What Is It Like to Be a Philosopher?

In this interview, Briana Toole, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Claremont McKenna College, talks about growing up in Chattahoochee, Florida, Left Behind, Crash Bandicoot, geometry, Greenpeace, beauty pageants, money anxiety, Myspace, 9/11, Florida State University and the Bright Futures scholarship, a difficult to comprehend accent, working evenings at TCBY, working with David McNaughton, a brutal but helpful epistemology TA, switching from law to philosophy, committing to grad school and going to University of Sheffield, her first snowfall, Jenny Saul, Teach for America and meeting her husband, pursuing a PhD at UT, sexism and the ‘golden boys’, grounding, complaining to her understanding dissertation advisor, standpoint epistemology, depression, a fellowship at MIT, Sally Haslanger, Corrupt the Youth, landing a position at Claremont McKenna College just before COVID hit, bouncing between positions before she landed in a green place, her Feminism for Men class, #metoo, Thi Ngyugen, The Poisonwood Bible, Zillow Gone Wild, and cornpone…

[8/20/2026]

What was your earliest memory?

My earliest memory is of a dog we had when I was a baby, around 2 or so. A shih tzu named Biscuit, because she was the buttery color of a biscuit. Biscuit loved me, and I remember that whenever my parents would try to discipline me (at that age, a pop on the hand or behind), she’d growl at them and wouldn’t let them touch me. My earliest protector!

Where did you grow up?

My parents were in the military, and so I was born on a military base in Killeen, Texas. When I was 3, we moved to Chattahoochee, Florida, across the river from my dad’s hometown of Sneads. The twin cities, as we called them, were about an hour from the Alabama and Georgia borders (Dothan, AL on one side, Bainbridge, GA on the other). This is relevant exposition because when people meet me, they always want some explanation of my accent.

The twin cities are home to a state prison (Sneads) and state hospital (in Chattahoochee, rumored to have underground tunnels dating back to the Civil War), which is where most people would end up one way or another (either as an employee or as a resident).

All my dad’s family had stayed in the area, so I grew up surrounded by aunts and uncles and cousins. And, because I went to school where my dad did, we had many of the same teachers, and the same high school principal. There were a lot of families like that in Sneads.

The town where I lived was so small that when we didn’t have stamps, we’d just put change in a little cup with the letters we wanted mailed out. Going to the grocery store was an hours-long event, because you’d run into people you knew. I knew a kid in high school who rode his lawnmower to school.

All to say: I grew up in the country. The deep, deep south.

Rich? Poor? Religious household? Academic? What did your parents do, and what was your family like?

Growing up, my dad was a fireman, and my mom was a nurse. I guess I’d say we were cuspers – definitely not firmly middle-class, but not quite working-class either. My parents definitely didn’t make much – I remember being worried about money a lot. But, because we lived outside city limits in a rural area, you could (and still can, I think) afford a lot. We had a big, beautiful house with a pool, with land that looked over a pond, and a pecan orchard for a neighbor.

I grew up in church and went to Vacation Bible School in the summer. At one point, I could recite Bible verses from memory. I don’t really remember why – probably the busyness of ballet recitals and baseball games – but we sort of stopped going when I was around 12 or 13. I still went intermittently – for church lock-ins or teen-centered events. But I was never really a believer myself, though both my parents are.

My parents really encouraged me to read, and my mom took me to the town and county libraries regularly to get books. When I was a toddler, my dad would read this book of Greek myths to me. He’d tried a semester at the community college and dropped out, but he liked the mythology he'd learned about in an English class. But I wouldn’t really say my parents were big readers. They knew what things they needed to have in the house – for instance, they bought an encyclopedia set from a door-to-door salesman – but that media wasn’t really there to be consumed so much as displayed. My dad and I did read the Left Behind series together, though (it gave me nightmares), and we were both really into Harry Potter. My mom had romance novels around in my early teens, and I’d usually sneak off with those when she wasn’t looking.

Generally, though, I wouldn’t say we were, or are, very academic. We’ve always talked (ahem, argued) a lot about politics, though. Current events, too. Still do.

I sometimes feel that my upbringing was pretty violent – and it was, in many ways. My parents believed in spanking, but my father especially. My parents fought a lot, and those fights were often physical. They were only 22 when they had me – now that I’m older, I can see that they were just children themselves. They had a bad habit of living outside their means, and they didn’t really know how to manage money or look after two kids. I think being an interracial couple in the 90s, in the south, was especially difficult and took a particular toll on my mom (who is Black).

In many ways my parents were great and our homelife had many virtues. My parents always treated me like an adult – by which I mean they always took me seriously. I never felt shame in my home, or like there was anything I couldn’t talk about with or bring to my parents. And, because they were young, they were energetic and so much fun to play with. I remember Saturday mornings piled into bed watching cartoons; racing each other in Crash Bandicoot on PlayStation; playing boardgames and building puzzles.  Bike rides and playing in the park, July nights spent stargazing and watching fireworks.

As a little kid, what do you think, or what did others think, made you unique? What did you want to be when you grew up?

As a kid, I always thought I’d be a lawyer. My dad used to say that I could argue with a brick wall. I don’t really think I was that argumentative, actually. My dad just wasn’t used to having people disagree with him. It’s fortunate for me that he found it cute for his baby girl to do so (though he grew to dislike it as I became older, and he especially hates it now!).

I’m not really sure, beyond that, where I got the idea that I’d grow up to be a lawyer. Though I was, even as a very young kid, concerned about issues of justice and fairness. I was very much the kid who felt the need to stand up for other kids when they were being picked on, and I was always worried about other people. Do they have enough food? Enough clothing? Love and support? As a younger person I thought lawyers were the people who fought for those things, and I was enamored with that idea. 

 Favorite classes or teachers in high school? Extracurriculars?

Though I’m not really a math person, I loved my math classes in high school. Looking back at how I geeked out about geometric proofs, it feels unsurprising I chose to go into philosophy. Part of it is that I had an excellent math teacher in Mrs. Parrish (who, yes, taught my dad, also). She taught me to love math – how elegant and methodical it is (ew, did I just write that?!). She was just really great at her job, and such an excellent model for good teaching that in my first year as a high school teacher, she served as my blueprint.

