Help, I'm trapped in an ivory tower! Or "what the fuck am i getting myself into with this academia stuff"

are other fields in the humanities as maddeningly specific as English? like, yes, i know you need to find some poor sucker to teach your undergraduate shakespeare course, but do they really need to specialize as a shakespeare scholar to do that? i find this assumption that you can only effectively teach an undergraduate course in something if you wrote your dissertation (itself highly specialized and probably of no interest to undergrads) about it really bizarre. i guess im saying, whither the generalists?

OMG music is not like that. With a composition PhD, I've taught so many popular music and world music (and popular music of the world) courses. I've seen theory classes taught by clarinettists or percussionists. This is the first year that I'm teaching what I did specialize in in my doctoral work, actually, unless you count post-tonal theory, which I've taught twice.

they tend to apply that attitude in philosophy, although they just as often take any warm body in a pinch (so we're all assumed equally competent to teach intro, ethics and political, some ancient and modern, logic, with all of those assumptions actually ill founded). might apply more with upper-division courses.

woe to all generalists. : (

Yeah, what I said mostly applied to sessional/adjunct teaching or to more undergrad teaching-oriented f/t positions, especially with lower-level courses. For TT jobs at high-ranking or research-oriented places, you'd need to be very specialized. And, even then, music used to be more of a field for generalists, I think.

so we're all assumed equally competent to teach intro, ethics and political, some ancient and modern, logic, with all of those assumptions actually ill founded

c'mon we're talking undergrad here. if you can't teach all of those competently then you shouldn't have a phd in philosophy. but I think I've said this here before.

anyway I'd love to hire generalists. to get through a relatively open-area search though there have to be some upper level courses that the search committee can tag you as covering, courses already on the books (since adding courses is often pretty complex and time-consuming). the easiest thing to do is just to pick some pretty standard course that's relatively close to your dissertation topic / current projects.

anyway I have just climbed into an ivory tower made of cheese and it is weird kinda starting all over again wrt knowing how things work

shoulds and realities are different. i've had credentialed colleagues who could have only taught logic under duress, if at all.

i don't think i complained about being passed over for not being able to teach upper-level courses.

humblebrag hall of fame xp

humblebrag? nah it kicks ass, but it's weird going into a different academic system, in a different language to boot. like I guess going to/from oxford/usa is weird b/c of the tutorial system, but at least it's all in english. maybe I can get a slate pub out of this or something.

did we do this one http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2014/09/how_do_professors_get_hired_the_academic_job_search_explained.html

“Well,” you soldier on, “have you ever thought of moving to [ major metropolitan area ] and working at [ world-renowned institution ]?"

I was once visiting the campus of [world-renowned institution] for reasons totally unrelated to a job and my dad, bless his heart, suggested i go to the english department and introduce myself and let them know i was looking for a job.

your dad knew it would brighten their day with a good hearty laugh

dad

dad, dad, dad

no

i feel bad for him because this whole thing, from studying literature (and even worse now, "theory") to now he's been totally supportive despite not understanding a whit of what im doing or why.

it would be kinda fun if jobs in academia worked that way. just hanging around campus, waiting for a "help wanted" sign to pop up.

'just coming in to fill out an application'

these highly specific topics for postdocs are always so weird to me:

The Jackman Humanities Institute at the University of Toronto seeks 4 Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellows for a two-year appointment 2016-2018 with research relevant to the 2016-17 theme:

Time, Rhythm, and Pace
The modern experience of time is often characterized by its increasing speed, its linearity, and its emphasis on now. But time does not have to be regarded as the flight of an arrow, a race track, or a forking path. If we consider the body, the planet, or the longue durée of history, it becomes clear that rhythm, cycle, pace and temporality pervade the human condition, now as they have always done. Occurring at multiple scales (neuronal firing, diurnal habits, menses, calendars, life cycles, the rise and fall of civilizations), rhythm is concrete, existential, and profound. How do rhythm and cycle, rather than velocity, characterize human life? What are the politics of chronology? How can a deeper understanding of time, rhythm, and pace -- from literary theorists, historians, phenomenologists, political scientists, and diverse other sectors of the academy -- provide us with guidance in an increasingly frantic and fast-paced world?

rhythm is concrete, existential, and profound

classic case of "uh i need a third word here...uh, profound! yeah that's it."

i should apply for that, pleased that ilx is doing my job-hunting for me

good luck! it seems like a really nice one. I was trying to think if i could spin my own work to fit that topic and was then hit with a wave of exhaustion that basically wiped my mind clear of any thoughts at all.

