New Kid on the Hallway

Hmmm (a title I've used before)

A little behind the times, I just found an interesting comment on another blog (I'd say another medieval blog, because it is, but I'm not sure I'd characterize my own as a medieval blog): 

Those blogs that are academic purely because the blogs talk about the trials and tribulations of the academic life are not long for this world. Like general purpose e-mail listservs, their peak has probably passed.

What say you, o denizens of teh interwebs? Has the time for blogs analyzing the academic life passed? If so, why? If not, why not? (Support your answer with evidence from the course readings. Oh wait, this isn't an exam...)

ETA: More raw data to work with: Rate Your Students asked its readers to send links to their favorite academic blogs (full disclosure: I'm on it, which is how I found it - I don't read RYS very regularly). Interestingly, according to Technorati, the post listing the links people sent in was originally prefaced by the statement, "We received a tiny dribble of some must-read academic blogs, but hardly any were accompanied by anything approaching wit or style. We're so depressed by this, yet will champion on." However, the post as it stands omits this phrase. It does, however, note:

One of our favorite correspondents sends in the following notes. We love him. In that collegial sort of way, we mean:

Except for "University Diaries," most academic blogs are tedious. Consider the source. These are the people you purposely avoid in the hallway. I know, let's burn five minutes catching up on how you sipped boxed wine and tweaked your PowerPoint presentation over the weekend or how the proles in duplicating reversed pages three and four on your course syllabus.

"Oh, lookie here! I found my favorite pen, maybe I can get back to work on that darn dissertation ... maybe I'll just post another picture of my 18-year-old cat, Mr. Scabies."

Did someone declare open season on "academic life" blogs, and I missed it??

ETA again: University Diaries also has a brief post about this - the comments are few, but perhaps revealing (except my wordy one, of course).

More discussions of social traumas

There's a column in the latest Chronicle that I find kind of interesting. Carol Peace (going by a pseudonym) writes about her difficulty in creating a social network at her new position, attributing it to the fact that the majority of women in her department - not to mention the campus as a whole, it seems - are pregnant or have recently had children. She laments how hard it has been to find friends to go out and do stuff with, given the constraints that parenthood places on her potential friends' lives. (She states that she is decidedly not anti-pregnancy, though, and I do believe her on that one.)

Now, I think that parenting can complicate a friendship between parents and non-parents. My life is much more flexible, schedule-wise, than those of the people I know who have kids, and I have a friend from Former College with whom it has been very hard to connect since she had her baby. Both she and her husband work, and if I stop to think about it, the parents who've had the most social flexibility are those (duh) whose spouses aren't working or only work part-time.

But I wanted to point out that creating a social network of ANY kind just gets harder and harder as you get older. Many of you out in the blogosphere have already remarked on this. I have a hard time connecting with my single friends, let alone those with kids (not that those two categories need be mutually exclusive, though in my own life right now they are). Interestingly, Peace also describes how hard it has been to connect with the few non-parents she has met:

My husband and I did find two childless couples. One is actively trying to start a family, but we've started to shop together for furniture or have an occasional cookout. The second couple seems up for most invitations we have made but rarely takes the initiative to call us. I am happy to report that they finally had us over for dinner at their place this summer.

I'd contend that the problem is not only mixing with parents as a non-parent, but just the nature of "grown-up" life in general. Making friends just sucks when you're no longer in homeroom with someone everyday or rooming with them in a dorm or post-college apartment. The more stuff one accumulates, the more one lives in one's own space rather than sharing with others, the more responsibility one takes on at work, the more parents age and need care from their children, the more difficult it becomes to make friends.

Peace also mentions that to take her position, she moved from "a town of 10,000 people to one of more than 100,000." It's clear that she thought moving to a larger town would entail a larger group of people with which to socialize. But having made the leap from my own little town (Rural Utopia) to a city, though a bit bigger than 100,000 (Former College City), I learned that in fact it's much easier to create a social network in a setting where you're thrown together with the same people over and over again. When everyone you know shops at the same supermarket, you can't help but get to know people. (I knew people at RU who deliberately grocery-shopped at 3 am so that they could have some privacy in the store.) When six houses on the same block are owned by people who also work together, socializing isn't that hard. In terms of making friends, being the big fish in the small pond is definitely preferable to being a small fish in a big pond. (This assumes, of course, that everyone else in the small pond isn't a jerk. Certainly the small pond can be a miserable place, but more because you know far too well far too many people who you don't especially like, rather than not knowing people at all.)

This isn't meant to dismiss Peace's comments about the mismatched social lives of parents and childless. In fact, I'd love to hear from the moms out there about how they perceive such friendships. But I'd suggest that reproduction isn't the only complicating factor here.*

*I should add that Peace might well agree with me - this is, after all, a brief column for the Chronicle, not a learned tome on the subject and I'm sure it doesn't represent quite everything she feels on the subject. I just wanted to add on to her comments, rather than dispute them.

A question for teh internets

I know there are a number of you out there involved in instructional technology, which is something I'm interested in possibly pursuing in the future. How did you get into the field, and what would you suggest as the best path for getting into the field?

