I was there, but boarding ended completely in 1986, and in 1991 it became co-educational (something almost unthinkable at the time, despite our collaboration with a girls' school on a play).
At the beginning of my time at Enda's, I was horse-riding (or rather, pony-riding) every weekend at a riding school run by my aunt and uncle. I competed in 'showing' Connemara ponies at fairs in the summers, and I managed to take home some rosettes. I gradually switched from being interested (nay, obsessed) with horses to being more interested in literature, film, and writing. I wrote poetry at Enda's. (It began with "Midnight," a poem written for a class poetry competition organized by a teacher, which was inspired by (or a re-write of) Vincent Price's speech in Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (I was accused of plagiarism by the class and everyone voted for for the other finalist)). It was followed, some time later, by a collection of poems that were mainly about school life. of the notebook with the poems was discovered by a teacher, who read some of them out to the class, praising them. I was a prizewinner in a short-story competition judged by Irish poet Rita Ann Higgins. I played the character of "Old Mahon" (appropriately enough) in a joint school production (with Salerno Secondary School) of J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (the play that had originally caused a riot in Dublin, and that Albert Camus once staged). I participated as a guest speaker in UCG's (now NUIG) successful attempt to reclaim the Guinness World Record for the longest uninterrupted debate. I also wrote an article on video stores for the Galway Advertiser Youth Edition. Fellow contributors included my Cambridge Professor of Art History sister (she had two articles, actually), and a Princeton Professor of Philosophy who assisted as a photographer on an article written by a Professor of French at the University of Limerick. Not bad for one issue of the Galway Advertiser Youth Issue! I also co-edited the school magazine with several friends (including a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at NUIG), which we rechristened Variant (not The Endapendent), and filled with a lot of our own pretentious content (most of the pretentious content was mine). Among the things we published was a short story by Olaf Tyransen, who went on to write for Hot Press. I also helped my parents to publicize the film screenings of The Film Society at UCG. It was at the Film Society that I first watched films by Andrei Tarkovsky and Jim Jarmusch, among others. I read my parents' copies of The Monthly Film Bulletin, as well as film reviews in the Sunday Observer by Philip French, and books of film reviews by Pauline Kael.
At the beginning of my time at Enda's, I was horse-riding (or rather, pony-riding) every weekend at a riding school run by my aunt and uncle. I competed in 'showing' Connemara ponies at fairs in the summers, and I managed to take home some rosettes. I gradually switched from being interested (nay, obsessed) with horses to being more interested in literature, film, and writing. I wrote poetry at Enda's. (It began with "Midnight," a poem written for a class poetry competition organized by a teacher, which was inspired by (or a re-write of) Vincent Price's speech in Michael Jackson's "Thriller" (I was accused of plagiarism by the class and everyone voted for for the other finalist)). It was followed, some time later, by a collection of poems that were mainly about school life. of the notebook with the poems was discovered by a teacher, who read some of them out to the class, praising them. I was a prizewinner in a short-story competition judged by Irish poet Rita Ann Higgins. I played the character of "Old Mahon" (appropriately enough) in a joint school production (with Salerno Secondary School) of J. M. Synge's The Playboy of the Western World (the play that had originally caused a riot in Dublin, and that Albert Camus once staged). I participated as a guest speaker in UCG's (now NUIG) successful attempt to reclaim the Guinness World Record for the longest uninterrupted debate. I also wrote an article on video stores for the Galway Advertiser Youth Edition. Fellow contributors included my Cambridge Professor of Art History sister (she had two articles, actually), and a Princeton Professor of Philosophy who assisted as a photographer on an article written by a Professor of French at the University of Limerick. Not bad for one issue of the Galway Advertiser Youth Issue! I also co-edited the school magazine with several friends (including a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at NUIG), which we rechristened Variant (not The Endapendent), and filled with a lot of our own pretentious content (most of the pretentious content was mine). Among the things we published was a short story by Olaf Tyransen, who went on to write for Hot Press. I also helped my parents to publicize the film screenings of The Film Society at UCG. It was at the Film Society that I first watched films by Andrei Tarkovsky and Jim Jarmusch, among others. I read my parents' copies of The Monthly Film Bulletin, as well as film reviews in the Sunday Observer by Philip French, and books of film reviews by Pauline Kael.
My plan was to go to Oxford University. I applied to University College to read English. "Univ" was my top choice because it was the most academically rigorous college. In the end I did not get offered a place at Univ or any of my other Oxford college choices. They wrote to my school principal that my written work was excellent but that I had not performed as well in the interview (the subject interview, which I had not been prepared for), and that, due to an increase in the number of applicants from England that year, they had decided not to give a place to an applicant from the Republic of Ireland. Years later, when I started teaching at Washington & Lee University, I discovered that there was an exchange program between W&L and Univ.; and I ended up sending a number of my students to Univ. as one-year visiting students.
