Philosophy professor brings a worldly perspective to Lehigh

At the young age of 19, Ricki Bliss, assistant professor of philosophy, had never left Australia. However, that was about to drastically change. She hopped on a plane and traveled over 7,000 miles from her hometown of Brisbane, Queensland, to Zimbabwe.

This choice may seem strange to most. It even seemed strange to Bliss.

“I honestly have no idea,” she said. “19 and off to Zimbabwe.”

After this first trip abroad, traveling became a main part of Bliss’s life. She has since traveled to Germany, India and Japan — just to name a few — doing everything from research to teaching English.

Bliss’s international experiences, as well as her concentrations in metaphysics and epistemology (both branches of philosophy), corresponded perfectly with a job opening as an assistant professor of philosophy in Bethlehem — a place to which she had never been.

“The description for what they wanted sounded like the job ad was written specifically for me,” Bliss said. “I met basically every one of their idiosyncratic requirements.”

The philosophy department decided to begin searching for a new faculty member in the fall of 2013 due to the impending retirement of Steve Goldman, the Andrew W. Mellon Distinguished Professor in the Humanities. He has been with the department for 38 years.

Due to extra funds from the dean’s office, the department was able to hire Goldman’s replacement while he finished his last two years at Lehigh rather than after his retirement, Goldman said.

“(The dean) thought it would be interesting and it would be good for the department — I think he was right about this — to have somebody come in while I was still here, and then we would make a transition,” Goldman said.

With the go-ahead from the dean, the philosophy department sent out an advertisement for the job opening that would become publicized by the American Philosophical Association, according to Robin Dillon, the William Wilson Selfridge professor of philosophy and department chair.

Some of the basic requirements for the job included an area of specialization in metaphysics and epistemology, as well as good teaching skills and having an established record as a scholar, Dillon said.

However, the advertisement also called for a candidate who could “contribute to the internationalization of the department and curriculum.”

This factor particularly helped Bliss stand out in a pool of about 200 applicants.

Bliss’s trip to Zimbabwe allowed her to learn a valuable lesson that would shape her academic journey and contribute to ideas aimed toward internationalization, another quality the department emphasized.

“The very first time I left Australia, I realized how ignorant I was and how wrong certain (ideas of mine) were,” Bliss said. “And it really frightened me.

“It frightened me to think I could go my whole life thinking so many false things and harmful things about other people and the world,” she said. “And so I guess I thought the way to cure that was by exposing myself to different places and people and ways of doing things.”

The applicant pool was eventually cut down to only 15 people by a search committee including Dillon, as well as two other philosophy professors and one physics professor. After a round of interviewing, three candidates, including Bliss, were invited to come to Lehigh’s campus.

“We all were very impressed with her,” Dillon said. “The interviewers and everybody else, when she came here, were impressed with her scholarship, impressed with the degree of international dimension to her work, and the ideas she has for internationalizing the curriculum.”

Though Bliss’ credentials presently adhere strongly to a career in philosophy, that wasn’t always her plan.

“My first undergraduate degree was actually a Bachelor of Science,” Bliss said. “I was pre-med; I was going to go to medical school.”

However, things changed after Bliss received her results for the medical school entrance exam.

Her scores were great. In fact, she did extremely well in the writing portion of the exam, which caused her to reevaluate the next step in her educational career.

“I realized, sure, I could go to medical school, and I would get through, but I felt like there was something else that I was better at,” Bliss said. “But I didn’t quite know what it was.

“So instead of going to medical school, I went traveling,” she said.

After heading to Zimbabwe, Bliss spent some time in India, where her interest in philosophy initially blossomed. She described this as “a process of discovery” due to the fact that philosophy is virtually unknown in Australia.

“In Australia, you don’t do philosophy,” Bliss said. “In high school, it’s not something that people even know exists.”

Yet despite this, Bliss returned to Australia after both traveling the world and teaching English in Japan for a year and began a journey to gain a degree in philosophy.

Since then, Bliss has earned her doctorate, published several scholarly papers and lectured at many universities around the world. Most recently, she received a fellowship from Humboldt University in Germany, which will enable her to travel  next summer as well as during the 2016 academic year.

“I never feel unsettled in strange places,” Bliss said. “It doesn’t really bother me. And I guess I must find it thrilling in some way.”

Until then, Bliss will continue to make her home in the cottage-looking philosophy department with the hopes of incorporating her international experiences into her teachings.

“One’s life experiences contribute to the kind of person you are,” Bliss said. “And I think the kind of person you are influences how you teach the things you teach.”