(It's interesting because most of the IT people I've talked to have fallen into the field in a variety of unexpected ways, rather than doing something like getting a degree in the subject - though I've also met someone who did that. So I'm curious about how this all works. I should add that my knowledge of IT comes from the faculty side, where I think about what I want to do pedagogically and adopt different forms of technology in order to do so - I'm not especially tech-y, though I am more so than many faculty I know; my familiarity is with the basic suite of programs that faculty use, rather than any of the behind the scenes programming or whatnot.)

Thank you, o wise ones!

Commence uncontrollable giggling

Via the Chronicle's afternoon update, I give you, courtesy of Gawker:

The Top Two Annoying Liberal Arts Colleges Duke It Out

I've come into this a bit late - they're on the finals now, having eliminated most of their top ten (or however many it was), and the contenders are Sarah Lawrence and Wesleyan.

I hope employees/alumni/students/fans of those two schools [Tenured Radical, I'm lookin' at you] won't be offended if I say I find the whole contest utterly hysterical.

(Full disclosure: my own liberal arts college didn't make any of the lists, I suspect because it's a little too conventional, but it would probably fall somewhere around the Swarthmore/Vassar end of the continuum.)

(And in case anyone was unclear, this is about as scientific as Rate My Professors, but like RMP, it amuses me.)

A conversation I suspect I will have to repeat in future

I went out for drinks/snacks with some people tonight, one from Former College and two associated with where I am right now (Temporary College). One of the latter, making conversation, asked me and my colleague what we thought of Former College. My Former College colleague and my Temporary College colleague, who both know about my non-renewal, kind of - well, not froze, but paused, a little. And they both looked at me.

I said, "I'm not the best person to ask, as I'm leaving."

Oh, says Temporary College colleague #2, what are you doing?

"I'm moving to ------, where my husband has a good job, and I'll be teaching at University of -------- for a year, and then we'll see what happens."

Pause.

S/he asks: So, just general disgust, or....?

"I wasn't renewed at third-year review."

And damn if I don't feel like crap right now.

(Not because this person said anything to make me feel like crap, I should point out - it was a very pleasant evening and this person was perfectly nice and we had a fun conversation overall. It's just that I make me feel like crap.)

Pondering where this blog is going

You know, I was realizing lately that some of the posts that I most enjoy writing and feel happiest about are those in which I rip to shreds comment on Chronicle articles. What can I say, (self-)righteous indignation is fun.

Actually, it's more that I like the fact that such posts are less me-centered and more about specific issues than most of my others. They feel like they have, you know, substance, rather than consisting of whines. (Not to say that others' posts about themselves are insubstantial whines! I'm just not as good a blogger as those folks.)

So then I was thinking: Well, I could do more of that - comment on academic issues - you know, exercise those vaunted analytical skills I got in grad school.

But then I thought: Yeah, but who the hell wants to hear what someone who got booted out of her tenure-track has to say about academia? A tenure-track person has a position from which to speak. A whatever-I-am? Not so much.

(I should add that this DOES NOT mean that I think, logically, that anyone who isn't on the tenure-track doesn't have the right/ability/expertise to comment on academic issues. All I mean is that emotionally, I clearly derived a much greater sense of authority from that academic position than I realized before this.)

So then I thought: Well, you know, you could comment on other stuff. Like, non-academic stuff. That's important to you. You know, like Bitch Ph.D.-style feminist stuff. Or animal stuff. Love the fluffy animals.

But you know what I realized? I don't really like talking about stuff like that on the internet. For instance, the feminism thing. I'm a feminist (of whatever variety; there are lots of variations), I have no qualms saying I'm a feminist, I've been known to talk about a lot issues through the lens of feminism, or that are relevant to feminism, or whatnot.

But if I start getting in discussions with various people around the internet about such things, it gets. so. exhausting. For instance, I don't really WANT to debate the ethics of abortion. I know how I feel about abortion, I know how other people who don't agree feel, and any discussion thereof just makes me tired. I feel like discussions of abortion in this country follow the same predictable lines and they make me want to poke my eyes out with a pointy stick. I know that there are lots of admirable people who don't agree with me on the subject and I respect their right to have those opinions, but I just don't want to talk about it any more - at least on the internet. Similarly, gay marriage. You're not changing my mind, and I'm doubtless not changing yours. We're both going to be saying things that each of us has heard a million times before and if they weren't convincing the first 999,999 times, it's not likely that they will be now. Or, if someone comes up with something new, we're both going to be saying, "Well, look at what they've come up with now."

I know, this isn't a very good attitude, especially for an academic (of whatever kind) who's supposed to be about openness, inquiry, debate, and all that good stuff.

Which I am.

Just about stuff that happened over 500 years ago.

And then I realized that it's not only that I'm not willing to talk about such issues, but that I'm just so not a theorist. (In Myers-Briggs tests, for instance, I always score through the roof on whatever measures down-to-earthness/concrete-detail-orientation as opposed to big-idea kind of thinking.) I don't want to talk about "abortion" or "gay marriage." Give me a specific context, a concrete issue or conflict to resolve, and I'm much happier - the more specific, the better. (Especially when there's a little ambiguity, where there's room for debate rather than declaration of loyalties.)

