AOS & AOC on Religion CV

[coffeekid]

Hey religion friends,

I've been looking at faculty CVs in religion, philosophy, and neighboring disciplines for some time now. And for the life of me, I still can't understand why religion scholars do not typically follow the format of placing, front and center on the first page of a CV, "Areas of Specialization (AOS)" and "Areas of Competence (AOC)." I'd say 7 or 8 out of 10 philosophy CVs follow this format, whereas maybe 1 or 2 of 10 in religion follow it. This is a bit baffling to me, considering that, like with philosophy, these details are very helpful to clarify just what it is that you're doing in your scholarship, which is important to hiring committees, fellow scholars, etc.

So my two part question is: (1) Can someone flesh out in better detail what it is I'm missing here, as to why religion folks don't use AOS and AOC? Do they simply lack precision in identifying their research interests?

 

And: (2) Any thoughts on changing this? That is, is there something admirable about this format that religion folk should adopt?

[marXian]

At NU, the philosophy department is the only one in the humanities that has those subdivisions. I was in a graduate English department elsewhere (where it would also seem to make sense to have those) and no one did.

 

From what I've gleaned from friends in the philosophy department, it matters a great deal to be clear on what you specialize in and what you're competent to speak to. Philosophy is notoriously cutthroat in terms of jobs; what you specialize in and what you are competent in matters more than any other humanities discipline because matching your specialization with the strength of your school is vital in getting a job. That is, if you do philosophy of mind and are in a department that is especially strong in that area, you want people to know that. Those distinctions are way more important in philosophy (as evidenced by The Philosophical Gourmet.)

 

I suppose it doesn't always make sense for other disciplines. It depends on what one does, but specializations and competencies in religion aren't quite as clearly defined as they are in philosophy. That's not to say that there can't be those distinctions, but being an outsider to philosophy, it's easy to underestimate the importance of those in that discipline.

[coffeekid]

That's helpful, jdharrison.

I do get that same sense that disciplinary specialties are less defined than some strands of philosophy (esp. analytic). I like the fact that this demystifies certain areas of specialization in religion, making those areas more permeable and open to interdisciplinary work. But I also get frustrated because I feel religion faculty end up claiming "expertise" in areas they have no business claiming expertise. Putting down your AOS and AOC is as much about recognizing what you don't do as owning up to what you, in fact, do. As a result, I've rarely been in a philosophy course where I felt a faculty member was out of her academic comfort zone, while I've relt this way rather often about religion faculty.

 

Might there, then, be a reasonable alternative for religion people? Something a bit broader in scope? Maybe it doesn't matter. I'm just really concerned about academic honesty at the moment, and this seems to be pretty relevant.
 

[marXian]

You're absolutely right about claiming "expertise." The same thing happens in English departments. Literary theory makes use almost strictly of 20th century continental philosophy/critical theory, and while there are certainly scholars who do have a real expertise in those traditions, a great many of them do not, but utilize them anyway and masquerade a sort of "expertise." But it doesn't seem to matter that much. I've encountered the same thing in the RS field (especially when it comes to phenomenology.)

 

I think it's possible to divide up other humanities in a similar way, but probably more complex given that there isn't the same "tradition" of making specific divisions to know what/where those lines should be. My department has quite a few scholars of Catholicism, but some do ethnography, some do history (from medieval to contemporary),  those tend to overlap, and then their objects of study range widely. They would probably object to creating divisions as stark as those in philosophy. But I do agree with your concern: at the very least, I think that scholars utilizing material from outside of their field need to have more accountability.