Instead of reading English at Oxford, I read Modern English and Philosophy at The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity near Dublin founded by the Most Serene Queen Elizabeth, otherwise known as Trinity College, Dublin. I did not have to pay fees, because the children of permanent faculty in the NUI had their fees paid by the state, even if they attended TCD (which is not part of the NUI), and my father was a permanent faculty member in the NUI. In Freshers' Week I joined "The Hist" (The College Historical Society) and went to their Bank of Ireland reception. There I quickly befriended Old Etonian Dominic West, future star of The Wire. We went together to the Fresher's Debate organized by The University Philosophical Society ("The Phil"), and chaired that day by William Whyte. After the first round, there was a split decision between me and Dominic. So they held a special head-to-head debate on the topic of "The country needs a general election." I won, and I was given a bottle of vodka, which I later sold to pay for dinner at Captain America's (since I did not drink). Although I tried out for The Hist that term, I later became a member of the The Phil, elected under the name (given to me by William Whyte) "James Mysterion Mahon" (or something like that). That first year, I was in a play, The Vladivostok Primary, written by Ian Moore and William Whyte, along with actors Stuart Carolan and Alan Devine, and fellow Philosophy and Modern English student and former Deputy Mayor of Dublin Sadhbh O'Neill, and billed as "James Myseteron".
In my junior freshman year I watched four films per week at the student-run Dublin University Film Society. It was here that I saw cult films like Blue Velvet (David Lynch) and In the Realm of the Senses (Oshima), as well as classics like The Man Who Would Be King (Huston). I wrote my first film reviews for TCD Miscellany. At the end of my first year I managed to pick up prizes in Modern English - the Robert Henry Wallace Exhibition and a Composition Prize in English. The university prizes in philosophy went to returning theoretical physics student Michael Joyce, who later become a theoretical cosmologist at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris VI.
In my junior freshman year I watched four films per week at the student-run Dublin University Film Society. It was here that I saw cult films like Blue Velvet (David Lynch) and In the Realm of the Senses (Oshima), as well as classics like The Man Who Would Be King (Huston). I wrote my first film reviews for TCD Miscellany. At the end of my first year I managed to pick up prizes in Modern English - the Robert Henry Wallace Exhibition and a Composition Prize in English. The university prizes in philosophy went to returning theoretical physics student Michael Joyce, who later become a theoretical cosmologist at the Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris VI.
In my first summer as a student I worked as an assistant for Lelia Doolan to help launch the very first Galway Film Fleadh. I manned the office, did numerous jobs, helped edit the program for the festival, and worked with Miriam Allen on the Emerging Irish Film-makers section of the festival. The Fleadh was originally part of the Galway Arts Festival, but now it is its own festival. (The 30th Fleadh was held in 2018, and I was able to attend the final two days of the festival). Before the Fleadh began, I had a one-line speaking role as a journalist in a short film, The Little Film, about the Galway band The Little Fish, which was a Film Resource Center film written and directed by Declan Gibbons. They managed to get the film finished in time to screen it at the Fleadh, and so, I was on the big screen during the festival. The band did not last. I have no idea if the film still exists. (Darn! Missed my chance to be on IMDb).
I came back to Trinity as a 'senior freshman' to put together the magazine for The Phil for Freshers' Week. I designed the cover and layout of the magazine, procured most of the ads, designed many of the ads, and wrote most of the content. (They reproduced many of the things that I wrote in future issues of the magazine). I started writing film reviews for for Trinity News, then under the editorship of Marc Little. Another contributor was the novelist John Connolly. I went to film previews in Dublin with other film critics (including future comedy writer Graham Linehan, who reviewed films for Hot Press). By the end of the academic year I had started work as the film critic for the Dublin Event Guide. Without doing much by way of preparation, I sat for "Schol" (to become a Scholar at TCD) in Philosophy and Modern English, but did not get it. To be fair, it was always more difficult to get it while doing a Two-Subject Moderatorship. I did manage to pick up the John Isaac Beare Prize in Philosophy, which I shared with future philosopher Dominic Murphy. At the time, I was happy that I was a published film critic. In the summer of 1990 I was asked to run the short films section of the second Fleadh. I opted to stay in Dublin writing film reviews. I did work for the second Fleadh in July, however. I remember that animator Steve Woods took polaroids of everyone and make a short animated film in which each of us appeared, briefly, which was played before one of the closing films. Technically, then, I was on the big screen again during the festival.
In my junior sophomore year (third year) at Trinity I became the Arts Editor of Trinity News. I worked closely with its new editor, Conor Sweeney, to help produce a paper about once every three weeks. In addition, I wrote short articles for a literary magazine at TCD, Icarus. At that time, I also had asymmetrical hair.
In the summer of 1991, I once again volunteered at the Galway Film Fleadh. I got to hang out with Marianne Sagëbrecht, star of Bagdad Caféand Rosalie Goes Shopping, as her film Martha and Me was playing at the Fleadh. The third Fleadh also had the premiere of the film 3 Joes, directed by Lenny Abrahamson (a Trinity graduate who started a PhD in philosophy at Stanford before giving it up and returning to Ireland to become a film director), with a screenplay by Trinity graduate Michael West, and starring my classmate Dominic West. It won the prize for the Best Irish Short.
