Hello, I’m Shelley Tremain and I’d like to welcome you to the forty-fourth installment of Dialogues on Disability, the series of interviews that I am conducting with disabled philosophers and post here on the third Wednesday of each month. The series is designed to provide a public venue for discussion with disabled philosophers about a range of topics, including their philosophical work on disability; the place of philosophy of disability vis-à-vis the discipline and profession; their experiences of institutional discrimination and personal prejudice in philosophy, in particular, and in academia, more generally; resistance to ableism, racism, sexism, and other apparatuses of power; accessibility; and anti-oppressive pedagogy.
I acknowledge that the land on which I sit to conduct these interviews is the traditional territory of the Haudensaunee and Anishnaabeg, covered by the Upper Canada Treaties and directly adjacent to Haldiman Treaty territory. I offer these interviews with respect and in the spirit of reconciliation.
My guest today is Gen Eickers. Gen is currently finishing their Ph.D. at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain and Freie Universitaet Berlin. Their research concentrates on social interaction and emotional display, developing an account of social interaction in their dissertation that focuses on contextual aspects of it. While Gen has been preoccupied with work on their dissertation in the last couple of months, with little time for anything else, they actually enjoy solitary activities like reading (they are currently catching up on LGBTQ history) and engaging in art in all kinds of ways. In the last three years, they have organized three art events.
Welcome to Dialogues on Disability, Gen! You grew up in a small town in southern Germany and initially studied to become a high school teacher. Please tell us about your background and how you found your way to a Ph.D. program in philosophy.
Thank you for having me, Shelley!
Yes, I grew up in a small village in southern Germany, which has a population of 2,500. Southern Germany is quite Catholic and ninety-nine percent white. The area in which I grew up is very conservative. In addition to this already conservative environment, in the few last years, right-wing attitudes have come to the surface again, perhaps even increased. In the 2017 election, fifteen percent of voters in the area in which I grew up voted for the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD), the right-wing political party in Germany. Around thirty-eight percent voted for the Christian party, whose values are far from trans-friendly, queer-friendly, immigrant-friendly, or disability-friendly.
These election results put this region above the national averages with respect to the votes that right-wing parties received. What is important to add here, of course, is that in Berlin, my chosen home, around twelve percent of voters voted for the AfD. The difference between fifteen percent and twelve percent may not seem that big when we look at the number in isolation. But it’s significant when we consider that far fewer people in Berlin voted for the Christian party, and far more people voted for the left party. Most importantly, the queer community, the queer scene in Berlin is big, supportive, and good at resistance. No such thing existed in the area in which I grew up. None of this means that twelve percent of voters is not already bad enough though.
My grandparents used to have a farm, and I spent some of my childhood sitting on a tractor with my grandfather. I value these memories. At the same time, though, due to the conservative environment of southern Germany, life felt repressed and depressing there. Feelings, social issues, gender, disability were just not topics to be discussed. Everything that seemed to be remotely odd or that departed from accepted norms was ignored or simply not talked about—but, in an effortless kind of way; I think people just had no language for, nor idea of how to deal with, anything other than what is taken as normal.
When my parents got divorced, people talked badly about them and they lost friends. In high school, I knew only one other person who had divorced parents. When I was in high school, there were rumors that two of our male teachers were gay and that one of my male classmates was gay. Nothing was overt, but the things said about the teachers and the classmate were awful and, now that I have come to realize my own trans gay identity, are painful for me to think back on.
Gender was simply not a thing—it still isn’t there, I think. It was so not on the table ever that I am not sure how to express the non-existence of thoughts or conversations about gender. I think Germans, in general, are not the best when it comes to emotion work or communicating their problems, feelings, and needs, which even manifests in how language is used: where Americans would say “amazing!!!”, my relatives would say “not too bad.”
For historical and cultural reasons, rural areas in Germany, in my experience, revolve a lot around survival, work, everyday lives. That is to say that there has not been any room in these regions to openly talk about or even allow oneself to think about aspects of identity, such as gender, sexuality, disability, and race. Everything that goes beyond work and survival appears to be a luxury. But we need to learn that living one’s identity is not a luxury, but rather a necessity.
