Book update

So apparently I've done all I can, and now I just have to wait for the machinations of OUP's production process to play out. There have been all sorts of delays and hold-ups recently, and it looks like July 2025 is the earliest I can hope to see it published. Perhaps I'll be able to hold a copy in my hand a little before that, I'm not sure.

It feels so slow! So many relevant papers get published in the meantime that it then looks like i'm ignoring. And I'm terrified someone will make basically the same argument and gazump me. Frankly that's unlikely in philosophy, but still. It's crazy to remember that I began writing this book in 2019, just weeks before the world ground to a halt. That was my first ever sabbatical, which got transformed into 6 months of home schooling a 3 year old and a 6 year old instead. Or at least home-containing them, lol, i don't remember much school happening. That was before I got divorced and became a single mum 60% of the time. So much has happened and the book itself changed so much.

In hindsight I didn't really know how the book was going to end up, the proposal was pretty promissory. I knew that I wanted colour pictures and a fairly chatty, lively style. I wanted it to have some of the same vibes as my talks, where I show the audience a bunch of cool critters and blow their minds with weird facts.

One thing I certainly didn't anticipate was how philosophical it turned out - a whole chapter on identity?! Analytic metaphysics? Possible worlds!!!!! I guess this was the influence of my move to Leeds, in which i lost my regular interactions with microbiologists and anthropologists but gained much more contact with metaphysicians.

At some point I was chatting to a colleague about our aspirations for books we were both writing. He said he wanted his book to be careful and not make too many mistakes. I laughed and said what I cared about most was I didnt want my book to be boring. I bloody hope I've succeeded. It's a book that takes risks rather than being careful, and I've no doubt there are mistakes and naivetes. I want to inspire and provoke rather than have the last word. And in some ways its a love letter to philosophy of biology. Homage to the incredible splendour of the living world but also an attempt to show-not-tell biologists, in particular, the sorts of insights and assistance that philosophy has to offer.

No shade to the other kinds, but I'm the kind of philosopher of biology who is motivated above all else by the idea that philosophy can help science, can help solve scientific mysteries. it's really the mysteries themselves that I want at the centre of everything. But sometimes it feels like the hardest thing about my job is explaining to scientists over and over what I am and trying to persuade them that I might be able to help. I hope this book helps. I hope some folk find it interesting. I hope someone reads it!

Hey, reach out if you fancy reviewing it!

Identity trouble

I started (and never finished) writing this post years ago about moving, and its impact on one's identity.

First look at these gorgeous illustrations in from Guido Prieto for my book

 

Confession

Today is a scary day, because i've decided to write about something embarrassing. Something that i am ashamed of. Something that i may regret writing about. Yet, something about which i have hope that, in writing about it, i might find some relief.

Because maybe some readers have struggled with it too and they'll tell me and i'll get some solidarity. Maybe someone will have helpful solutions to suggest. Maybe having it out in the open will take some of the terror out of it. Or maybe it won't help me at all, maybe it will even cause reputational damage, because it evidences me as attention-seeking or emotionally incontinent and unreliable or something. Maybe going public will cause me to lose invitations, positions, even grants. But even then, maybe it will help someone else because i admitted something they feel too.

I've been struggling, for the last 12+ months, with anxiety. In particular, with anxiety about public speaking. Stage fright. It started last october with a panic attack in an undergraduate lecture. and its got so that 24 hours before any scheduled talk or lecture i get shaky and sleepless, with nausea and a racing mind that makes it impossible to drag myself to the scene. I've been declining invitations, pulling out of commitments, making excuses and worrying about the future.

As someone who just 13 months ago enjoyed speaking at public events, and felt naturally confident and good at it, this is a blow. As someone whose career and ability to pay the bills depends on lecturing, it is utterly terrifying and creating a spiral of anxious and pessimistic thoughts.

I don't know what's happened. i don't know why my previous confidence evaporated over night. except that i know i've had a tough few years. i know that i've been under too much pressure and been badly treated and there is a part of me that wants to hide under a duvet and cancel everything for ever more. I know that i'm also desperately ashamed of all this and terrified of letting everyone, my colleagues and especially my children, down. 

Just, somehow, having to stand in front of people and talk became impossible. my mind screams at me to get away, that it's not safe, that i can't do it. my legs become jelly and my throat closes up and my mind blanks. 