I was an over-achiever in high school, so I was in a bit of everything. I was a cheerleader, I played volleyball and soccer each for a year, I dabbled in beauty pageants, I was on the yearbook, and student council.

What was on your mind outside of school?

I spent most of my life desperate to get out of Sneads, out of Florida, out of the South. Most people I knew didn’t get to travel much, and almost everyone I went to school with or was taught by had spent – and would end up spending – their whole lives right where we grew up. So, I spent a lot of time reading books about other places and daydreaming about a life of travel. I was desperate to go to Europe, France specifically, and even checked out French primers from the town library so I could teach myself French.

The farthest my family ever traveled was to Arkansas, where we spent Thanksgiving one year. By the time I graduated high school I’d only been on a plane once – to Las Vegas for a family reunion. I was 21 before I finally got to travel internationally. I spent the summer before my senior year in college volunteering in Spain, and then traveling to France, Portugal, and Italy. Despite my longing for France and my excitement about Paris, I experienced Paris syndrome.

As a teen, what were you passionate about, if anything? Any sign you'd be a philosopher?

I was most consistently passionate about the environment. As a little kid, I really worried about pollution, so I made signs and posted them to trees around my neighborhood. I vaguely remember one neighbor – not that we had many, we lived in a very quiet and out-of-the way neighborhood – coming to ask my parents if I was attacking him personally, because things would sometimes fly out of the back of his truck as he sped down our hilly road (I wasn’t.) Then, in high school I got really involved with Greenpeace. I even staged a protest at our local grocery store (the Piggly Wiggly) to discourage people from buying Kleenex products, as they were clearing areas in the Brazilian rain forest to make their products. My art teacher from high school even had her class help paint a giant sign for us on a plastic, white shower curtain, and two of my friends painted themselves brown and adorned themselves with leaves to look like trees. Of course, folks in small towns don’t take kindly to being (from their point-of-view) lectured, especially not by teenagers. And so many people scoffed at the fact that we were asking folks to sign a paper petition while also advocating against the use of certain paper products. My annoyance that they didn’t see the distinction between using recycled paper and using Kleenex products was probably an early indication that I’d be a philosopher.

What did you do for fun? Get in trouble? What did you worry about?

For the most part, I was a well-behaved kid (even my parents would agree with that statement!). I read a lot, mostly, and enjoyed swimming. The best part of growing up in the Florida panhandle is that I was never short on great watering holes. And, because much of Florida sits on limestone, there were tons of great natural springs to swim in, as well as beaches. Blue Springs, Wakulla Springs, Mystic Lake, Compass Lake, Mexico Beach, Panama City Beach, St. George’s Island – I loved (and still love) to swim. 

I did get into trouble a fair bit for “backtalking”, at home and at school. As my parents would say, I had a smart mouth (but not smart enough to know when it was best kept shut). Regrettably, this condition has not improved with age.

Mostly I worried about money growing up. I felt anxiety about it constantly. And from a young age I hustled – I cleaned the houses of the folks in our small neighborhood. I picked blackberries and sold them to the neighbors (those poor, sweet, indulgent people!). Once I had my driver’s permit, I could babysit – driving under-age in the south, especially in rural areas, is not all that uncommon. And as soon as I turned 16, I got a job as a cashier at the grocery store. When I was older with a regular minimum wage job, I did as much as I could to help my parents out financially. So, when possible, I bought my clothes, and paid for my school-related expenses (senior pictures, prom, etc.).

Were you affected by world events, or technological, or cultural developments, growing up?

I suppose I’m the last generation to have largely grown up without technology – I had a cell phone starting in 11th grade, because I dual-enrolled at the community college in Marianna (about a 30-minute drive from where I went to high school). And Myspace came about when I was a junior or so in high school. But really, it was 9/11 that most significantly affected my life. My mom’s National Guard unit was deployed Christmas the next year. We (my brother and dad and I) didn’t even know she had joined back up. To this day I don’t know how she pulled that off. Anyways, about 3 months into my mom’s deployment, my dad had a very public affair. That might not have mattered most places, but Sneads is a town of about 1800 people, and there’s nothing people in small towns love to do more than gossip. So it was huge and messy. It blew up our family and made the possibility of trust and forgiveness really difficult for a very long time. 9/11 was this big, national tragedy. But it has always felt very personal, too.

Where did you apply to college and why?

I only applied to Florida State University, actually. I didn’t know how college applications worked – my parents didn’t go to college (although my mom did correspondence courses when I was growing up) and so they had no idea how the process worked. And my guidance counselor, for whatever reason, was not really counseling me. I thought all colleges got your information and just mailed you an offer of acceptance. It wasn’t until I overheard my friends talking about their applications that I realized I needed to apply. I submitted my application to FSU literally on the last day of the deadline.

Tallahassee! Huge school, compared to where you grew up. Biggest surprises? Inspirational classes or teachers?

Massive! It was so overwhelming my first semester that I contemplated transferring out (I have no idea where I would have gone, knowing so little about colleges). Part of the issue is that I lived off-campus, so it was really difficult to meet people and make friends as a freshman who didn’t live in the dorms. I had no idea that you had to apply to live in the dorms, not that it would have mattered – I almost certainly couldn’t have afforded to do so, or the cost of the meal plans. But there was a whole aspect of the first year of college life – suitemates, random dorm parties, meals in the dining hall – that I felt I was missing out on, and that sense of alienation pervaded my first semester.

I knew when I started at FSU I wanted to get involved in student government, and that was a tight, small group full of fellow nerds. By the spring semester I was fully involved in SGA and even running for election for a seat on the student senate (which I won!).

Biggest surprises? College wasn’t nearly as “strict” as some of my high school teachers had led me to believe.