I did an undergrad fellowship there, and my supervisor is a current fellow, so I can attest it is in fact a very nice position.

It's not a department but an autonomous humanities institute, hence the themes, which aren't specific to the postdocs but structure the entire year's programming. That said, I'm really hoping whatever the subsequent year's theme will be at least marginally relevant enough for me to apply.

Canadian haemorrhoid Rex Murphy on the uselessness of the Arts and Humanities, complete with a healthy dollop of transphobia.

jane austin??? cura te ipsum

Does anyone think Sulkowicz knows anything about the Holocaust, or that she could even spell Auschwitz?

What the hell?

Oh man. A commenter points out that Sulkowicz's grandparents were Auschwitz survivors.

If, against my better judgment, I have to parse Murphy's logic, I gather that it seems to be this: Alex Johnstone claimed she didn't know what Auschwitz was when people started jumping on her for making a tasteless dick joke on Facebook years ago. Murphy: i) took this at face value instead of assuming that it was a weak excuse/deflection and ii) concluded that this means that no one under 40 learns about the Holocaust anymore (even though I had to read a book about it in Grade 4 and it is the subject of a million Hollywood blockbusters). He then concluded that this is because university humanities departments, whose undergrad course catalogues I assume Murphy has not perused, have become wholly devoted to the study of pop culture and social justice issues and no one reads the classics or, um, learns basic 20th century history. However, there is no problem with science or engineering or business departments, which presumably find plenty of time to teach young adults about the Holocaust in between calculus and cell biology or whatever they're doing. (But maybe they're suspiciously indoctrinating young minds about climate change instead?)

Also, Emma Sulkowicz probably doesn't know how to spell "Auschwitz" because she did a performance art project for her MA thesis.

If you're gonna give up, give up soon:

http://chronicle.com/article/On-the-Academic-Job-Market/233559

In most disciplines, at least half of the assistant professorships went to candidates who were A.B.D. — having finished "all but dissertation" — or had graduated during the previous calendar year[...] At least three-quarters of tenure-track jobs for assistant professors are filled by scholars no more than four years removed from earning their Ph.D.s. In many fields, that proportion surpasses 80 percent.

i'll be at the 3 year mark this december. and considering how poorly the last few years have gone i think 3 years (4 if you count my ABD year) is plenty.

is there a thread somewhere on ilxor.com that isn't visibel to the public where we can whinge about horribly-conducted job searches and the general awfulness that comes with seeking a faculty position?

it might save everyone a lot of grief if tenure were awarded at birth to rich kids and the children of the already tenured to accept or reject when they come of age, depending on how they want to spend their time as adults. pretending that the extreme unfairness afflicting the rest of the US doesn't apply to the academy doesn't do anyone disadvantaged any favors, much less help fix the unfairness itself

hard not to wonder sometimes, especially regarding the humanities, what scholarship / higher learning might look like if we acted like intelligence were equally distributed among all the classes, instead of conveniently concentrated in rich connected families. but that's silly talk

huh?

i've met much a lower percentage of tenure-track and tenured faculty who come from poor families than i've met people in general who come from poor families. if my experience is not somehow unique, and this is a trend, then I wonder what the academy in general and the humanities in particular would be like if it were less dominated by people who grew up privileged or at least financially secure. if my experience is an exception, and not the rule, how unlucky i am

doesn't it have more to do w/ it being harder for people without family support to begin -- and more important, finish -- graduate school? once you're over that hurdle, i'm not sure if there are any bigger barriers to the tenure track to people from poor or working-class backgrounds..... of course it's nearly impossible for /anyone/ to get tenure-track jobs these days.

maybe i'm naïve though. i honestly don't know the backgrounds of all my professors in any detail. a few of them are following in their parents' footsteps (they were faculty brats), but a few of them definitely had working-class origins (parents were farmers/factory workers).