In the summer of 1991, I once again volunteered at the Galway Film Fleadh. I got to hang out with Marianne Sagëbrecht, star of Bagdad Caféand Rosalie Goes Shopping, as her film Martha and Me was playing at the Fleadh. The third Fleadh also had the premiere of the film 3 Joes, directed by Lenny Abrahamson (a Trinity graduate who started a PhD in philosophy at Stanford before giving it up and returning to Ireland to become a film director), with a screenplay by Trinity graduate Michael West, and starring my classmate Dominic West. It won the prize for the Best Irish Short.
I graduated 1992 with a double First Class Honours B.A. (Two Subject Moderatorship in Philosophy and Modern English). My advisor for my thesis in Modern English, Politics vs. Literature: Orwell on Gulliver's Travels (1991), was W. J. McCormack. My advisor for my thesis in Philosophy, The Concept of Taste in Addison, Hume, and Burke (1992), was J. C. A. Gaskin. My degree was awarded to me by the Pro-Chancellor of the university, Conor Cruise O'Brien (I thought this was pretty cool; I was an admirer of his literary criticism). My classmates in addition to those already mentioned included future philosophy professor Mark McEvoy, future future law professor Stephen Humphreys, future history professor Filipe Ribeiro de Menezes, and future writer and literature professor Selina Guinness. I had also overlapped with future philosophy professor Darragh Byrne (who transferred to St. Andrews), and future philosophy radio show researcher Laura Maguire, as well as transfer student (from Columbia University) Christian Barry, who became a philosopher at the Australian National University.
My plan was to go to Copenhagen to work on the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, but I was advised against doing that. I applied for a Robert Gardiner Memorial Scholarship to attend the University of Cambridge. In order to be eligible for the scholarship, I had to apply to do graduate work at the university, and get accepted by a college. I did not get the scholarship, but I was accepted by the faculty of philosophy, and eventually Clare College picked me out of the 'pool' of accepted college-less applicants. Because the acceptance was so late in the college year, I could not apply for the Philosophy Department's Wray Traveling Scholarship. The following year, I was ineligible to receive the scholarship because I was not longer a student at TCD.
My plan was to go to Copenhagen to work on the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard, but I was advised against doing that. I applied for a Robert Gardiner Memorial Scholarship to attend the University of Cambridge. In order to be eligible for the scholarship, I had to apply to do graduate work at the university, and get accepted by a college. I did not get the scholarship, but I was accepted by the faculty of philosophy, and eventually Clare College picked me out of the 'pool' of accepted college-less applicants. Because the acceptance was so late in the college year, I could not apply for the Philosophy Department's Wray Traveling Scholarship. The following year, I was ineligible to receive the scholarship because I was not longer a student at TCD.
In 1992 I left Ireland and went to Clare College, Cambridge, to do an M.Phil. in Philosophy. It was supposed to be on taste in Kant's The Critique of Judgment. My supervisor was Michael Tanner, who worked on aesthetics, and who had co-supervised Roger Scruton 's Ph.D. back in the day. While there I attended the Tanner lectures at Clare Hall given by Christine Korsgaard, with replies by Bernard Williams, G. A. "Jerry" Cohen, Thomas Nagel, and Raymond Geuss, and chaired by Onora O'Neill (I will always remember O'Neill's crack about "Tom and Jerry"). Korsgaard, I remember, mentioned Wittgenstein briefly in her lectures (later published as The Sources of Normativity), but they kept asking her questions about what she said about him. Cambridge was still obsessed with Wittgenstein. O'Neill taught a course on Kant's moral philosophy in the Michaelmas Term, which I attended, and still have notes from. Guess was hired that year to the Faculty of Social and Political Sciences at Cambridge. I also attended Michael Tanner's lecture course on Nietzsche in which, among other things, he handed out a list of books on Nietzsche the we were not to read - a 'not reading list', as it were. I was turned away - with some others - from a seminar on Plato by Myles Burnyeat (it was only for advanced students of Greek). I spoke up at some meetings of the Moral Sciences Club. I also attended the public lecture given by Jacques Derrida on the occasion of his being awarded an Honorary Doctorate, after a series of lectures in advance of his arrival given by various people from various disciplines. I had the good fortune to be invited to attend a lunch in his honor, in which I did get a chance to talk to him, briefly. I also attended the Clark Lectures at Trinity College, Cambridge, given by Bernard Williams. Other speakers I heard that year included Carol Gilligan and John Gray.
One undergraduate at Clare was China Miéville, who was involved in a Clare College magazine that I wrote for called Spark, and fellow Irishman Jonathan Pratschke, now Associate Professor in Economics and Statistics at the University of Naples Federico II. Nicholas Cornwell, the son of John Le Carré, was once pointed out to me. However, I spent a lot of my time with Classics student and city trader (and 'Flaming Ferrari') Conor Campbell, and shared a house with architect Adam Richards.
