I recall once reading a paper in which the author adduced as evidence of the vibrant state of Nietzsche studies the fact that there are now three specialist journals for Nietzsche articles--Nietzsche-Studien, Journal of Nietzsche Studies, and New Nietzsche Studies--not to mention three English-speaking professional organizations: the North American Nietzsche Society (NANS), the Friedrich Nietzsche Society of Great Britain (FNS), and the Nietzsche Society, another American-based Nietzsche group, aligned with the Society for Phenomenology & Existential Philosophy.

My reaction to this evidence, by contrast, was the opposite: the reason there is a proliferation of specialty Nietzsche forums is because the field is populated with mediocrities and incompetents, who can't perform in ordinary scholarly and philosophical contexts. Because the majority of those who write on Nietzsche don't do work that is publishable in legitimate journals that feature important work on Nietzsche--European Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, Journal of the History of Philosophy, History of Philosophy Quarterly, Journal of the History of Ideas (not to mention Philosophical Review and Ethics!)--it is necessary to create "specialty" journals that have almost no scholarly or philosophical standards in which the vast amount of rubbish on Nietzsche can find a place. The field of Kant studies, a robust scholarly field, provides a striking point of contrast: most of the leading Kant scholars publish in the journals just mentioned, and the up-and-coming young scholars try to do the same. One does not find in Kant studies a proliferation of "specialized" Kant journals that publish nothing but (third-rate) work on Kant. There is, to be sure, one specialty journal, Kant-Studien, about which I know little, though I hope it is better than Nietzsche-Studien, which apart from publishing occasional, useful philological and intellectual history pieces, rarely features anything philosophically substantial. (One philosopher who submitted to them tells me his piece was rebuffed because it featured that "Anglo-Saxon" tendency to focus on "coherence" and "arguments." Imagine that!)

Harsh talk, I know, but readers of this blog are used to it. I am particularly incensed by what's become of the North American Nietzsche Society (NANS) under the direction of Richard Schacht of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Schacht's 1983 book on Nietzsche (Routledge) did much to raise the level of Nietzsche studies in English-speaking philosophy--kudos and gratitude to Professor Schacht for that important contribution--but as the de facto dictator of NANS, he has, for mysterious reasons, pandered to mediocrities, putting them on committees, including their papers in NANS programs, and so on. Since I know that Schacht's view of this work is not much different from my own, I have found his posture peculiar: instead of using NANS to advance philosophically substantial Nietzsche studies, he has, in the service of "inclusiveness," legitimized weak work and promoted the careers of scholars who do not do work up to the high standards he has set.

What's worse is that the effort has been pointless. During the 1990s, New Nietzsche Studies was launched by "the Nietzsche Society," the other group for American Nietzsche "scholars" [sic] affiliated with SPEP, the primary organization for those interested in European philosophy who aren't very good at philosophy. (Anyone with doubts on this score should take a look at, e.g., Babette Babich's Nietzsche's Philosophy of Science, a book apparently written on the premise that it is not necessary to have any knowledge of philosophy of science to nonetheless explain Nietzsche's. Babich is a key figure in the Nietzsche Society and its journal New Nietzsche Studies; she was also the target of Samuel Wheeler's recent, amusing remarks in a NDPR book review: "Babette Babich’s [essay] consists largely of assertions about analytic philosophy and citations of other people’s assertions. A reader somewhat familiar with both traditions will be puzzled as to why some of these assertions are taken to be true.")

Don't misunderstand the point of this little polemic: obviously a professional organization must represent both the very best and the solid laborers in the field. The problem with NANS is that it has also chosen to "include"--indeed, gone out of its way to include--"scholars" who, if they worked on Kant or Descartes or Plato, wouldn't be able to get on a professional program at a scholarly meeting.

The straw that broke this camel's back, however, was the latest announcement from "on high" that Jim Conant of the University of Chicago is to be the new head of the Program Committee. (It appears that Professor Schacht makes these decisions unilaterally.) Conant replaced Alan Schrift, who at least had written a lot on Nietzsche. Conant, by contrast, has published only one substantial paper on Nietzsche since beginning his teaching career 15 years ago--in a book edited by none other than Dick Schacht! The paper, a reading of Nietzsche's Schopenhauer as Educator, was part of Conant's doctoral thesis, so it's one he's been working on for more than 15 years. Yet this one paper is, itself, a problematic piece of work. As I wrote in my review of the Schacht collection in Mind: