elisa freschiHow to address an academic – elisa freschi https://elisafreschi.com These pages are a sort of virtual desktop of Elisa Freschi. You can find here my cv and some random thoughts on Sanskrit (and) Philosophy. All criticism welcome! Contributions are also welcome! Wed, 22 Apr 2026 19:06:15 +0000 en-US hourly 1 How to address an academic https://elisafreschi.com/2018/10/05/how-to-address-an-academic/ https://elisafreschi.com/2018/10/05/how-to-address-an-academic/#comments Fri, 05 Oct 2018 17:00:12 +0000 elisa freschi http://elisafreschi.com/?p=2869 short promemoria for younger colleagues

It happens time and again that a male colleague or student I never met writes me addressing me as “Madam” (or any other form of it). This is not a crime, but I wonder whether they are aware of what they are implicitly communicating by doing it, namely that they consider the fact of being a woman more relevant than the fact of being a scholar. Fine, if you are inviting someone to the opera, but somehow weird if you are asking them to review a book, write an article or participate in a conference…

I would therefore suggest to address members of the academia, if one is writing to them as members of the academia, by focusing on what makes them into members of the academia, namely their being scholars. This often translates into an academic title (Prof., Dr.…).

How do readers react when they are addressed in a different way?

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