I defended my M.Phil thesis, "Popper, Gadamer, and Hermeneutics," in the fall of 1993. My external examiners were Tom Baldwin (who had got me the lunch with Derrida) and Susan James. However, on the basis of my first three papers, which admittedly were done without supervision (that I can recall), Cambridge had already decided not to let me continue to do another degree. At the time, this seemed like a huge set-back. In hindsight, it may have been a blessing, as it is not clear how I would have managed to get to the U.S., which I desperately wanted to do, if I had stayed in Cambridge to do a Ph.D.
In 1993 I returned to Ireland. For the first time, I did not have a school or a university to attend, and I needed to get some work. While starting to write pieces for In Dublin magazine (now defunct), I got hired to help prepare U2's new nightclub, The Kitchen, in The Clarence Hotel, for its 'soft opening' as the venue for Gavin Friday's and Renee O'Reilly's wedding reception. Yes, technically, I worked for U2 for a while. My immediate boss, however, was Nodd McDonagh, before he went on to manage the superclub Ministry of Sound. U2 were at Gavin's wedding reception, along with Kate Moss, Naomi Campbell, and Christy Turlington. What a party it was, even if I was just there to empty ashtrays and put glasses in the dishwasher. There was a karaoke machine, and Bono and the lads sang "The Boys Are Back in Town." The three supermodels sang a song by Diana Ross and The Supremes (I think it was "Baby Love"). They shut The Kitchen down afterwards to redecorate it because it was deemed unfinished. By the time they shut it down, however, I had landed two teaching jobs. I worked as a Tutor for night students for the Department of Philosophy at University College Dublin, and I worked as a Tutor for the undergraduate students for the (now) Center for European Studies at Trinity College, Dublin. After a year of tutoring for two universities, I got a visiting lecturer position in the Department of Philosophy at University College Cork, while I continued to tutor at TCD. During the summers I taught English to French collège and lycée students for the Annalivia School of Languages. While looking at leather jackets in a store in Powerscourt in Dublin, I was told to audition at a modeling agency by a guy in the store who had done some modeling. I went in, had polaroids taken, etc. They contacted me afterwards and said that they were not going to take me on because they only hired models who could do all types of modeling. I wasn't tall enough for runway modeling. Drat. I missed my chance to become the next Calvin Klein model.
During my year at UCD I gave a talk on Descartes at a philosophy conference at Cork. I also gave a talk on Stanley Fish and interpretation theory to the undergraduate Philosophy Society at UCD. Thanks to my dad, I also wrote my first book review, for the journal the History of European Ideas. I took the GREs, pored over the pages of Barron's guide to colleges (that is what we did back then), and applied to four graduate schools in philosophy in the US (not the top schools, but good schools). Although I shudder to think of it now, I used the paper on Stanley Fish as my writing sample. In the application for Duke University, however, I wrote about wanting to work on the history of philosophy. The Philosophy Department at Duke, who had recently added to their ranks Alasdair MacIntyre, accepted me, despite my writing sample being about someone in a different department (Fish was in the English Department). Before I left, I gave papera at two conferences at Trinity College Dublin, one on Patheticism, and the other on Metaphor and Rational Discourse. The latter paper became my first book chapter ("Truth and Metaphor"), and my work on the topic led to my giving another paper on metaphor at a conference at York while I was a doctoral student, which became my second book chapter and my first with Cambridge University Press. The editors gave it the terrible title "Getting Your Sources Right: What Aristotle Didn't Say," but to this day it remains one of my most cited publications.
In 1995, I left Ireland for the United States. I arrived in Durham, North Carolina, and started my graduate study at Duke University. During my time I Duke I sometimes wrote for The Chronicle. Among other things, I organized for Christine Korsgaard to come to campus as the Graduate Student Invited Speaker. I also participated in the annual Women's Studies Graduate Research Conference, as well as in a conference, Assault: Radicalism in Aesthetics and Politics, with guest speaker Kathy Acker. The house I was staying became the venue for a party for that conference. I still think it was the best after-conference party thrown at Duke, at least while I was there.
While at Duke I participated in graduate student conferences at Rutgers University, Brown University, Columbia University (Department of German Languages), St. Louis University, Pittsburgh University/Carnegie Mellon University, and Harvard University/MIT. I also presented in the graduate student section of the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association, as well as at conferences at the University of York, North Carolina State University, Sheffield University, and Duke University. I traveled to Europe many times during those years, especially Germany.
I completed a doctorate in philosophy, under the supervision of MacIntyre, on metaethics in the first half of the twentieth-century. My dissertation was entitled "Motivational Internalism and the Authority of Morality" (later published in 2011). In addition to MacIntyre, my dissertation committee consisted of Owen Flanagan, Martin Golding, Lynn Joy, and Martin Stone. Because my defense was late in the spring term, I did not walk until the following year, 2001. My parents flew over for the occasion.
While at Duke I participated in graduate student conferences at Rutgers University, Brown University, Columbia University (Department of German Languages), St. Louis University, Pittsburgh University/Carnegie Mellon University, and Harvard University/MIT. I also presented in the graduate student section of the Joint Session of the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association, as well as at conferences at the University of York, North Carolina State University, Sheffield University, and Duke University. I traveled to Europe many times during those years, especially Germany.