Fun story - I accidentally slept through my first major exam in a course (something that almost never happens to me) and I rushed to class hoping maybe I could make it in time to still take the exam. But by the time I arrived, everyone had finished and the professor was gone. I went back to the SGA offices, bawling on the phone to my mom that I was going to fail. But I emailed the professor and he was so chill about it – told me to just come over to his office right then to take the exam. Didn’t even take points off!

The other big surprise – apparently people at FSU found my accent incomprehensible. Another student had been in the SGA office during my meltdown and later told me that she wanted to console me, but had no idea what was wrong because she couldn’t understand a word I said. People I became close with later similarly confided that they initially thought when they met me, based on my accent, that I was stupid. Having spent my entire life in the south and then attending a college in the south not more than 50-miles down the road from home, it came as quite a shock to learn that people looked down on southern accents as much as they do.

This upset me so much that I considered looking into classes to modify my accent. I thought I probably couldn’t be a successful lawyer if people either couldn’t understand me or thought I was stupid because of how I sounded. But a friend in SGA was adamant that I shouldn’t do that. He convinced me that people’s biases could be used to my advantage. People would underestimate me, he said, which made it that much easier to surprise them later. He wasn’t wrong!

Why major in philosophy?  Did you ever consider doing anything else? Wait a minute, you were there when I was a grad student there! Did we cross paths?

Well, my plan, when I started college, was law school. Having little family guidance, I assumed I should major in political science, and so that was the plan going into FSU. But I was in the honors college and my freshman year they were piloting a new honors colloquium. They would have folks from across the colleges give a short session, and early on they brought a professor from the law school. She said that the three majors that perform best on the LSAT are history, English, and philosophy. Having had exposure to the former two in high school I was least attracted to those options. Plus, I had a little romantic entanglement with this guy from back home who was always ending my arguments with “Well, Plato says so-and-so”. So I figured that by taking on a philosophy major I’d kill two birds with one stone – finally beat that guy in an argument and prepare myself to excel on the LSAT.

I really didn’t have plans to take philosophy seriously, but then two things happened, both involving the same philosophy professor, David McNaughton. I enrolled in his Ethical Theory course my sophomore Fall, and I was so excited to take that class. But, hand-to-God, I’d never met a British person in real life, and the first day of class I couldn’t understand a single word David said. I thought for sure I’d have to drop the course, but I gave it another day before making a decision, and the second class I had a much easier time processing his accent. That became my favorite class, the class that made me realize that I really liked philosophy and was good at it. With regret I admit I became that annoying clinger-on of a student who followed Professor McNaughton as he walked from class each day back to his office (which was no short trek, especially in the Florida humidity). For the record, this is why I don’t complain when students trail after me – I know I’m only reaping what I’ve sown!

Then, the summer before my senior year, I was talking to David and he suggested that I consider writing a philosophy thesis and applying to graduate school. I remember being told, when I started at FSU, that to graduate with honors I’d need to write a thesis. And I remember thinking there was no way I could do that; it sounded so intimidating, so I put it out of mind entirely. But if a professor I really admired and respected was encouraging me to do it, it felt like maybe it was possible.

In the process of writing my thesis I realized how un-psyched I was about applying to law school, and how enthusiastic I was about continuing to read and write philosophy. So I abandoned my law school applications and shifted gears towards grad school in philosophy.

On whether we crossed paths – I’m not sure. I remember really well a few grad students who were TAs for classes I was in. Tracey Mahaffey was one, I think, and there was a guy who TA’d for Michael Bishop’s epistemology course who gave brutal (but very helpful) feedback on my writing. That was pretty much the extent of my interaction with the grad students, so I suspect we never met!

I reviewed my records, and it appears I was your TA (I was the TA for that class 2007 and 2008) and, if that is the case, I would like to apologize for being brutal (though helpful)!

Please don’t! My writing improved so much because of that class!

Personal or academic challenges at FSU?

For the most part, no, though I must say it was a bit difficult being a poor student. I was fortunate, being in Florida, to have the Bright Futures scholarship, which covered full tuition and provided a book stipend. I also had scholarships from FSU and some money from a college fund that my parents established when I was born. Since my tuition was covered, I received a check each semester from the college fund directly, and I usually used that to cover most of rent through the semester. But there was no money left for food, clothes, utilities, student groups, etc. So, I spent my freshman year working evenings at TCBY (The Country’s Best Yogurt), until I got a paid internship at the state capitol, a position I was fortunate enough to keep through the end of school.

To make extra money, I sold my plasma 1-2x a week, which was a pretty good gig. You got to lay back, watch TV, and they’d usually give you juice and a breakfast bar. Unfortunately, I now have a permanent dimple in the crook of my left arm where they’d stick me. I once acted in a student film that paid $400! And occasionally I was a participant in experimental trials through the science department, as those paid decently, too. I’m pretty sure I taste-tested Soylent before it was on the market (otherwise, I don’t know what that stuff I drank was!).

After bills were paid, though, I was usually broke. So, when I went out to eat with friends, I’d try to eat beforehand so I wouldn’t have to spend money at a restaurant. Once a friend’s family was in town, and a few of us went out to dinner with her family. Of course, I didn’t eat because I couldn’t afford it. At the end of dinner her dad announced he was paying for everyone! I wanted to cry because I could have eaten! I was so broke at the end of one fall semester that I tried to make chicken parmigiana with the only ingredients I had left in the kitchen – frozen chicken breasts and tomato paste. It was not good.

What did you do for fun, and how did you evolve as a person?

The standard college fare, really. I was in a multicultural sorority, and I spent a lot of time with my sorority sisters. We’d host educational events on campus, or perform in step-shows, or go to the college clubs and bars around town (Floyd’s, Baja’s, Potbelly’s). I spent many an evening at El Jalisco’s enjoying their oversized margaritas.

Perhaps this is terrible to say, but I don’t know that I evolved much as a person during my time at FSU. That came later, during Teach for America.

If you could go back in time, and give yourself advice back then, what would it be?