I am trying to make contingency plans for if i can't overcome this and need to find a new way of paying my massive mortgage that doesn't require standing in front of large groups of people. Can i find a job where i can do all my teaching online? or that's research only and doesn't require me to give talks? Can i find a collaborator who will do all the talking for me? Shall i quit and retrain  - what as?

I'm also throwing everything i can think of at it to try to solve it. I'm trying to treat possible underlying causes of PTSD and hormonal fluctuations. I'm trying medications and supplements and EMDR and hypnotherapy and breathwork and cold water swims and a million more expensive and unproven but possible cures. i'm trying to relax and exercise more and do positive affirmations and avoid avoidance and generally man up and get my shit together.

It's not come entirely out of nowhere. i struggled with panic attacks and performance anxiety and agoraphobia already, before grad school. Grad school in Bristol was a slow (and secret) process of gradually but successfully overcoming terror - first at showing up to class, then to speaking, then to giving presentations. and i know there should be comfort in this - i already went from somewhere afraid to enter a room if i wasn't comfortable escaping at will, to someone who travelled the world as a confident and enthusiastic keynote speaker. i've breezed through interviews and public events and prestigious conference appearances. 

I did it once so surely i can do it again, even if it was excruciatingly hard the first time around, and even though its mystifying how my mind can be so unreliable and erase all my former progress so swiftly, without warning. I've birthed children and written a book and been strong in so many ways recently and somehow it feels like i just ran out of something.

i hope i'll figure it out and get it back. But if you get a decline or a cancellation from me in the near future - i'm sorry. If i fail to show for a lecture or leave 5 mins in - i'm sorry. I'm not doing it on purpose.

Comments are open!

Van life calling

So i don't mean to brag or anything, but last week I submitted a funding application *and* figured out how to set parental controls on the playstation, so I'm feeling pretty damn accomplished. I've had a small pot of money I'd been saving up to replace my old Honda jazz when it expires, and on a bit of an impulse i've spent it on this even more ancient old camper van. It's nearly as old as me! But it will sleep me and both kids and even have space for my surf board too, so i'm looking forward to packing it up and heading off for some adventures. I might even use it for little writing retreats too - I can park up somewhere facing the ocean, stick some beer and snacks in the fridge, and dig in for a few days. All I need to do now is get the hang of parking it. 

What shall I name her?

Research cloud

Seems about right. I'm glad 'life' is so big.

You can do your own here https://shiny.rcg.sfu.ca/u/rdmorin/scholar_googler3/?fbclid=IwAR0loKrBm117LXCPR7n2xbwIy_0mCUjWrLQnJjikFoKVsQ4WlmKI2UAGO8A

Patricia Hill Collins awarded prize

 

I'm delighted to see that Patricia Hill Collins has been awarded $1 Million by the Berggruen Institute.

I've been a huge fan since I started teaching feminist philosophy five years ago and stumbled across her work on intersectionality and epistemic injustice. It was her writing on the agonies of raising Black children in a racist society that first moved me. There is also something gorgeously optimistic in her work, in the way she centers and cheerleads the bravery and creativity of unsung women on the margins. She exposes hypocrisy and injustice, but always with a friendly twinkle in her eye that says 'Let's talk, we can fix this.' She says "this is the way I want to write: critical, informed but where there is space for you to enter."

The ignorance of experts

 You can now watch me chatting to Julian Baggini and Ben Burgis about whether we should trust science, at How the Light Gets In at Hay last year. Full video via the Institute of Art and Ideas 

I argued against the idea that we should bash anti-vaxxers for being wary of politicians who insist they are following the science.

Solo mama role models

I had a bit of an emotional time last week, post-summer blues and despair at how behind I feel with everything. The house seems to be sliding inexorably further away from decent-enough-to invite-people-over. I've got drawers in the kitchen whose contents keep spilling out because the front has fallen off and I can't figure out how to get it back on. The garden is sprawling with weeds, broken furniture and unloved pots (good job I like unkempt gardens, ha!) My bills are eye-watering and consistently outpacing my salary. And work seems to be piling up faster than I can tackle it too.  

Generally feeling overwhelmed and in failuresville, then, and that was before I started reading all this stuff about how single mothers have health problems and reduced life expectancy, even when controlling for poverty (I'm still very much luckier in that regard than most single mothers!) because of all the stress and depression.

What does one do when it all feels too much? I started casting around for role models,

How human do you think you are?

 My essay on the Post-Human body, now freely available online at Public Philosophy Journal 'The Philosopher' thephilosopher1923.org