I completed a doctorate in philosophy, under the supervision of MacIntyre, on metaethics in the first half of the twentieth-century. My dissertation was entitled "Motivational Internalism and the Authority of Morality" (later published in 2011). In addition to MacIntyre, my dissertation committee consisted of Owen Flanagan, Martin Golding, Lynn Joy, and Martin Stone. Because my defense was late in the spring term, I did not walk until the following year, 2001. My parents flew over for the occasion.
In 1999-2000, I interviewed at the Eastern Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association for tenure-track positions at three liberal arts colleges, and visiting positions at two universities and one liberal arts college, respectively. After three campus fly-outs for the tenure-track positions, I was offered all three positions. I accepted the position of Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia, turning down the offers from Ursinus College and Knox College. I needed a tenure-track position because I did not have a green card (I was on a student visa), and W&L had agreed to sponsor me for an H1-B visa and subsequently a green card. After I already accepted, I was contacted Case Western Reserve University and Vanderbilt University about visiting positions with them. The two-year position at Case Western, with a 1-1 teaching load (effectively a post-doc), would have been tempting if I had not needed the visa and the green card, and if the job market in philosophy had not been so precarious (but it has always been precarious).
In the 1990s, before PhilJobs existed, a blog by Brian Leiter announced new hires to the philosophy world. However, it only announced hires at research universities (typically, philosophy departments with graduate programs). I wanted my hire to be posted on Leiter, and so I complained to him. He said that he was unable to keep track of all hires, including hires at liberal arts colleges. So I offered to gather information on the hires of 1999-2000 and send it to him. I did, and as a result, my hire was posted on Leiter along with others.
I started in the fall of 2000, teaching Ancient Philosophy, Early Modern Philosophy, Contemporary Ethics, History of Ethics, Metaethics, and Philosophy of Law on rotation. Other courses were later added, sometimes for the shorter 'Spring' term, such as Moral Realism, Lies, Deception, and Secrecy, Bio-Medical Ethics, Roe v. Wade and the Abortion Question, The Limits of Morality, a course on Nietzsche. From the very beginning, I succeed in recruiting majors.
In the 1990s, before PhilJobs existed, a blog by Brian Leiter announced new hires to the philosophy world. However, it only announced hires at research universities (typically, philosophy departments with graduate programs). I wanted my hire to be posted on Leiter, and so I complained to him. He said that he was unable to keep track of all hires, including hires at liberal arts colleges. So I offered to gather information on the hires of 1999-2000 and send it to him. I did, and as a result, my hire was posted on Leiter along with others.
I started in the fall of 2000, teaching Ancient Philosophy, Early Modern Philosophy, Contemporary Ethics, History of Ethics, Metaethics, and Philosophy of Law on rotation. Other courses were later added, sometimes for the shorter 'Spring' term, such as Moral Realism, Lies, Deception, and Secrecy, Bio-Medical Ethics, Roe v. Wade and the Abortion Question, The Limits of Morality, a course on Nietzsche. From the very beginning, I succeed in recruiting majors.
In the fall of 2003 I was awarded a one semester junior faculty sabbatical leave. I decided to return to England, and, armed with a recommendation from Simon Blackburn, I became a Visiting Scholar in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall. When I returned to W&L I became the coach for W&L's VFIC Ethics Bowl team. W&L won in 2004, 2005, and was runner-up in 2006. (We also won in 2009 and 2015). At the end of the 2005-2006 academic year I was tenured and promoted to Associate Professor.
In 2006-2007 I was a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University. In the fall term I sat in on a seminar on the origins of ethics jointly taught by Peter Singer and Robert Wright, with guest lecturers Marc Hauser and Joshua Greene, as well as Jonathan Haidt (who was visiting at the Center for Human Values for the year). I co-presented one meeting of the course with Heidi Maibom, who was also at the Center that year. At his invitation, I also guest co-taught one meeting of Peter Singer's freshman seminar, Ethics and Everyday Life, on the topic of lies. I also took the place of Peter Singer as a panelist on The Just Society, along with Nan Keohane (the former president of Duke) and others. In the spring I sat in on Michael Smith's seminar on ethics, with guest lecturers David Velleman, Barbara Herman, and Rae Langton. I also sat in on Roger Scruton's seminar on the Philosophy of Law.
In the summer of 2007 I was a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University and a participant in an NEH seminar on Philosophical Perspectives on Law, Democracy and Human Rights, taught by Carl Wellman and Kit Fine, with guest lecturers Jeremy Waldron, Joshua Cohen, Henry Shue, Carol Gould, and Elizabeth Kiss (whom I knew from Duke, and who, as President of Agnes Scott College, very kindly organized our accommodation that summer).
In 2007 I became Head of the Department at Philosophy at W&L. In 2009-2010 I was President of the Virginia Philosophical Association, and put together the program of the 71st annual meeting of the VPA, which was held at Marymount University. For a year I wrote a sometime column for The Trident (now defunct), called The Steering Column.