I’d probably give myself the advice I now give my students. I tell them that it’s perfectly fine to take a gap year or two, to work a shitty job (like, you know, TCBY) where they can make friends and goof off and party and be spontaneous. Because once you’re on the adult treadmill – once you’re in grad school or your first consulting job or otherwise beginning your career – it’s nearly impossible to get off. I don’t regret any of my choices, but I do wish I’d felt less pressure to enter immediately into adulthood, and that I had taken more time to be silly and irresponsible in my 20s, when I think it’s generally permissible (and expected) to be a bit of a shitshow. 

When did you decide to go to grad school? Where did you want to go and why? Receive any guidance on that front?

I really made that decision very late in the game, like way too late, considering the advice I give to my students who want to apply to grad school. Professor McNaughton encouraged me to write a thesis and think about grad school towards the end of the summer before my senior year. Before that, I’d been studying for and taking the LSAT, soliciting recommendations for law school, and selecting law schools to which I might apply. I was beginning to suspect by then that I was no longer interested in law, but I think, looking back on it, that I needed someone to give me permission to think about grad school in philosophy. And David did that.

But trying to write a philosophy thesis and put together a good writing sample at the same time was unwise. I really didn’t have any time to do proper research to figure out what schools to go to (beyond consulting Leiter Reports), and I definitely didn’t have a good sense of what going to grad school really meant or involved, or what it would be like trying to become an academic. I just had this beautiful vision in my head of smart, thoughtful people sitting around drinking coffee and smoking pipes and talking on end about interesting things.

haha

All that to say I really had no idea what I was doing or getting into, and because I knew so little, I didn’t have my heart set on any particular program. I applied to a handful of PhD programs and a few MA programs. I ended up waitlisted at one PhD program (though I didn’t make it off the list) and I was admitted into a few MA programs. Ultimately, I chose to get a degree from the University of Sheffield in England. Professor McNaughton had spoken highly of Sheffield, and I liked the idea of being abroad for a year (not having had the financial resources to do study abroad during my undergraduate career).

I think so much of career success relies on plain dumb luck. I fairly arbitrarily chose Sheffield, but as chance would have it, Jenny Saul was there, and so I got my first taste of feminist philosophy. And the advisor I was assigned during my year there (Nils Kurbis), though not in my area, continued to act as a mentor even after I’d graduated, offering feedback on my writing sample as I re-applied for graduate school.

After a two-year break during which I did Teach for America, I returned to grad school at UT-Austin. I was pretty aimless with that round of applications, too – my only goal was to get in to grad school somewhere!

Tell me a little bit more about your time at Sheffield. Why’d you leave?

Well, mostly because it was only a one-year program and I had finished. I would have happily stayed, however. People are always surprised when I say this, but I *love* Sheffield. It was the first place I got to live that had reliable public transportation, so I felt connected to everything. It was also really the first place I lived that was a walkable city, and that I could go grocery shopping or get to the Peak district (to hike) without a car was amazing to me. I also really liked the people (who called me “duck”) and the food – yes, the food! Yorkshire pudding and Sunday roast. The cool social events the uni put on, like “silent discoes”. I even went to a roller derby match and I got to experience my first Christmas market and my first snowfall.

Tell me a little bit about your time with Teach for America.

I did Teach for America between graduating from Sheffield and beginning grad school at UT. Teaching high school was a major formative experience for me in a lot of ways. I remember feeling intense anxiety in my first week of teaching, because I realized that if I did a bad job, I could be ruining the lives and futures of a hundred kids. Also, it was hard! Trying to get a bunch of teenagers to trust you takes so much work, like months and months of relationship building. Truthfully, the kids didn’t really trust me until I came back the 2nd year. I think they were so used to people coming in-and-out, they just couldn’t afford to invest themselves in someone who might disappear.

I pretty much hated teaching that first year – it was hard and I was very bad at it. But experience is the best teacher, and when I came back the 2nd year, I knew what I was doing. I prioritized relationship-building over new content in the first few weeks of school and I felt more confident with the material I needed to teach. That year I came to love teaching and to love my kids. I’m still close with the students I taught when they were sophomores/juniors, and I even went back to Baton Rouge for their 10-year reunion last year.

What I learned from TFA is this: Many people are incompetent. Worse than incompetent, they are also often cruel. In my 2nd year, a big scandal broke out in the teaching community because it was discovered that some higher-ups in the school district had paid for degrees that they didn’t earn from a local university. At least one of the teachers at my school legitimately just did not teach – he played trashcan basketball with his students. I know this because my students would instead use that time to read The Great Gatsby (the assigned text for my English class) and he decided to ruin it for them by spoiling the ending. The next period a group of devastated kids trudges into my classroom begging me to tell them that Gatsby doesn’t die in the end. Asshole.

Before TFA, I thought most people were good, kind-hearted, and well-meaning. Maybe people disagreed about how best to pursue a certain end, sure, but I was confident we all wanted what was good, and we certainly all wanted what was best for our kids. My experience teaching disabused me of this notion.

On the upside, I met my best friend there, as well as my husband! Working with kids made me a kinder, more compassionate person. It taught me the value of thinking about the world from another person’s perspective. Truthfully, I suspect my standpoint epistemology origin story is in this experience.

What does your husband do? Do you talk philosophy?

When I joined Teach for America, he was an English teacher. When we moved to Boston, he got a position working in the Scheller Teacher Education Program at MIT. He continued working there (remotely) throughout the pandemic and for a few years after. One of his projects involved working in Belize to help develop the curriculum and hire the teachers for a new school. He is currently on a well-deserved sabbatical. (I love him! So, while I do talk philosophy with him, I try not to do it too often!)

Was UT what you expected?

No, it was not. Pretty immediately when I started grad school, I realized that I had been naïve and obtuse in my philosophy classes as an undergrad. In retrospect, there was obvious sexism and racism that I just didn’t notice at FSU, like the male undergrads interrupting and speaking over the only female philosophy professor (and professor of color, for that matter) I had (Maria Morales). I realized this when I started UT, because all the other women in my cohort mentioned that, before accepting the offer from UT, they had reached out to women grad students about their experience. That never even occurred to me. The reports were apparently not good. I will not revisit those reports here – I believe they are well-known within the philosophy community.