The conflict between the idea that thinking about identity is a luxury and the idea that thinking about identity is a necessity manifested, for me, in conflicting feelings and values which, I think, have made it difficult, if not impossible, for me to look for support, to ask for help, to come out as trans, to talk about my mental health. Until recently, I despised my background—perhaps for these very reasons and especially due to social pressure—but I have learned to embrace parts of it. I think my background has also equipped me with tools that people from more privileged backgrounds—such as people from academic families—do not have. For example, I can absolutely imagine myself working low-paying jobs and can imagine life not as a fancy university professor.
When I graduated from high school at eighteen, my plan was to study art in order to become an art teacher. I applied to art school, but I was rejected. That was a bummer, but it hasn’t prevented me from continuing to make art and be engaged in art projects. I have curated three exhibitions so far, and I am currently working on a fourth. Two of the exhibitions were art and science collaborations: Embodiments, which took place in 2016 at the Whiteconcepts Gallery in Berlin, and an exhibition for the Visual Science of Art Conference (VSAC) in 2017. Both collaborations have led to interesting conversations between artists and scientists/researchers.
[Description of image below: A group of spectators sits on the floor of the Whiteconcepts Gallery. They are looking up at something out of the view of the shot. Artwork is displayed on the walls of the room, including a large fabric installation on the wall behind the viewers.]
[Description of image below: A shirtless person stands in the Whiteconcepts Gallery holding a phone to their chest, their hands cradling and framing the screen of the phone on which a video of a beating heart during an open-heart surgery is displayed. The displayed heart is the estimated size of the heart of the person holding the phone. Other pieces of art can be seen in the background of the shot.]
[Description of image below: Gen stands on the right of the shot in front of a screen on which the words [DEINE] PATRIARCHIE appear above the words [YOUR] PATRIARCHY. Like the two other people visible in the frame, Gen is looking at something to the left of the shot and smiling widely.]
Philosophy was my second choice, initially. I had ethics as a subject in high school. That included some philosophy, broadly construed, and my teacher was good. But, at the same time, I got the impression that philosophy is all about talking. I’ve never been good at talking or expressing my opinions or interests verbally in a group of people, in a school setting. I have preferred to read on my own, teach myself things, and eventually engage in discussions in more private settings. And, I’ve always preferred writing.
I studied at the University of Stuttgart. Most of the people who study or work in Stuttgart commute up to two hours a day from the countryside. I lived with my mother and two of my siblings in the small village in which I grew up and commuted every day until I got financial education support (half loan) from the state. Due to my experiences of financial and other instabilities in my youth, living as a half-orphan with a single mother who worked two jobs, I could not imagine studying art or philosophy alone; so, I opted for a high school-teacher degree.
At that time, there was a constant lack of teachers in Germany and the pay is decent—certainly more money than I was used to growing up—so pursuing a teaching degree seemed to be a safe and good choice. It just seemed like a proper job for someone of my social status and my gender. In hindsight, I appreciate having studied in the teacher’s track because it gave me the opportunity to study lots of different subjects. I was enrolled in philosophy and political science (major) and English (minor). I also had courses in psychology and pedagogy, which was fun.
My first contact with academic philosophy (outside of classes at university) came when Jesse Prinz visited the University of Stuttgart and gave a workshop there. My professor asked the class, which studied Jesse’s The Emotional Construction of Morals, if anyone wanted to contribute a commentary to his visit. For some reason, I said that I wanted to do so. I should add that I was discouraged from doing so by some people, including some professors. For example, people asked me if I really thought that I could come up with something interesting to say and if I thought that I would be able to speak in front of a group of people. The commentary that I gave went really well and led a postdoc and others to recommend that I do a Ph.D. in philosophy and apply to the Berlin School of Mind and Brain.
When I first looked into what is needed to start doing a philosophy Ph.D. in Germany, I got overwhelmed and initially decided to stay in the high school-teacher track, “where I belong.” Also, I was frankly just too depressed and deprived of any feeling of self to imagine applying for anything, that is, to plan for my future. This feeling re-occurs every time I am required to do anything that is remotely related to future-planning, yes. I have ways to deal with this feeling though and giving up has never been an option for me. I enjoyed writing my M.A. thesis, liked giving a commentary at an academic philosophy workshop, and had more things to say. The combination of these things gave me a sense of control, and, ultimately, have given me back a sense of self.