In the summer of 2007 I was a Visiting Fellow in the Department of Philosophy at Georgia State University and a participant in an NEH seminar on Philosophical Perspectives on Law, Democracy and Human Rights, taught by Carl Wellman and Kit Fine, with guest lecturers Jeremy Waldron, Joshua Cohen, Henry Shue, Carol Gould, and Elizabeth Kiss (whom I knew from Duke, and who, as President of Agnes Scott College, very kindly organized our accommodation that summer).
In 2007 I became Head of the Department at Philosophy at W&L. In 2009-2010 I was President of the Virginia Philosophical Association, and put together the program of the 71st annual meeting of the VPA, which was held at Marymount University. For a year I wrote a sometime column for The Trident (now defunct), called The Steering Column.
In 2011-2012 I was a Lecturer in the Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics at Yale University. I taught one course in the fall, EPE 270: Lies and Deception. The course was cross-listed with Philosophy and Political Science. I had a superb group of students (mainly undergraduates), from many different countries. Three subsequently went on to do PhDs in philosophy, one at Stanford and two at the University of Michigan. Four others went to either law school (Harvard, UC Berkeley) or graduate school (TU Delft/Leiden, UCSD). Yet another played ice hockey for the U.S. Olympic Team. Others In addition to teaching a course, I sat in on various undergraduate courses taught by Jonathan Gilmore, Steven Darwall (with Matt Smith), and Shelly Kagan.
During the academic year I was also a Visiting Researcher at Yale Law School. I sat in on courses taught by Jules Coleman (on torts) and Stephen Carter (on contracts), and – finally! – Stanley Fish (his course was entitled 'Law, Liberalism, and Religion'). I went to talks by a number of speakers, including Tony Blair and former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. During that year I also kept a blog and wrote book reviews for Politico.ie. While I was on leave I was promoted to Professor of Philosophy.
In 2012. I returned to head the department again as we moved into the historic landmark building on the center of campus, Washington Hall. By now the department had grown to seven full-time people, with a eighth person as the director of the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics. The department continued to have great success in placing students in graduate programs in philosophy. My former students included Miriam Rodgers, Yujia Song, Robin Zheng, Beth Henzel, Shea Musgrave and Elizabeth Brassfield. The department also continued to have success with getting notable speakers. Those I invited to campus over the years included Bernard Gert, Jeff McMahan, Susan Wolf, Mary Kate McGowan, Georges Dicker, Frans de Waal, Roger Crisp, and Shelly Kagan. Those I had Skype in to talk to students included David Boonin, Alexander Miller, and Joshua Greene.
Since 2013, I have taught a course, EPE S270: Lies and Deception, every summer as an Instructor in the Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics at Yale Summer Session. The course is cross-listed with Philosophy (PHIL S337) and with Political Science (EPE S270). Former students have gone on to enroll at Cornell, Columbia, Chicago, Dartmouth, Michigan, UCLA, Rice, Mount Holyoke, USC, Carleton, UCSD, W&L, UNC-Chapel Hill, UT, Emory, Babson, and UT Law School, Peking University, Renmin University, and Georgia Tech.
In 2010 I became Lecturer in Philosophy and the Law at Washington & Lee University School of Law, teaching one law course per year on jurisprudence. In 2012 I became Adjunct Professor of Law. In 2014 I participated in the W&L Law School conference Roe at 40: The Controversy Continues. (A video presentation of this talk can be watched here starting at 46:55).
In 2014 and 2015 I made it back to Europe, first to the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, and then to the University of Oslo, for conferences on lies and deception. Oslo was also the location for my stag party, where I was joined by my brothers-in-law, who kindly flew in. Or perhaps that should be reindeer party.
During the academic year I was also a Visiting Researcher at Yale Law School. I sat in on courses taught by Jules Coleman (on torts) and Stephen Carter (on contracts), and – finally! – Stanley Fish (his course was entitled 'Law, Liberalism, and Religion'). I went to talks by a number of speakers, including Tony Blair and former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens. During that year I also kept a blog and wrote book reviews for Politico.ie. While I was on leave I was promoted to Professor of Philosophy.
In 2012. I returned to head the department again as we moved into the historic landmark building on the center of campus, Washington Hall. By now the department had grown to seven full-time people, with a eighth person as the director of the Roger Mudd Center for Ethics. The department continued to have great success in placing students in graduate programs in philosophy. My former students included Miriam Rodgers, Yujia Song, Robin Zheng, Beth Henzel, Shea Musgrave and Elizabeth Brassfield. The department also continued to have success with getting notable speakers. Those I invited to campus over the years included Bernard Gert, Jeff McMahan, Susan Wolf, Mary Kate McGowan, Georges Dicker, Frans de Waal, Roger Crisp, and Shelly Kagan. Those I had Skype in to talk to students included David Boonin, Alexander Miller, and Joshua Greene.