Well, having family money could help, as it could help in most areas of life, wrt being able to take low-paying part-time positions, being able to go to conferences when you don't get funding, paying for performances and recordings (in the field of music), not going bankrupt if you get sick, etc. Doesn't mean people don't still have to work for it, though; no one gets tenure as a birthright. I agree that the biggest hurdles would come earlier. I know that a couple of my grad school peers who ended up with permanent positions did come from working-class backgrounds but I'm not going to argue that a comfortable background doesn't help.

from an academic friend on FB:

"Look, the only sensible thing, however much one loves teaching, is to get out of a market when it is this bad. Teaching can be a joy and even a bit addictive but at some point one needs to cut one's losses. Leaving academia does not mean the end of intellectual life or activity. One can still attend conferences for example. More than that, one can take the time to read outside one's own academic area and perhaps get a broader view of the world."

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/02/national-survey-sheds-light-previously-ignored-adjunct-faculty-concerns

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2015/12/29/lawsuit-claims-teaching-assistants-at-amherst-were-told-to-sleep-with-students-to-boost-class-enrollment/

w.h.a.t.

Holy crap

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/01/11/new-analysis-offers-more-evidence-against-student-evaluations-teaching

first day of class im teaching is tomorrow. it'll be over in april. unless a hail mary comes through (ie, another postdoc) I'm planning for this to be my last semester in academia. half terrified and half relieved.

kicking off the semester tonight with Government and Non-Profit Accounting and Reporting. the icing on the cake of an 8 hour work day

starting to teach another online course, weirdly weightless still, feeling kind of like ryan but still with no real idea about a future

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yh-QWKGbm2Q

you know, like caine

YES

you know...meet people, get in adventures.

been doing a lot of self-assessment and more and more it feels like the right decision. im tapped out. there's definitely no passion or excitement for it anymore, and absent a stable paycheck if this work doesn't engage you anymore there's not much at all to recommend it other than a lot of self-directed free time (no small thing).

i think i could do good work, at least publishable work, but not enough of it, and not certainly not fast enough, to make it in academia as it's presently set up. i finished a book 6 months ago and people are like "now what?" and i simply dont have any ideas that aren't really vague at this point, things that are years away from being something i can write up and show to others. I feel like i need time to really immerse myself in some things but you can't go far on vague musings this early in your career.

im not able to simply pump out articles, and frankly the thought of doing so is nauseating to me. it took me forever to write my dissertation. so a slow pace, relative lack of a prestigious institutional association, an inability to really market what im trying to do, and the lack of a flag to fly (or at least a flag that's not simply a non-starter in the humanities) or a group or movement to belong to essentially seals my fate.

haha 'now what' how about yall read my book and think about it for a minute motherfuckers

there is not a huge call for exegesis of the works of herr W but it was at least a scholarly niche i could have exploited, except that i felt like the people fussing over their interpretive befuddlements were sort of nowhere, no idea what they were about. over time as i've built up more of an interpretation of my own in concert with broader reading in philosophy that i needed, i have started to feel like i could get back into the nuts-and-bolts stuff without it being nauseating, mainly because i would have a sense of standing somewhere, but i still am hampered by a debilitating lack of… belief in any particular thing. like, i can't take others' academic work seriously enough to expend the effort on it to make my the grist for my mill, and i don't have enough / concrete enough things of my own i'm committed to that i can just spin the articles out of myself spider-style.

the funny thing is, i stay readin my philosophy… broke some gadamer out for pleasure the other day, still meeting with some old friends and colleagues to read through j bernstein's book on adorno, tiptoed into reading sein und zeit auf deutsch this fall—my habitus is just all out of whack and the idea of working up a 20-minute conference paper on anything might as well be an ancient babylonian rite as far as i'm concerned

a major pet peeve of mine is so many major academics/intellectuals taking the air out of the room by publishing formulaic iterations of a few key ideas, essentially pushing other voices out of the way. perhaps this is a function of the publishing industry and authorial egos meshing well.

but i still am hampered by a debilitating lack of… belief in any particular thing.

the mark of a lot of mediocre work in my field is essentially the "X academic trend + Y canon" (ie, Environmental Studies and, say, the Harlem Renaissance). but the key is the X part, which often makes sense for grad students, since to expect them to develop an entire critical POV is asking a lot. but the consequence of this seems to be a kind of futures market for ideas: what trend will be in demand when i hit job market?

honestly all that shit is fine. really. i dont see how it could be any other way, but the bigger problem is that that's ALL there is anymore. either you fit a job description which reads like a shopping list or you go back to slinging coffee or whatever. there's very little wiggle room unless you're some kind of self-marketing genius or able to do something different while making it sound like something else that's more in fashion. i think middle of the road academics like myself--who may do interesting left field work or may not--wont really get that chance anymore.