I ended up at the Berlin School of Mind and Brain to develop my dissertation project on social interaction and emotion. The proposal that got me accepted to the graduate school looks quite different from the final dissertation. I think this is generally the case with dissertation projects. However, the components of the proposal that were important to me have remained. I managed to structure them and elaborate on them in a way that makes sense, not only to me but also to some other people. In the dissertation, I criticize contemporary explanations of social cognition and social interaction, arguing that they tend to ignore norms and power relations inherent in social interaction. I also argue that it is not obvious that we make use of the tools for social cognition that have been developed and investigated so far. In other words, I advance an alternative theory of social interaction by shifting the focus to context, emotions, and, inherently, social norms.
You wrote your M.A. thesis on psychopathology. Please describe this project and your Ph.D. project in more detail.
My M.A. thesis was on psychopathy and moral emotions. The aim was to address the connection between emotions and morality, using psychopaths as an example case, since, according to different philosophical accounts and the official DSM categorization, psychopaths are considered to lack (moral) emotions. I criticized the DSM with respect to the psychopathy categorization, while also pointing to the impossibility of categorizing personality disorders or mental health issues in general. I argued for the following: In psychological science, psychopathy seems to be an unsolved puzzle as it occurs alongside questions about morality and its nature. Psychopaths are assumed to have an emotional deficit, and psychopathy has been repeatedly used as an example case in moral philosophy. The central issue of the thesis was to explain the connection between emotions, morality, and psychopathy. If morality is a matter of emotions, how, the thesis asked, can psychopathy be explained? Furthermore, how is this explanation of the connection between emotions, morality, and psychopathy related to common categorizations?
Towards the end of my M.A., I became more and more interested in how moral norms relate to social norms, as well as how social norms are generated and constructed. Up to that point, I had not encountered philosophical theories about social cognition or social interaction. Like a lot of depressed teens and twenty-somethings, however, I was into Sartre, Camus, Dostoyevsky. I think their writing has impacted my thinking and perhaps even shaped my intuition to find the Theory of Mind discussion pretty alienating. Alienating because so much of the debate has revolved around the biology of social cognition, the way that “healthy” people cognize in social situations—in social situations created in labs, that is. Sartre, Camus, and Dostoyevsky wrote about social situations in different and unusual ways: they wrote about alienation, feeling uneasy in social interactions, subtle aggression, feeling nauseous and anxious.
In my dissertation, I argue that theoretical energies have focused too narrowly on a small range of accounts of social cognition, that these accounts have various limitations, and tend to ignore social context and the influence of social phenomena such as gender, race, and status on social perception. Thus, the dissertation challenges prevailing models of mental-state attribution and advances an alternative to these models by focusing on context.
The alternative is called Scripted Alignment Model (SAM). SAM preliminarily claims that social interactions can proceed without need for mental-state attribution and can do so due to alignment. Alignment is made possible, or rather, is unavoidable, due to social forces, such as social roles and power relations. Social forces are responsible for structuring social interactions by providing implicit, value-based reasons. I argue that scripts are the central tool of SAM by which we can make sense of social interactions. These scripts are, furthermore, context-dependent and context-sensitive knowledge structures that describe roles and situations, for example. Finally, I discuss emotion recognition as a prime case of the newly developed theory (SAM).
Gen, you have not enjoyed graduate school, in part because of institutional and professional expectations that you regard (and I agree) as ableist and classist. How would you describe these expectations? How do they disadvantage some students?
Even though I love learning and reading, I am not much of a school person in general. It is hard for me to follow the rules of a system that does not make sense to me and that I consider to be problematic on different levels. I have always loved learning but have struggled with a lot of the ways in which learning is institutionalized. For example, when I went to high school, our oral performances were graded; so, you were graded on how often you raised your hand in class to say something. My oral grades were terrible because I literally never said anything. That ruined my grades overall, of course.