Since 2013, I have taught a course, EPE S270: Lies and Deception, every summer as an Instructor in the Program on Ethics, Politics and Economics at Yale Summer Session. The course is cross-listed with Philosophy (PHIL S337) and with Political Science (EPE S270). Former students have gone on to enroll at Cornell, Columbia, Chicago, Dartmouth, Michigan, UCLA, Rice, Mount Holyoke, USC, Carleton, UCSD, W&L, UNC-Chapel Hill, UT, Emory, Babson, and UT Law School, Peking University, Renmin University, and Georgia Tech.
In 2010 I became Lecturer in Philosophy and the Law at Washington & Lee University School of Law, teaching one law course per year on jurisprudence. In 2012 I became Adjunct Professor of Law. In 2014 I participated in the W&L Law School conference Roe at 40: The Controversy Continues. (A video presentation of this talk can be watched here starting at 46:55).
In 2014 and 2015 I made it back to Europe, first to the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, and then to the University of Oslo, for conferences on lies and deception. Oslo was also the location for my stag party, where I was joined by my brothers-in-law, who kindly flew in. Or perhaps that should be reindeer party.
In May 2015 I got married at the Church of the Transfiguration – otherwise known as The Little Church Around the Corner (it featured in Hannah and Her Sisters) – in the NoMad district of Manhattan, off Madison Avenue. The ceremony was performed by Bishop Andrew St. John, with the accompaniment of the boys choir, under their choirmaster Claudia Dumschat. The reception was held at the charity Housing Works Bookstore Café in SoHo (as featured in the season five finale of Girls in 2016).
In June 2015 I was a Visiting Professor in the School of International Education at the University of International Business and Education in Beijing, China. My students were Chinese students who were enrolled in colleges all over the US and who were taking courses for credit at UIBE over the summer. Having taught high school students and undergraduates from China for many years, it was a treat to visit China. Two of my former students from Yale Summer Session even turned up to see me, as well as an alumnus of W&L who was working in Beijing. This trip doubled as a honeymoon. My wife and I got to see the Great Wall, the Puning Temple in Chengde, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and Peking University, as well as Shanghai (as guests of a friend of hers from college).
After two years of commuting from Virginia to New York, I was offered a position in New York. In the fall of 2015 I became Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at The City University of New York–Herbert H. Lehman College in The Bronx, NY.
My father retired from NUIG in 2013. That year I started to work with Allyn Fives on a collection of essays in honor of my father, by his former students, colleagues, and friends. In 2016 this collection was published as Philosophy and Political Engagement: Reflection in the Public Sphere, with contributions from Alasdair MacIntyre, Allen Wood, Philip Pettit, and Russell Keat, former students Allyn Fives and Keith Breen (who were also the editors), former students Felix O Murchadha and John Foley, and colleagues Richard Hull and Annie McKeown O'Donovan, as well as myself, and my father. The book was launched at NUIG. My father was interviewed in the Irish Times, and the book itself was reviewed in the newspaper.
The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, invited all of the book's contributors and editors to Áras an Uachtaráin in the Phoenix Park in Dublin to celebrate the launch of the book. I was able to get a tour of the Áras with my family. The book was reviewed in the Irish newspapers and later in journals, including here, and was published in paperback in 2019.
In the same week as the book launch and the trip to the President's house, I spoke at HowTheLightGetsIn festival, part of the Institute of Art and Ideas, at Hay-on-Wye, in Wales. My talk was on lying. I also participated in a panel discussion on lying, as "The Philosopher."
The academic year 2016-2017 was a successful year for the Philosophy Department at Lehman College. In the fall of 2016, for the first time, I taught a course for Macaulay Honors College and Lehman Scholars Program students. It was one of the most rewarding teaching experiences I have ever had. Out of the twelve students in that class, five became philosophy majors. At the end of the Spring Term we had the highest number of majors and minors on record. One of our senior majors, Jodell Ulerie, was accepted to several philosophy programs, and opted to go to Virginia Tech to do a master's degree, with a scholarship. A junior major, Marcelo Bravo-Lopez, was awarded the Weinstock Prize for the best philosophy paper for 2016. Two of our senior majors, Maddy Sher and Xhulia Gjokai, were chosen to speak at the Honors Convocation. Three senior majors were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. At Commencement on June 1, six seniors graduated with honors in Philosophy.
That July, I gave a lecture in the Yale Summer Session Evening Lecture Series, entitled "Is Lying to Someone's Face the Worst Kind of Deception?" In the Fall Term of 2017, I once again taught a freshman seminar, "Philosophy of Freedom," to Lehman Scholars and Macaulay Honor College students at Lehman College. I had another great bunch of students. On March 12 and 13 in the spring of 2018, I was an external examiner of the undergraduate and graduate philosophy programs at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, in Canada.
On April 19, I flew to Sweden. I stayed at the Grand Hotel Stockholm, where the Nobel laureates stay, and toured the Old Town. Then I went to Uppsala, and gave a talk entitled "Lies and Memoirs" at "Deception and Authenticity in Art: Morality, Language and Aesthetics," a conference held at Uppsala University. The university was founded in 1477 and is the oldest university in Scandinavia. On April 16, I have the keynote address, "Sophrosune: The Virtue of Self-Control", at the Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony at Lehman College.
