Nataly Papadopoulou (NP) and Conor Crummey (CC) share with us their first impressions of Queen Mary, recent accomplishments and their resolutions for 2020. Read their full interview:
CC: There seems to be a very supportive, collegial atmosphere cultivated here. Academics are always under huge pressure with their own work, but people here are great at making time for engaging with you, reading your work, that sort of thing. A colleague spoke to me on the phone for 45 minutes to help me with a revise and resubmit letter. That's the sort of thing generosity that stays with you as an early career academic. Strangely enough, the time when I felt that collegiality most strongly was during the strikes. Talking with colleagues on the pickets lines was a great way of getting to know them better, and it was inspiring to see academics so committed to trying to preserve the future of the profession. The context of the strikes also informs my answer to the second part of your question: I'm as much worried about my future academic career as I am excited. I'm excited to think about and write about things that interest me, to work with inspiring colleagues, and to try to share this thing that I love with students. But in the current climate it feels like it's going to be hard work to ensure that an academic career remains something we can be excited about.
NP: What I like most about Queen Mary is the vibe on campus. There is always something going on! I love the students; they are smart, committed, and motivated. They come from so many different places, bringing with them different experiences and knowledge. Several staff members have been extremely supportive and motivating, making my first year a little less stressful. Even before my contract officially started, people would offer to call me to give me guidance. Queen Mary is a great place to be in terms of the future. It offers so many opportunities. I get to meet colleagues who work on exciting projects, colleagues from other departments, doctors, who have so many ideas and want to collaborate.
NP: I recently submitted an article that I have been working on for some time in one of the top journals in my field. I am very thrilled and anxious, of course, to see where it ends up. I have received excellent feedback from colleagues that I sent it to, but let’s see what the reviewers say! Personally, last August I got to visit Japan for a conference and a long holiday, which is my 2019 highlight!
CC: Getting this job! I am currently writing up my PhD, and I didn't know if I would get anything before I finished, so it's definitely an accomplishment I'm proud of.
CC: Finishing the PhD is the big one. I work within general jurisprudence and public law, so most of my work involves thinking about the normative foundations of different parts of public law practice - why different aspects of public law are valuable, how public law doctrine can develop to better reflect that value. And trying to connect those sorts of inquiries to questions about the nature of law. I'm cautious about saying it's 'important' work. When I think of important work, I think of colleagues developing networks with the Rohingya, others who work to improve legal responses to domestic violence etc. I'm more reticent to talk about legal philosophy as important in the same sense. This might partly be down to a bit of imposter syndrome, but I also think it's healthy to accept that philosophy/philosophy-adjacent research is a slow-moving discipline, and we'll find out if a thought was really important way down the line. I do think that philosophy and public law theory are important disciplines, and I think that academia is important and that teaching students is important. So, I'm comfortable with the thought that I'm working in something important, even if I'm not always convinced that I'm working on something important at any particular moment!
NP: Research-wise, I am currently putting together my book proposal, which is based on my PhD. The work suggests that if Parliament decides to legalise assisted suicide in England and Wales, it should adopt a medico-legal framework that will respect both the right to life (Article 2) and the right to self-determination (Article 8) and the state obligations arising from these, and attempt to strike a balance. I believe it is important, as it suggests a new, practical framework for legalisation based on human rights. In general, my research lies in the interplay between human rights and medical law, and especially the conflicts therein, and particularly in the context of end-of-life.
NP: I like being outside, in nature. I find it peaceful and transformative. I like to go on little trips with my partner, family, or friends, or for hikes and walks. I am also on a mission of getting more fit, so I am following a healthy diet, and try to get daily exercise. As you say, the start of the academic career is particularly intense, so we all need to keep sane!
CC: In the last year I've started writing short fiction, which has been a goal of mine for a while. That has been a really fun outlet. Beyond that, going to live music is a big one - I try to take advantage of living in such a hub for music. I spend a lot of time in Genesis Cinema, a stone's throw from the office. They have two tiny screens with sofas and blankets - I highly recommend it for after a long day of teaching.