Sexism was also very prevalent at UT. Sometimes the female grad students would be asked by male graduate students to make copies for them. We had a few male students that were considered “the golden boys” – it seemed to the rest of us that they received extra attention and resources. The department gave out a prize each year for the best paper by a graduate student (the Cogburn Prize) and usually a male student won. One year a woman graduate student, whose paper was published in a top-ranked specialist journal and won a prize in that journal (two supposed criteria), still was not selected.

The department technically did not have a bathroom for women students – our department, located in Waggener Hall takes up the 3rd and 4th floor. There is a men’s bathroom on the 3rd floor. A bathroom for women is on the 1st and 2nd floor, located in the classics department. Apparently, once upon a time the bathroom on floor three was gender neutral, but since the department was mostly men anyways, they just converted it to a men’s only restroom. The women staged a protest and hostile takeover of that bathroom. Rumor has it that a professor in the department emailed the chair, David Sosa, about his being “hen-pecked”. Needless to say, the bathroom was quickly returned to its men-only status.

I would say the biggest distinction between what I expected and what happened is this: I thought that as teachers, these professors, this department, would fully support their graduate students, mentor us, teach us how to do research and succeed in this profession. But that is not, to my mind, what they viewed their role to be. It seemed to me that they viewed their job as breaking us, thinning the herd. They literally gave us what was known around the department as a “scare talk” in our first semester, the basics of which were “a lot of you will drop out and most of you won’t get jobs”. They were just giving it to us straight, I guess.

But, as a result, the environment could be kind of cutthroat. I remember in my first or second year of grad school, there was a post that made the rounds identifying which Hogwarts house various philosophy departments would be. Ours was Slytherin.

Philosophically, what was trending in your department, and in general? 

When I started at UT, grounding was getting pretty big. We had just hired Jon Litland (if I remember correctly) and he’s a pretty big name in that area. To this day I cannot tell you what grounding is. The evidentialism/permissivism debate was also pretty big in our department, and I would attribute that to the presence of Miriam Schoenfield. Evolutionary debunking was also pretty big, and there were quite a few graduate students working on that topic. And, of course, epistemic oppression/injustice were fairly hot topics in philosophy broadly, but I can’t say that there were very big at UT.

Biggest differences between your department and others, in retrospect?

Honestly, kind of hard to say, because I wasn’t a graduate student in other departments. But I think the fact that we were sorted Slytherin says a lot. It felt to me like we clung to the more combative, adversarial style of doing philosophy a lot longer than other departments did.

Favorite classes/teachers?

Though his classes weren’t my favorite (because I was losing interest in ethics and gaining interest in epistemology) I loved John Deigh. He comes off as a bit of a grump, but I found him very supportive, so much so that he was on my prospectus committee. He was also very good friends with Charles Mills, and so that counted in his favor as far as I’m concerned.

As for favorite classes, I really enjoyed the class that Sinan and Miriam co-taught on metaethics to metaepistemology – it’s what sparked my interest in permissivism, which then led to my interest in standpoint epistemology.

What was the dissertation on?

My dissertation was on the relationship between knowledge and social identity and focused in particular on standpoint theory. A large part of the dissertation was really just me trying to work out for myself what that relationship was, how standpoint epistemology related to traditional epistemology, and what the value or insights of standpoint epistemology might be. The thing I’m proudest of in the dissertation is the chapter in which I argue that epistemic oppression is a consequence of some of the commitments within traditional epistemology, and that we can’t make sense of the occurrence of epistemic oppression without the resources that standpoint epistemology provides.

I think this interview series might provide some evidence for standpoint epistemology. How do you pitch standpoint epistemology to people skeptical of it?

I usually ask them if they have ever been to NYC, and if so, to reconstruct their route from one place to another (from home to the Cloisters, for example). Did they use the subway? If so, which lines? Did those lines have elevators? Usually, they can’t recall. Alternatively, I ask them to think about which buildings they access through campus, or to get to work. Do those buildings have ramps? Elevators? If so, are they easy to access or out of the way? These examples usually get people to see, rather quickly, that there are aspects of their environment they don’t think about or pay attention to at all, but that others must know about if they are to navigate effectively. They get quickly at the heart of the idea, central in standpoint theory, that there is an important relationship between embodiment, power, and knowledge.

Who was your dissertation advisor?

Sinan Dogramaci was my dissertation advisor. I had taken two classes with him, both in my first year, and to be honest, I was not a big fan. So, he was not my first choice. I had planned to work with Miriam Schoenfield, but she would end up taking a Bersoff fellowship after my 2nd year (and then wouldn’t return to UT in favor of a position at MIT). In the Spring of my 2nd year, knowing Miriam was leaving and that I’d likely have to work with Sinan, I talked to Miriam about some of my frustrations with Sinan. She told me to just have an honest conversation with him about what my issues were. So I did!

I wrote a list, which I brought to a meeting with him, and I ran through everything that was bugging me. I literally opened with “I don’t want to work with you, but I have to so let’s clear the air”. He was a little startled, of course, but he was so great about it. He was really apologetic about how he had made me feel during my first year, and he asked me how he could better support me in the future. I wish every human being had the capacity Sinan has to be open and willing to engage with others like that.

I could not have gotten luckier that things ended up as they did. I loved working with Sinan. Even though I was writing a dissertation in epistemology, he had no background in standpoint theory. But he was totally open to the challenge, he was just like, “Okay, we’re going to learn this material together!”. And to be honest, learning in that kind of environment felt more collaborative than I imagine most supervisor/advisee relationships are. When he asked me questions about the material, it didn’t feel like I was being grilled or like he was trying to prove that I didn’t know something. Instead, it really felt like we were sitting down as peers trying to make our way through the material together.

I honestly attribute what success I have had to Sinan and that supervising relationship. Being treated with respect and taken seriously about my interests and frustrations gave me a willingness to take risks, to put myself out there, to ask questions, to try and to fail and to get back up again.

Was grad school, or writing the dissertation, challenging?