On May 11, 2018, after three years of charing the Philosophy Department, I accepted the offer of Dean of the School of Arts & Humanities at Lehman College. I started on August 27, 2018. I now work with the chairs and faculty of nine departments – Africana Studies, Art, English, History, Journalism and Media Studies, Languages and Literatures, Latin American and Latino Studies, Music, Multimedia, Theatre, and Dance, and Philosophy – as well as the directors and faculty of a number of programs and institutes, including College Now, Disability Studies, Women's Studies, the Institute for Irish-American Studies, and the Mexican Studies Institute.
In June 2015 I was a Visiting Professor in the School of International Education at the University of International Business and Education in Beijing, China. My students were Chinese students who were enrolled in colleges all over the US and who were taking courses for credit at UIBE over the summer. Having taught high school students and undergraduates from China for many years, it was a treat to visit China. Two of my former students from Yale Summer Session even turned up to see me, as well as an alumnus of W&L who was working in Beijing. This trip doubled as a honeymoon. My wife and I got to see the Great Wall, the Puning Temple in Chengde, Tiananmen Square, the Forbidden City, and Peking University, as well as Shanghai (as guests of a friend of hers from college).
After two years of commuting from Virginia to New York, I was offered a position in New York. In the fall of 2015 I became Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of Philosophy at The City University of New York–Herbert H. Lehman College in The Bronx, NY.
My father retired from NUIG in 2013. That year I started to work with Allyn Fives on a collection of essays in honor of my father, by his former students, colleagues, and friends. In 2016 this collection was published as Philosophy and Political Engagement: Reflection in the Public Sphere, with contributions from Alasdair MacIntyre, Allen Wood, Philip Pettit, and Russell Keat, former students Allyn Fives and Keith Breen (who were also the editors), former students Felix O Murchadha and John Foley, and colleagues Richard Hull and Annie McKeown O'Donovan, as well as myself, and my father. The book was launched at NUIG. My father was interviewed in the Irish Times, and the book itself was reviewed in the newspaper.
The President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, invited all of the book's contributors and editors to Áras an Uachtaráin in the Phoenix Park in Dublin to celebrate the launch of the book. I was able to get a tour of the Áras with my family. The book was reviewed in the Irish newspapers and later in journals, including here, and was published in paperback in 2019.
In the same week as the book launch and the trip to the President's house, I spoke at HowTheLightGetsIn festival, part of the Institute of Art and Ideas, at Hay-on-Wye, in Wales. My talk was on lying. I also participated in a panel discussion on lying, as "The Philosopher."
The academic year 2016-2017 was a successful year for the Philosophy Department at Lehman College. In the fall of 2016, for the first time, I taught a course for Macaulay Honors College and Lehman Scholars Program students. It was one of the most rewarding teaching experiences I have ever had. Out of the twelve students in that class, five became philosophy majors. At the end of the Spring Term we had the highest number of majors and minors on record. One of our senior majors, Jodell Ulerie, was accepted to several philosophy programs, and opted to go to Virginia Tech to do a master's degree, with a scholarship. A junior major, Marcelo Bravo-Lopez, was awarded the Weinstock Prize for the best philosophy paper for 2016. Two of our senior majors, Maddy Sher and Xhulia Gjokai, were chosen to speak at the Honors Convocation. Three senior majors were inducted into Phi Beta Kappa. At Commencement on June 1, six seniors graduated with honors in Philosophy.
That July, I gave a lecture in the Yale Summer Session Evening Lecture Series, entitled "Is Lying to Someone's Face the Worst Kind of Deception?" In the Fall Term of 2017, I once again taught a freshman seminar, "Philosophy of Freedom," to Lehman Scholars and Macaulay Honor College students at Lehman College. I had another great bunch of students. On March 12 and 13 in the spring of 2018, I was an external examiner of the undergraduate and graduate philosophy programs at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, in Canada.
On April 19, I flew to Sweden. I stayed at the Grand Hotel Stockholm, where the Nobel laureates stay, and toured the Old Town. Then I went to Uppsala, and gave a talk entitled "Lies and Memoirs" at "Deception and Authenticity in Art: Morality, Language and Aesthetics," a conference held at Uppsala University. The university was founded in 1477 and is the oldest university in Scandinavia. On April 16, I have the keynote address, "Sophrosune: The Virtue of Self-Control", at the Phi Beta Kappa induction ceremony at Lehman College.
On May 11, 2018, after three years of charing the Philosophy Department, I accepted the offer of Dean of the School of Arts & Humanities at Lehman College. I started on August 27, 2018. I now work with the chairs and faculty of nine departments – Africana Studies, Art, English, History, Journalism and Media Studies, Languages and Literatures, Latin American and Latino Studies, Music, Multimedia, Theatre, and Dance, and Philosophy – as well as the directors and faculty of a number of programs and institutes, including College Now, Disability Studies, Women's Studies, the Institute for Irish-American Studies, and the Mexican Studies Institute.