Grad school has made me feel out of place, incompetent, and stupid many times. It has given me bad episodes of depression, anxiety, and I have experienced impostor syndrome. I had episodes where I kept skipping classes and avoiding everyone. One aspect of my feeling out of place was certainly related to class. For example, most other grad students that I have met in Germany come from academic families and are not first-generation academics. This leads to different expectations regarding money, behavior, looks—pretty much everything. I’ve been told several times that the language that I use is not appropriate for the academic context.
The ableist expectation that one be functional at all times has been a big challenge for me. Another challenge for me has been the classist expectation that one already knows how everything works—for example, how to communicate with your supervisor, how to write proper emails, where to apply for funding, what are appropriate amounts of money to spend for a conference trip, etc. I’ve always wondered how everyone else knows how to do all these things and how to never get in trouble for sending “impolite” emails. I think that this expectation has certainly contributed to my fear of sending emails to anyone or interacting with anyone in academia, really.
Mental health and disability, in general, are still taboo in Germany and German academia in particular. While slowly the (binary) gender pay gap is acknowledged in Germany and German universities have started to hire more women, disability, mental illness, queerness, and race remain largely unaddressed. The first time that I experienced a kind of openness to mental health issues and disability in general was when I came to Berlin. I suppose this is due in large part to the fact that Berlin is a big international city and home to many people who have mental health problems or are disenabled.
Here is an example of the expectation to be functional: you are supposed to attend conferences in their entirety. Some colleagues laugh when you say that you cannot take more than forty percent of the conference. Usually in breaks at conferences or after colloquia, people continue to talk philosophy and discussing ideas. This kind of interaction has always seemed impossible for me. By the time a conference day is over, I have most certainly run out of steam. I am quite sure this exhaustion has to do with the way that conferences are often constructed: talks that are up to ninety minutes long, with tiny breaks in between and on-going discussions in the breaks.
By now, I think that I have developed ways of dealing with these expectations. I don’t attend entire conferences and just don’t tell anyone. I draw during talks or stand up when I get nervous or inattentive. I work at home pretty much always because that’s where I am least distracted (by noises, colleagues, and so on). I ask for help when I need it and try not to think about what people might think of me. If I get a grumpy reply, I explain why I do not understand X and need help regarding X.
You identify as trans/non-binary. What challenges have you confronted in philosophy with respect to this aspect of your identity and how do other aspects of your identity complicate these challenges?
Certainly, coming out as trans (non-binary) to colleagues and other philosophers has been a big deal. Coming out as trans non-binary in general is difficult in Western societies. The German language is incredibly binary gendered, which makes things really difficult. I opted to come out, however, since doing so at least gives me the possibility to express myself properly and to ask people to use my correct pronouns. For me, this option has seemed less painful than hiding my identity.
[Description of image below: Gen is wearing a dark hoodie and holding a camera in their left hand. They seem to be intently listening to or watching someone or something beyond the shot. Their head is tilted slightly to their right and their face is expressionless. Electronic equipment, which appears to be in use, sits on a wooden table in the background of the shot.]
In academia, visibility and accessibility problems for queer and trans people exist too, of course. For example, if I give a talk at a conference, nobody asks me what my pronouns are. Instead, it is made my job to tell people—which is an effort for me, psychologically, and makes me feel inappropriate. Most people end up misgendering me anyways. That is painful and hard to wrap one’s head around. I think one of the most difficult things for me, as a trans non-binary person who struggles with their mental health, is to correct people if they misgender me, to tell cis-hetero people that I am trans and queer, to talk openly about it in general. Social media can be helpful in these respects. Since I prefer to communicate via writing, social media has always helped me talk about things that I cannot (yet) express in person.
I hold academics especially accountable to educate themselves about trans identities and disabilities—and in fact all identities, marginalized groups, and issues of oppression—because academics have ready access to the requisite knowledge to do so or at least to resources that would enable them to acquire the requisite knowledge. It is totally fine for me to explain what non-binary means to someone who doesn’t know, of course. However, I think professors, teachers, conference organizers, and philosophers who speak out publicly (e.g., who get published in newspapers) have a special kind of responsibility, and I hold them accountable for that responsibility. Educating oneself is of course not the whole story, but it is a necessary step and one that is comparably easy to achieve for academics, especially those of us who are in more privileged positions.
