Incompossible with Florida

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I’ve known Chris Noble since he was in graduate school, when we used to frequent the same circles of Leibniz scholars. Chris wrote what I have long taken to be among the most interesting and subtle philosophy dissertations I’ve ever read, on the topic of Leibnizian spiritual automata. He went on to build an academic career as a professor of philosophy at New College in Florida. If you’ve been following the news of that state’s politics over the past years, particularly as concerns higher education, you will already be able to anticipate something of what fortune had in store for him. I’m proud to have Chris’s eyewitness featured in our space. Please don’t forget that it’s your paid subscriptions that enable us to support our guest contributors in turn. —JSR

Introduction

In August 2018, I started a one-year visiting position to teach philosophy at New College of Florida, the state’s public liberal arts honors college. I had spent the past nine years teaching at Villanova University, the Augustinian Catholic institution near Philadelphia where I also completed my PhD. The change brought the promise of full-time employment as well as great leeway to offer courses in the history of philosophy, my area of scholarly expertise. To replace a retiring scholar of Medieval philosophy—a specialist in Duns Scotus—my new colleagues wanted someone who could incorporate non-Western material into the philosophy curriculum. I had been given a mandate, in other words, to teach courses in both the history of Western philosophy, as well as in traditions from around the globe.

At the same time, I was anxious about whether I could fit in at my new school. The sole job interview had taken place remotely via videoconference and my future colleagues had ended our conversation by letting me know that “we’re a weird place.” As I prepared for the move, I learned of free-spirited student traditions like walking around campus barefoot and wearing homemade costumes to commencement in place of traditional academic regalia. New College’s academic program, dating back to its 1960s founding, was both unorthodox and experimental, aiming to empower ...