Yes and no. Relative to more difficult things, like TFA, no, grad school was not hard. But something about the environment of grad school, at least at places likes UT, is pretty challenging. When you’re a graduate student, there are a ton of equally smart, equally driven people competing for very limited resources – limited attention from professors, a limited number of fellowships, a limited number of jobs on the market. The transition from being a teacher and working as part of a team, to grad school where your classmates are your competition, was hard.

I also had a very difficult end to my TFA experience, one that caused a severe depressive episode that led to suicidal ideation. Starting grad school in that mental space was extremely challenging. I first started to realize something was wrong when I read a paper assigned for my pro-seminar that I had actually read before in my MA program. I’d even written a paper inspired by it and gotten into a grad conference during my time in the MA program. And yet, re-reading that paper in the first couple of weeks of grad school, it felt like my brain was filled with molasses, like I was running in quicksand. I’m pretty sure that at least some of the people in my cohort thought I was dumb and didn’t belong there, and I definitely didn’t impress my pro-sem instructors (Sinan Dogramaci and Adam Pautz). I was fortunate to get help when I did, and lucky that UT had a health center on campus where I could see a therapist who helped me process the grief I was feeling about the end of my TFA career.

By the 2nd half of the first semester, I was doing much better mentally and performing better in class. By the Spring, I think I was doing very well and even managed to impress Sinan (to his surprise, I suspect!) in the class he and Miriam Schoenfield co-taught, “From Metaethics to Metaepistemology”.  The paper I wrote for that class was even selected for a symposium at the Pacific APA in spring 2015. That gave me a major confidence boost, and though it didn’t make grad school easier, it did make me feel more at ease in grad school than I had before.

As for writing the dissertation, it was a bit difficult at first, mostly because I never really formally learned how to do research. Maybe that’s something you can’t be formally taught, and you just have to learn by doing. Just the idea of a dissertation was also pretty daunting – how do you even start? How do you get ideas? Why should I think I have anything of value or interest to say? In the end, though, I really enjoyed writing the dissertation.

Advice for graduate students?

In my department, I felt like it was taken as an indicator that you weren’t serious about philosophy if you had interests other than just reading, writing, and talking philosophy. And internalizing that idea is an unhealthy one. A good life is a well-rounded one, one in which you have the opportunity to think about all the things that you value and are meaningful to you, and to pursue them if you can. My advice – treat your personal time with as much seriousness as you treat your work time. Literally schedule a day each week that is just for you – not for catching up on work or grading papers or sending emails. And use that time to pursue a hobby, or call and catch up with friends, or read a book you’ve been lusting after.

Were you encouraged to publish?

No, I can’t say grad students were actively encouraged to publish, though a few sometimes did. At the time I was in grad school, it felt like there was less pressure than there is now to have publications. All the same, I personally felt a strong desire to get something published. I guess I thought it would ease my sense of being an imposter (it has not). Because we weren’t really encouraged to publish, there was very little guidance on what that process would look like or what it would involve. More explicit instruction on how to craft an effective abstract, whether you actually need to submit a cover letter - what the heck an OrcID is – would have been greatly appreciated.

Fun story – early in my first year I asked an older student, who did have a publication, how much she was paid for her article. Imagine my surprise to learn that we aren’t paid for our articles!

What were your fellow grad students like?

Really impressive and a bit intimidating. One student in my cohort already had a law degree under her belt. A few other grad students in the program were pursuing JD/PhDs. A couple had had careers before coming back to grad school, and so were mature and worldly (and did not have time for the bullshit antics of their younger classmates, which is totally fair). The climate was – and I think this is a fair description and well-known – aggressively competitive. We were very much the kind of department that liked to ask “devastating questions” of visiting speakers, of the sort that were meant to reveal the futility of their project. That environment absolutely affected how we interacted with each other – we were competitive, and we had to be, because we were all incredibly ambitious. We all worked too hard. I believe at one point one graduate student was actually living in their office and showering at the student gym. So, we were all also a little unhinged.

That kind of environment can also foster intense closeness, though, and my cohort, in particular, spent a lot of time together (there were 8 of us in the beginning, and 6 of us after the first year). We were an especially social group, and it was common for us (and several of the older students) to go for drinks at a bar called The Local on “the drag” – Guadalupe Street, which runs parallel to campus. Quite a few of us would get together to co-write at Thunderbird, a coffeehouse/bar that also served food. We once spent an entire evening chopping cabbage to make sauerkraut. It did not turn out well – apparently, we didn’t store it correctly and so when we did finally open the barrel it was stored in, we had maggots.

Some people were incredibly kind, too kind – it is perhaps unsurprising to report that they did not make it in academic philosophy, mostly because they didn’t get the kind of support and attention that other, more ruthlessly ambitious students (and I include myself in that category) received. Others were incredibly cruel, unkind, and disparaging – I am not sad to report that they didn’t make it either.

What did you do to unwind?

The great thing about living in Austin is that there is so much to do. Having grown up in the South, I spent most of my time outdoors, so I relished being somewhere that I could run and swim and kayak. The greenbelt is great for hiking, and Lake Travis, which winds its way through downtown Austin, is a gem. Once I was done with coursework (after the first two years) and my schedule was freer and more regular, I spent every Thursday kayaking at Lake Travis and then getting community acupuncture. Setting aside a regular time each week to check in with myself was hugely helpful in getting my prospectus (the 3rd year paper at UT) and my dissertation done.

How did you change, philosophically? Personally?

Well, the biggest change philosophically was the pivot away from ethics and towards epistemology.

Personally, I have to say I probably least like the version of myself that I was in early graduate school. The period that I was in graduate school was difficult, socially and politically. Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson in August 2014 (my 2nd year); Alton Sterling was shot in July 2016 (my 4th year). My former high school students knew Sterling and were at the protests.