CC: Certainly, it's impossible not to feel impacted by it. In many ways, I have it a lot better than a lot of my early career colleagues. I didn't expect to find anything before having the PhD submitted, so this felt like a bonus. I also don't feel taken advantage of because of my contract status. A good friend at a university I won't name signed a one-year contract that already asked for a ludicrously high number of teaching hours, and two weeks before he started they called him and asked him to convene two more modules. (He is also still trying to finish his PhD.) I haven't experienced anything like that. Precarity does still have an impact though. It makes it very difficult to make long term plans for your life. Recently, my partner and I moved house, and the only way to get a new place was by agreeing to a two year tenancy. My current contract would end with 6 months left to pay on that. As well as making passing a tenancy reference check more complicated, it leaves you with this lingering background uncertainty and anxiety about what you'll do for that 6 months if you don't get kept on.
NP: Thank you for this question. Yes, I feel very much impacted by the precarity of contracts in higher education. I am on a one-year fixed-term contract. This is the first time I am teaching most of the subjects that I am teaching, and it is quite the challenge. At the same time, the time that I have for things other than teaching preparation, admin, and marking is very limited to non-existent, but I know that I have to do extra research to get a permanent contract. It is difficult, as one year passes very quickly, and, as I mentioned earlier, it’s hard to get to know people well. With precarity comes massive anxiety about one’s future and impacts on any plans I make, both in work and my personal life. The uncertainty and possibility of not having a job in a few months’ time makes one doubt about their suitability for the job and second-guess a lot. It’s hard to arrange the rest of your life too, like making a big choice, such as moving or buying a house.
NP: A friend bought me Adam Kay’s ‘This is going to hurt’. I bought myself part 2 of that book,’Twas the Nightshift before Christmas. Kay is a former doctor in the UK, who has given up being a doctor and now works as an author and a comedian. These books are essentially his daily diaries from the times he worked for the NHS. My friend thought that it would be suitable for me because of my medical law academic interest, and he was right. But more than that… it’s a moving, funny, and brilliantly-written book, giving a unique insight into the daily life of a doctor in the NHS. It made me laugh out loud in the tube, cry, but mostly made me angry about how doctors are treated and overworked, and how unsafe this is for patients. It also hit a bit (too) close to home, and made me think about how much work academics do, while the goalposts keep moving. Other than this, I am always reading Agatha Christie’s Poirot series. I love them! I am currently on the 13th book, The A.B.C. Murders.
CC: Last year's new year's resolution was to read more contemporary Irish fiction. Kevin Barry is my favourite writer, so his new book Nightboat to Tangier was certainly up there. And Milkman by Anna Burns, which won the 2018 Booker Prize, made a huge impact on me. I can't remember if it was 2019 or the end of 2018 when I read that, but I'm including it anyway because it's just one of the best things I've ever read. I should also mention Country by Michael Hughes. It's a transposition of The Iliad to 1990s Northern Ireland, and it got a lot of deserved recognition. The reason that I should mention it is that the author works one building over from us, in the Queen Mary English department!
In terms of academic books in my field, I still find myself thinking quite a lot about John Gardner's From Personal Life to Private Law. I was fortunate enough to go to the UCLA philosophy department as a visiting PhD researcher for a couple of months last year, and I sat in on a series of post-grad legal philosophy classes with Mark Greenberg, who is a scholar I admire very much. His class was studying Gardner's book over the course of a month, and reading it with them in that structured context was very rewarding. In general jurisprudential terms, I subscribe to an opposing view to Gardner's, but I found myself agreeing with almost everything he said in the book, which I think is a sign of what an immense writer he was.
CC: I enjoyed last year's Irish fiction resolution so much that I'm going for another literary resolution this year, because I can't think of anything else I'm likely to stick to. This year I'm trying to read more poetry. I don't feel like I currently have the skill of appreciating poetry at all, so I'd like to develop that. We'll see how that goes. I'm combining it with the previous year's resolution and reading Irish poets at the moment. Ciaran Carson is my current go-to.
NP: Have lunch away from my desk. Be in nature more often. Exercise more. Care more about my mental wellbeing.