The Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame has made two senior hires: Joel David Hamkins, currently professor of philosophy at the University of Oxford, and Barbara Gail Montero, currently professor of philosophy at City University of New York (CUNY).
Professor Hamkins will be taking up an endowed chair in the department. He is well-known for his work in logic and philosophy of math, especially set theory. You can learn more about his research here and here. His appointment at Notre Dame begins in Spring 2022.
Professor Montero is well known for her work in philosophy of mind and philosophy of dance, as well as for bring philosophy and dance together in various contexts (for example). You can learn more about here work here and here. She takes up her professorship at Notre Dame in Fall 2022.
Seeing these kinds of headlines on here feels like seeing sports headlines about trades or free agent signings.
I am not sure if that’s a good thing or bad thing.
They’re at least informative, I suppose. But I still agree that they sound like sports headlines. I’ll go a step further and say that that’s a (probably quite negligibly) bad thing, if only because it seems distasteful in some hard-to-articulate way. Maybe it’s a reminder of how unfortunately prestige- or celebrity-driven academic philosophy can get (which itself feels sort of contrary to the spirit of the discipline).
Thank you for putting into words what was probably lurking behind my thoughts.