This period of my life is the one where I started to really begin to get a sense of myself, who I was and how I was seen in the world. Coming to understand myself as a Black woman in a white, male discipline, while people outside the profession are debating the value of Black life, and people inside it are negotiating the value of Black intellectual contributions, made for a turbulent emotional experience; it was one that I could share with very few people in my life or at school. Consequently, I was anxious and angry all the time. I had my fair share of hostile exchanges on Twitter and Facebook about then-current events. All that, together with dealing with imposter syndrome, made me occasionally unkind and uncharitable towards other people in my program.

But I realized – by the end of grad school – how much I really didn’t enjoy that feeling. I wanted to be kind and build things with people and collaborate, and I didn’t want to do philosophy in an agonistic way. And I started to find myself gravitating towards people and peers that would help me develop those capacities in myself to be more curious and understanding (and that sometimes meant having to eat crow).

I guess I sort of encountered, in grad school, a way of being-in-the-world that I didn’t want or enjoy; and that led to me think about what I did want, as a person and as a thinker.

In all seriousness, it felt like a growth spurt, complete with growing pains. The experience can make you feel like you’re being set up to fail. But the kinds of challenges I had to navigate and the mistakes I had to make also helped me to do exactly what philosophy should – examine my life!

Any victories? 

Like I said, I really didn’t distinguish myself my first semester of graduate school. And even though I did start to excel, I worried the department’s impression of me was fixed by that first semester. But apparently not! Each year the department gets to select two students for a year-long dissertation fellowship that basically comes with a small stipend and a release from TA-responsibilities. They are highly coveted. To my surprise the department selected me as a recipient for 2017-2018. As fate would have it, however, I’d also been selected for a pre-doctoral fellowship at MIT for that year, so I had to decline the department fellowship. Even so, being selected by my professors at UT who had seen my journey from the beginning was a huge confidence boost.

That said, one of the reasons I applied for a residential fellowship at MIT was because there wasn’t enough support at UT for the kind of work I wanted to do. Sinan was an amazing advisor – and continued to meet with me virtually while I was at MIT – but I also wanted to work with someone with a background in feminist theory. Sally Haslanger was at MIT, and Miriam had just taken up a position there, as well, so it felt like the fellowship would be a great opportunity to develop in ways I just couldn’t at UT.

What was MIT like?

I enjoyed my time at MIT. Being in Cambridge gave me the chance to connect with lots of scholars in the area, and I grew philosophically from the opportunity to learn under people like Louise Antony, Sally Haslanger, and Susanna Siegel. I also benefitted from working in a different philosophical community. I generally found the department at MIT to be lively and supportive. It was clear that they loved doing philosophy, and did so in a way that didn’t feel so much like doing battle.

Any other struggles?

Another real struggle, and one I face anywhere, to be fair, is that I am regularly the only Black person wherever I am. I was one of two Black graduate students in the department at UT, and because the other Black person was an older graduate student, I basically never saw him. People routinely confused me with another graduate student – the only features we have in common are that we are brown women with very curly hair. We’re also both very beautiful (or, as the kids would say, we’re both baddies), but really, the resemblance ends there.

I get that people think that kind of thing doesn’t matter, but it really does. I was so lonely, I am so lonely, so much of the time. It is exhausting to have to explain certain aspects of your experience to people, or why certain things matter. Sometimes you just want to be seen, to be understood, without having to explain yourself. People really take the value of that for granted.

To be frank, this is one of the reasons I created Corrupt the Youth. I figured if Black and brown folks wouldn’t or couldn’t come to philosophy, then by God, I would bring it to them. And I figured that one way to enlarge the number of people of color in philosophy would be to create a pipeline of students from high school.

Can you describe how Corrupt the Youth worked?

Sure! Corrupt the Youth creates partnerships (“chapters”) between university philosophy departments and a nearby Title 1 school, the aim of which is to bring in philosophy professors and graduate students (and the occasional undergrad) into high schools to lead philosophy classes. We teach in our schools every Spring, and the host teacher usually allows us to commandeer 2-3 classes a week. Each chapter’s curriculum is different, because they tailor what they teach to the interests of the kids. Our hope is that by relating philosophy to issues in their lives and topics that concern them, we can make philosophy more accessible and approachable.

What was the market like when you finished?

To tell the truth, I’m not sure/can’t entirely remember. For starters, I only did a “soft-launch” on the market, because I actually had two years of funding left at UT. There were two jobs I was really interested in, which is why I went on the market early: a position at Princeton that was a joint appointment between the University Center for Human Values and the African American Studies Department and another at Claremont McKenna College. Though I interviewed for and gave a job talk for the Princeton position, that search ultimately failed. And Claremont McKenna College, where I also interviewed and gave a job talk, ended up choosing Rima Basu for the position. Luckily for me they convinced the dean of faculty at that time to open another line so they could hire me! Given how other people on the market did at that time, though, I do believe there were many jobs available that year. Frankly, considering what happened shortly after my job market experience – i.e., a global pandemic – it’s extremely fortunate that I went out when I did.

Tell me about the Princeton fellowship!

I was there as a Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellow. It’s a one-year position in the University Center for Human Values. It’s really a great fellowship program – it brings together people from various disciplines, and we write and workshop papers together over the course of the year. That year gave me the opportunity to begin working on my book proposal that analyzes political resistance as an epistemic practice. I also connected with and met two of closest friends there, did karaoke a lot, and went into NYC to see Rachel Berry – I mean, Lea Michele – as Fanny Brice in Funny Girl!

Did you dig Cali? What do you do for fun? Do you miss the South?

I didn’t at first, which mostly had to do with the fact that we moved here and COVID hit the next semester. We barely had time to settle in and figure anything out or make any friends. Once the pandemic was “over” I started to get out more and discovered I really like hiking. I have a group of friends I hike with every weekend, and my husband and I have started visiting national parks each year for our anniversary. I do miss the South, especially the food. And sometimes I also just miss hearing accents that sound like mine. And while I admit the beach in California is more beautiful, I miss Gulf Coast beaches!

Love National Parks. Ultimate goal at the time? Job market horror stories?

