Change
My project to finally do graduate work in philosophy continues. This week I started my second class. This one at Purchase College which is right next door to me. Hunter, part of CUNY in NYC, where I had begun this project, now has only onsite classes. As I continue still to sit in my basement, praying my office returns to NYC someday, running to a class in the city from up in Westchester is just problematic. So Purchase it is.
Covid continues to screw things up. It is as simple as that. That said, the class I am in is interesting. Purchase is interesting. Purchase had been this little campus in the woods not too long ago, and now it seems to just be expanding in all directions — like a bomb blast.
I am intrigued that Purchase’s philosophy department seems to be part of a larger humanities department. Not sure what I think about that. There is it seems no ‘autonomous’ philosophy department. Is that good? Bad? Not sure.
In one sense it is just the way it is. Students are not I suspect pursuing degrees in these fields so why have such departments. What benefit is there in having a philosophy department? Or a literature or history department? And honestly, Purchase is still a small liberal arts school, expanding or not. A liberal arts school with a lively arts program! It may not be so much that there is a lack of interest as opposed to it simply being easier to manage one large department as opposed to several smaller departments.
One benefit in this consolidation though is that it throws everyone into a humanities department is a more multi-disciplinary approach. Perhaps. You simply have no choice. There are simply not enough professors in any one discipline to insulate from the other domains. They all share the same building, where as in the past arts folks would be in one building, philosophy in another, and historians in yet another. Now they are in the next room. There is something appealing to that. Perhaps.
That multi-disciplinary approach can be seen in my class — Music, Mind and Body-that is the title of the class. A class it seems where a pragmatist philosopher will explore ethnomusicology, and it seems likewise appeal to neuroscience. And in his first lecture start with a rehash of the mind — body problem, asking the class who it was that made that classic assertion, “I think therefore I am.”
But that is why I above in commenting on a multi-disciplinarian approach, ended with ‘perhaps’. I am not sure. It is cool that we will look at musicology, with perhaps a dash of neuroscience all the while doing philosophy. But if we need to start a 300 level course with the question of what is metaphysics, and asking what it was that Descartes said, one wonders also what is lost.
It will be an interesting semester out in what is now a larger more developed Purchase College. I recall checking out the place when I first arrived in White Plains. that was in 2000? I recall a series of smaller parking lots with woods on both sides? Anyway, with my fascination for music and philosophy, and this larger question of the consolidation of domains and a more multidisciplinary approach; we will see. At least we are back in a classroom.
Now I just need to get back to a proper office in Mid-town, and while I am at it finally see some live music in some little venue, somewhere. All in good time. Coming up on two years now.
And one final thing — these schools need to get some Technical TAs. Grab some sophomores from the computer science or information systems programs and tell them they are now on call certain times of the day to help professors get their youtube video up on the screen in the class, or how to prevent the classroom pc from going to sleep as professor becomes engaged with the class. Second class, two universities same shit. Small sample, perhaps but I suspect it is a common problem.
A disclaimer: I am new to Purchase. What I attribute to a trend today regarding the consolidation of various departments into one humanities department may simply be due to the fact that they are still a small liberal arts school as opposed to the sprawling universities I am more familiar with.
