Faculty on the Move and an Update on Rankings

Zhuxi has retired, leaving the specialty ranking Philosophers Whose Work is Perversely Abused by Institutions wide open. 

Nagarjuna has declined an offer from the Daoists and decided to remain in the Madhyamika department, solidifying their top five status in the specialty category, Philosophers who Beat Hume to the Punch.

After years of peripatetic wandering, Confucius has returned to the state of Lu.  And, as we all know, wherever Confucius goes, that place is going to be top of the tops in the specialty category Philosophers Who, To Their Credit, Hegel Didn’t Much Like.

A Note about this Year’s Rankings

While we’re updating as we can about faculty moves, as many already know, our full list of program rankings has not been updated in some time.  Alas, the weather round here has been too warm for us to conduct the requisite snowball fight in the parking lot, the procedure through which we decisively determine which programs of deviance are the best. 

Aware that the absence of an updated ranking would be just too sad, we entered into protracted deliberations about what other projectiles we might employ.  What, we pondered, could we throw?  After entertaining multiple candidates, we became painfully aware that this is a question that tends not toward edification.  There are too many things one might throw and too many of them should never be thrown.  Consequently, the best advice we can offer prospective deviants is that one can never go wrong applying to the highly esteemed and indeed peerless Top Department Elsewhere.

Poll “Results” – Top 5 Living Deviants

We here in the DoD apparently do not know when to stop making bad worse and decided to try running one more poll.  As readers will recall, we asked you to send along your selections for our list of the Top 5 Living Deviants.  After seeing what came over the transom, we were going to pretend like this never happened, but then decided to go ahead and look foolish for asking.

With great sheepishness but no further ado, the results:

#1:  What do you mean by “living?”  Readers wanted urgently to know whether the qualifications for being a “Top Living Deviant” entail that one needed merely to be biologically alive or whether some more vivid and ambitious specification is in order.  Sure, lots of deviants are living, but how many, they implored, are LIVING?

#2:  The ones with the tallest ladders.  Some readers, still unsatisfied with our use of “top,” decided to treat our height metaphors for quality literally.  To them, we say, what about the deviants with bucket trucks?  The bucket truck blessed would look down on your puny ladders if only they weren’t so busy kissing the clouds.  Take that, you literal minded chain-yankers.

#3:    Zhuangzi.  As readers well know, Zhuangzi has been dead for a couple of millennia.  But apparently for some, no matter how long he’s been dead, Zhuangzi abides.

#4:  Does it come with money and research leave?  Apparently several respondents mistook our poll for a fellowship application.  At any rate, their interest in who is “top” diminishes radically once they find out there’s no money or leave in it.  To them, we can only say, sorry.  We here in the DoD have nothing to offer but our love and affection.

#5:  If this poll was a person, I’d punch it in the face.  Must you folks in the Zen contingent continuously invoke traditional Zen practices of short-circuiting hyperanalytical thinking with blows?  The rest of us have only words to work with, and you’re making us jealous and resentful. 

Top Deviant Journals Poll Results!

Readers will have been waiting with bated breath to see the results of our first go at running a poll here at the DoD.  To recall, we asked readers to weigh in on how to rank journals of Deviance, with the hope of identifying those journals we should consider “top” or, when we should be super impressed, “top notch.”

Without further ado, here are the results:

#1:  It Depends.  This, for the uninitiated, is not the name of a journal (though it really should be), but apparently our readers thought that given the radical breadth of deviance, it is unlikely that any one journal will excel in deviance, full stop.  So what journal will be best largely depends on what flavor of deviance you pursue.  (Defeats all other possibilities in a condorcet bloodbath of unimaginable proportions.)

#2:  What Happened to your Vocabulary?  Alas, this too is not a journal, but apparently a way of readers registering dismay with our use of simplistic and, we must face it, imaginatively impoverished words such as “top” and “top notch” to refer to wildly complex judgments of quality regarding journals.  Still, we think our readers are top notch for pointing this out and henceforth resolve to try to be better.

#3:  The One that Accepted my Paper.  Here we are convinced that readers are just yanking our chain.  But since they are our readers, we’re confident that any journal taking their work must indeed be the bomb.

#4:  I Like Taking Polls as a Way to Escape my Paid Work, but have no Real Opinions on This.  We were hoping to get more detail from correspondents who selected this option but before we could ask any additional questions, they had navigated away to take a Buzzfeed quiz on hipster hairdos.

#5:  I Would Like to Whack you with a Stick.  Still not an actual journal, though here too we’re thinking someone should get on that.  For now, however, let us take a moment to appreciate the Zen contingent of Deviance.  Thanks for taking our poll, Zen Deviants, and consider us whacked.

Quick Update on Faculty Moves and Likely Changes to the Deviant Rankings

Prominent deviant Laozi has moved to the Department of People Who Never Existed.  This is big news likely to shake things up quite a bit.  Look for the Department of People Who Never Existed to make a run at the top 10, possibly even the top 5, now that Laozi’s there.

The addition of the Kyoto School has made Heidegger way more interesting than he ever was on his own.  Look for Heidegger to break into at least the top 15 in the specialty category “Things that Just Got Way More Cool.”

The Daoists and Primitivists both have what we are told are very high dollar offers out to Zhuangzi.  If either should snag him, they’ll of course make significant strides into Deviant-rific territory.  Most likely scenario, though, is that Zhuangzi will stay where he is, in Uncategorizable.  We’re told he’s unwilling to lose his happy close working conditions with Borges there.

Requisite Note on How to Interpret the Rankings

The rankings are developed based on the results of a snowball fight held annually in the DoD’s parking lot.  In advising prospective students how to read these numbers, we spoke with Chair of the Advisory Board Joshu, who had this to say: “Nothing.”