Honestly, my main goal was to try and secure a TT position right away. I’d heard of people who moved from one post-doc to another, and while I would have been willing to do that, I didn’t relish the thought of making my husband (and our two cats, Fat and Stinky) move again and again and again while I chased my academic dream. He’d already followed me from Baton Rouge (where we taught high school English) to Austin (for grad school) to Cambridge (for the fellowship at MIT). I wanted to avoid moving too many more times.

As for horror stories, I of course knew that many people go on the market, apply for over 80 jobs, and get absolutely no bites. Or they get flyouts and then no offers. And I’d heard about the fabled APA job interviews in hotel rooms where candidates sat on a bed while being grilled – yikes!

Did anybody help you out a lot during this period?

I don’t know this for sure, but I think Susanna Siegel was operating behind-the-scenes to talk me up to people. I’m pretty confident she’s the reason I was offered the post-doc at Baruch. I was lucky that I was at MIT and living in Cambridge the year I went on the market, because it meant I could turn to Susanna a lot for help if I needed it. Susanna even met my mom when she (my mom) came to visit! Ray Buchanan, who was on my dissertation committee, was also tremendously helpful and extremely generous with his time. We talked on the phone a few times so he could coach me through how to do a job interview. Sinan, of course, was incredibly helpful, as well. And Jon Litland, who ran the job market group for students on the market at UT, set up Zoom so that I could join in on those sessions and get feedback from him and my peers on my writing sample, teaching statement, cover letter, and so on. Kristie Dotson, too, was incredibly helpful during this period in helping me figure out what to negotiate for and how to advocate for myself on the market.

Where did you land your first gig?

I was really fortunate with how the job market played out for me. I had an offer for a post-doc that would transition to a TT position from Baruch College-CUNY, and an offer for a TT position at Claremont McKenna College. In the end, I took the post-doc at Baruch from 2018-2019, and then I started as an assistant professor at CMC in Fall 2019. I really loved working at Baruch. I enjoyed the students and Thomas Teufel, the chair of the department, was so great to have as a colleague. He heard a student shouting in my office once – the student wasn’t yelling at me, just excited about the conversation – and Thomas immediately popped in to make sure I was okay. In the end, though, New York is a very difficult (and expensive!) place to live, and I living in an apartment made me feel like a sardine packed in a tin. Growing up in the South spoiled me, I think – I just need way more green space than I could get in New York!

What was your first time teaching in the philosophy classroom like?

As UT, after your first semester you’re expected to serve either as a grading assistant or a teaching assistant. I started as a teaching assistant in the Spring, and at UT that means you’re actually facilitating about 3 discussion sections each week. So, while you don’t get to teach your own class or the material you choose, you do get experience teaching. Because I had already been a teacher in a classroom, I didn’t find the experience too daunting or overwhelming. However, I was aware that my presence in that kind of space was a bit transgressive, and so I did feel a bit of pressure to perform femininity in various ways to compensate for that.

Things you are most proud of from your time at Claremont McKenna?

Hm…I think getting tenure on time, despite the impact of the pandemic, is something I’m pretty proud of. Launching a Corrupt the Youth pilot at CMC where we brought 9 of my college students to take a philosophy class alongside 11 Pomona High School students. The Inside-Out class I taught titled “Feminism for Men”. 11 of my students were incarcerated, and the course was taught during the pandemic, so it was on Zoom. The students in that class created some of the most amazing final projects I’ve ever seen – the college even put their paintings on display for a bit!

What are you working on now? Any projects you’re especially excited about?

Yes! I’m writing a book about social and political resistance from an epistemic perspective, sort of bringing my work in standpoint epistemology to bear on questions in political philosophy. I suspect that many people can’t understand or appreciate what certain social and political acts or movements mean to accomplish, because they live in a world where the injustices these acts/movements mean to address are obscured. And I wonder what this means for the possibility of resistance to achieve its aims and how, thinking about this perspective, might empower us to rethink how we go about social and political reform.

How were you effected by #Metoo?

The #MeToo movement helped me recognize – or I suppose more accurately, confront – the fact that I had been sexually assaulted by a boyfriend in college.

How?

Honestly, I think a lot of it had to do with shame. I felt like it said something about me that I had “allowed” something like that to happen to me and so for a long time I just convinced myself that it wasn’t really anything at all, just a normal thing that men sometimes do to women, that this man had done to me. But I was so ashamed of what happened, it made me feel so worthless, that to this day the only person I’ve talked about the incident with is my husband. With #MeToo and all these people – men, too – sharing their experiences, it made me realize I wasn’t alone, and there wasn’t anything wrong with me. I didn’t do anything to deserve or prompt what happened, and he didn’t have a right to do what he did just because he was my boyfriend. It gave me the freedom to fully confront and accept what had happened without shame.

Which living philosophers do you admire—or envy?

Probably Thi Nguyen, to answer both those questions. I admire the joy he still has about doing philosophy. And he’s been so successful as a cross-over! I admire/envy/hope to emulate his ability to bring philosophy to the public in an engaging way.

Favorite movies? Books? TV shows?

Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible is a favorite. Cormac McCarthy’s The Road was the first book to make me break down and cry; Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad was the second; and Beloved by Toni Morrison nearly broke me. Those probably rank among my most loved – can’t read again for a long time because I want to cherish how it felt the first time – books. Not big on movies (though I love musicals); love TV. 30 Rock is my all-time favorite TV show. One of my greatest fears is that Tina Fey will die without being recognized as the genius that she is. I compulsively binge-watch Gilmore girls because I hate the Gilmore girls and love hating the Gilmore girls.

Queen of the world for a day, what do you do?

Forbid those insane mega-mansions I see on Zillow Gone Wild (on Instagram). No one needs a “compound” with a tennis court and bowling alley and 11 bedrooms.

What would your last meal be?

My grandma’s fried chicken, collard greens, and corn pones. Failing that (as my grandma’s dead), a burger from Javelina (in Austin, Texas)  from 2016. Best burger I’ve ever had.

If you could ask an omniscient being one question and be guaranteed a truthful answer, what would you ask?

What’s wrong with my dad?

Thanks Briana!

[interviewer: Cliff Sosis]