Recently, an article appeared in a German newspaper in which a philosopher referred to trans people as “transsexuals” and claimed that victims of oppression victimize themselves. On a well-known philosophy blog, an argument about the “transgender debate” was recently initiated by TERFs (trans-exclusionary radical feminists). Another recent article, although not transphobic, nevertheless debated about the terms of the “transgender debate,” taking seriously the arguments of TERFs. Whenever things like that happen, I feel especially defeated, misplaced in academia and in philosophy, and lose hope in our profession and the people in it, not because most philosophers are transphobic, but rather because the philosophers who are transphobic are especially loud, while the philosophers who are not transphobic have not been loud enough.
A week after one of the most recent public “transgender debate” pieces by philosophers was published, the U.S. government announced that it intends to pass legislation that effectively renders trans people nonexistent. In the U.S., the life expectancy of a trans woman of color is thirty-five. I do not think philosophers can rightly go about debating the lives of trans people. There is nothing that needs to be debated. Trans people are real and valid. Philosophers who think there is something rationally debatable about that or think that the bathroom debate should be taken seriously are contributing to transphobic hate. I should note here that I think that not all philosophers who are trans (and disenabled) agree with me about these debates and their effects. I am giving my personal point of view and do not intend to speak for all trans folks (including all philosophers who are trans). I also want to stress, furthermore, that I strongly believe that there are things that cisgendered people can and should do.
Gen, I’m sure that many readers and listeners of this interview have experienced some of the concerns, discomfort, and doubts that you have, especially if they belong to one or more marginalized groups in philosophy. What philosophical, structural, pedagogical, institutional, and discursive changes do you think would make academia a more hospitable environment for you and others who may share your experiences?
As I indicated in my previous reply, I want to see articles with hateful arguments about trans people, queer people, or, really, any oppressed or marginalized group get called out as such and not taken seriously. I do not believe in undermining hate (speech) from within. But I do believe in undermining hate (speech) by calling it such. For example, I hope trans-exclusivity—and especially the kind of trans-exclusivity covered by “feminism” with arguments for sex/genital-based safe spaces—will soon be recognized and referred to as hate speech. This is something that cis-het feminists could easily do. The responsibility here lies especially with them, since they are, unfortunately, often given more credibility regarding “the transgender debate” than trans people are.
I think a step forward has been made through the creation of MAP (Minorities and Philosophy). The organization and all the MAP chapters are doing great work and working hard on bringing about structural, discursive, and pedagogical changes in philosophy. I believe the work that MAP chapters do should be recognized by institutions, professors, and others who teach philosophy much more than it currently is.
Gen, would you like to make some closing remarks or recommend some books, articles, videos, or music on any of the topics that you’ve discussed in this interview?
I am not a fan of big goodbyes, but let me say: thanks again, Shelley.
And sure, I’ll leave some recommendations here: an article, a collection of poems, a performance, and a song. First, Robin A. Dembroff’s recent article in Aeon. Second, Don’t Call Us Dead by the poet Danez Smith and Smith’s performance of their poem, “Today.” Third, the song “No Good” by the musician Perfume Genius.
Gen, thanks so much for these terrific recommendations. I’ve watched Smith’s performance of “Today” and have been listening to “No Good.” Thanks also for your evocative and instructive remarks throughout this interview. I’ve learned a lot from you and I’m certain that readers and listeners of this interview will too. Readers/listeners are invited to use the Comments section below to respond to Gen Eickers remarks, ask questions, and so on. Comments will be moderated. As always, although signed comments are preferred, anonymous comments may be permitted.
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Please join me here again on Wednesday, December 19th, at 8 a.m. EST, for the forty-fifth installment of the Dialogues on Disability series and, indeed, on every third Wednesday of the months ahead. I have a fabulous line-up of interviews planned. If you would like to nominate someone to be interviewed (self-nominations are welcomed), please feel free to write me at s.tremain@yahoo.ca. I prioritize diversity with respect to disability, class, race, gender, institutional status, nationality, culture, age, and sexuality in my selection of interviewees and my scheduling of interviews.
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