Elena Comay del Junco is Assistant Professor of philosophy at the University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on the history of philosophy, primarily Ancient Greek and Islamic philosophy. Recent and forthcoming work includes essays on Aristotle’s and Ibn Sina’s accounts of love as well as a translation of Ibn Sina’s commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics Λ. She also teaches and writes on questions of gender and feminism. In addition to her scholarly endeavors, she also writes criticism, poetry, and fiction; recent publications include an essay on the novelist Pierre Guyotat and a translation of an 18th-century comic opera about Aristotle’s sex life.
What are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
I have bad habit of reading too many things at once, but among those is Rumi’s Masnavi, which I’ve been slowly working through in a bilingual edition to teach myself Persian. I’m about 1,200 of 24,000 couplets of the way in and would, at least on that basis, recommend it. The skepticism about the popularization of Rumi is in some sense justified—in addition to the “erasure of Islam” in so many recent translations, the poetry is also far weirder, funnier, more didactic, and in parts more playful and verbose than those translations let on. Much of the Masnavi’s first book, for instance, is devoted to stories about humans and their talking parrots, which have a slapstick quality and simultaneously function as allegories for spiritual progress.
I would provide quotes, but it is quite difficult to extract a line or two of his writing without entirely losing its effect—this accounts for why, quite independently of the quality of translation, the versions of Rumi made up of individual couplets presented as self-standing nuggets of pseudospiritual wisdom are good for airport sales and little else. Let this be encouragement to read Rumi for yourselves. The recently completed translation of the Masnavi in six volumes by Jawid Mojaddedi distinguishes itself by translating the entire work in rhyming couplets and will likely be largely unrecognizable to those who have encountered the other versions floating around.
Who do you think is the most overrated philosopher?
Aristotle. This is what keeps me coming back for more. (I give this answer under the assumption that overratedness is compatible with real value in an author’s work.)
One aspect of Aristotle’s overratedness has to do, of course, with his views of women, non-Greeks, and others, the invidiousness of which is now generally acknowledged, though this acknowledgment less often extends to how profoundly these views are fundamentally connected to the parts of his work for which he is, at present, most admired.
In this case, “overratedness” also refers to a discrepancy of some sort, between the work itself (however that is to be measured, a question which I am skeptical has any clear answer) and the esteem in which this “work” is held or the degree of influence it has exercised on later thinkers.
What drives much of my own interest is the tenacity and persistence of Aristotle in the two millennia since his death. In other words, Aristotle is a very useful vehicle for navigating an extremely broad historical landscape. This includes intellectual currents—e.g. ancient neo-Platonism (hence a problematic appellation), Islamic falsafa, and Latin scholasticism—that belong to what is sometimes called “the Aristotelian tradition,” though one should be skeptical of such a label, especially when the definite article is affixed, inasmuch as it suggests both homogeneity and a form of changelessness.
Aristotle is equally valuable for approaching those currents that form themselves in reaction to, or in rejection of what is conceived of as Aristotelianism—e.g. Suhrawardian Ishraq, Renaissance neo-Platonism and nova philosophia, and, of course, someone like Descartes. Tracing such stances of appropriation and repudiation requires an awareness of the different versions of “Aristotle” alive at different moments, and an attention to how an apparently loyal follower might engage in a great deal of unacknowledged transformation and, mutatis mutandis, how a self-professed critic might in fact be deeply indebted to a thinker they claim to reject.
If you could have a one-hour conversation with any philosopher or historical figure from any time, who would you pick and what topic would you choose?
Besides a general reluctance to bring someone back from the dead only to have them endure an hour of conversation with me, as opposed to whatever else they might want to do during their brief resurrection, I must also express my reluctance on purely selfish grounds.
Having spent much of my time reading authors who are dead, it has become increasingly clear to me that the fact that they are dead, i.e. that they are no longer available for conversations, greatly contributes to, rather than detracts from, the pleasure of the endeavor. And, consequently, being able to speak to a dead author would destroy a great deal of that pleasure.
I say this not because it is easier to make a dead author say whatever one would like them to than it is a living one, though this is also no doubt true. Such a tendency is more common among scholars than one might wish and is, however strenuously one might try to avoid it, a temptation to which everyone, at least occasionally, succumbs.
What I mean is simply to point how much less fun it would be if, instead of having to work out what a text means using historical, philological, linguistic, and, indeed, philosophical judgment (as well as, to be sure, good luck), you could simply ask its author to settle the matter for you.
What topic do you think is under explored in philosophy?
Translation, its methods, its limits, as well as how to read a translation. This has of course been the subject of much discussion in literary studies—a lot of it fruitful, some not so much—strikes me as one instance where analytic philosophy of language might be useful for thinking about literature. Without seeing this carried out, one can’t know for sure, but it might be a good change from what passes for “philosophy of literature,” which is often not just superficial but has the curious feel of being written by and for people who are either disinterested in, or actively dislike, literature.
You’re stuck on a desert island and you can only have one recreational activity. What is it?
The first and most obvious answer to this question is probably both more or less universal and not the sort of thing one should give as an answer in a “professional” context such as this one, so I’ll say: reading and writing. It’s not often enough remembered that these are one activity.
What is your least favorite type of fruit and why?
Largely due to prejudices instilled in me in childhood, I find bananas generally disgusting, though I nevertheless do eat them with some frequency for reasons purely of convenience. This in turn leads to a certain degree of resentment toward the fruit, which might more properly be directed toward my parents.
Along with a striking number of people whose taste I consider generally reliable, I also find the taste of papaya repulsive. However, this reaction is a far less good reason for dislike than my moral outrage toward pineapple. Though frankly delicious, that fruit has what I consider to be an unforgivable propensity to cause my husband unbearable stomach pain.
What would you like your last meal to be?
I’m tempted here to give a perverse answer and say that the ideal last meal is a replica of the first. In reality, I try not to eat too much dairy, and I also generally dislike meals consisting primarily of liquids, which make me feel like I’m becoming a water balloon. So, this temptation is less the expression of a real desire and so stems more from the appeal of symmetry and from the sense that the moment immediately before one’s death is an opportune time to express a wish that, in other circumstances, would remain unsaid. It also seems like a time when desires of which one had previously been entirely unaware might come, unbidden, to the surface.
Alternatively, a recreation of des Esseintes’ funereal all-black farewell dinner (À rebours)—of olives, caviar, blackcurrants, mustard seeds, and blood pudding, to which one might add mole oaxaqueño and ambulthiyal, a stunning Sri Lankan preparation of fish using a sour and black spice mix—would be a delicious choice and a way to ensure something memorable for the others in attendance, which is just as important as one’s own gustatory pleasure.
What’s your top tip or advice for APA members reading this?
Organize for Palestine and against occupation and genocide. Use whatever position you have to militate against one of the worst atrocities in living memory. This is especially incumbent for those of us living in the US and its satellites, since we are implicated directly in this barbarism. You might even do so within the APA and framework of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). Feel free to reach out to me, ejcdelj@gmail.com
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest, not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form.
Smrutipriya Pattnaik
Smrutipriya Pattnaik is the Teaching Beat Editor and Series Editor for the Syllabus Showcase Series at the APA Blog. She is an adjunct assistant professor at Santa Fe College in Gainesville, Florida and holds a PhD in philosophy from the Indian Institute of Technology Indore. Her research focuses on utopian imagination and political thought in the context of modern crises. She is currently working on her first book, Politics, Utopia, and Social Imagination.