This may even be why I like responding to Chronicle articles so much. I'm much less likely to write a post saying, "Hey, kids, instructional technology is great and here's why!" than I am to say, "Holy crap, did you see the latest drivel about the problems with instructional technology??"

That probably doesn't say very good things about my character. Or originality. But it is what it is.

So I may be emphasizing the commentary over the personal a little bit here. Assuming, that is, that I have time to read/think about anything worth commenting on about which I feel I have something to say. Which, at this time, probably actually is academia. And I promise that I won't turn this into a one-note tune on what's wrong with the Chronicle! You will still get cat pictures and questions about what I should do with my hair.

(And speaking of the former, I haven't posted a cat picture for a while. So here you go. Sorry to say that it is yet again Youngest Cat hogging the camera.

)

I realize I'm cranky these days

But DAMN, I'm tired of reading about how things I enjoy or find useful are signs of how much current society sucks and how we're all going to hell in a handbasket.

(This, however, is a much more interesting take on "what's wrong with the world these days." I'm sure there are plenty who disagree, but it's an important question, and I can't help but think that if you replaced "women" with "Jews" or "African-Americans," there would be a lot more concern about the phenomenon. I think this is behind the Chronicle's firewall, so I'm going to be sort of - okay, completely - illegal and post the whole thing, but behind a cut.)

Oh, look, more snark disguised as analysis

And guess what? It's in the Chronicle! (No! Surely not!)

So what have we here? Another incredibly insightful commentary on technology and education. (I can't wait to see Geeky Mom's take on this, although she may well ignore it, as it's not really worth that much attention.) We have an associate professor who admits he's "doing pretty much the same things in class [he] was doing 20 years ago" (despite the fact that today's students are not the same as those from 20 years ago), who enquires among his colleagues about this new technology thing. And when they tell him about some of the ways in which he might use technology in his classroom, he proceeds to snark about each option and dismiss it without engaging in any serious consideration of the topic.

To wit:

I can create a course that's more user-friendly and appealing to today's students by incorporating more Web-based elements. That could be as simple as placing my syllabi, lecture notes, and other course materials on my Web site -- which would mean that I first have to get a Web site.

Um, yes...which implies that the effort involved in getting a web site today is analogous to what, scaling Mount Everest? Has he never heard of Blackboard or WebCT?

Or, even better:

To make my "Web content" more dynamic and original, I can record my classroom lectures and link the audio to my site in the form of "podcasts," which students can then download into their MP-3 players and listen to while jogging or playing video games. Why any student would actually want to do that is beyond me, especially when it seems they would rather shove bamboo shoots under their fingernails than listen to the live version. But my more wired colleagues assure me this is the wave of the future (podcasting, that is, not bamboo shoots).

What's particularly disturbing about this column is that much of his dismissal of educational technology seems to be inspired by a deep contempt for his students, as evidenced in the above comment about students' willingness to listen to live lectures. This is consistent throughout the column; for instance, he notes, "Colleagues...tell me students will say things in a chat room they would never say in class. Given what students do say in class, I'm not sure that's a good thing, but hey, I'm willing to experiment."

So, what we have is a professor who seems dismissive of his students' abilities or interest in the material, and who uses that to justify ignoring possible uses of technology in the classroom. Nice.

Now, I'm not claiming that technology will transform every classroom for the better, especially when one is using technology just for the sake of using technology. Moreover, I am firmly convinced that one can be a spectacular teacher and teach classes in which a great deal of learning takes place with nothing but (as the cliche goes) a blackboard and a piece of chalk (or, for the Hopkins-ites, a log). And under most circumstances I'm going to plug face-to-face teaching over something that's purely online. But that hardly seems to be a reason for dismissing technology's potential altogether. I think there's an old saying about babies and bathwater...

Finally, someone might read this and describe my tone as rather snarky, which seems to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black. But hey, I'm a blogger, and it seems that bloggers "can say anything they want, apparently without repercussion. In academe alone, we have right-wing kooks, left-wing kooks, anarchists, and openly unapologetic jihadists, each with his or her own blog." I wonder which category I fall into?

The childless woman rushes in where angels fear to tread

I've come late to the discussion about having kids and child-friendliness/unfriendliness that's going around a bunch of my favorite blogs, enough of them that I'm way too lazy to link. Anyway, in catching up I was reading Dean Dad's post advising a woman going on the academic job market while pregnant. Far better bloggers than I have weighed in about the question, but I had a few thoughts inspired by one of the comments, and was creating the comment that ate Brooklyn over there, so thought I'd come say them here.

So, an anonymous commenter shared her experience going on the market while pregnant, and one of the things she said was this:

I made a shortlist with a R1 dept (the job I had always thought I had wanted). I had to bring along my husband and my 2-month old son (who did great), because my son was not taking a bottle from ANYONE, and so it was either me, or nothing. I was really nervous about being there with a baby, but to my surprise, the older men on the faculty were the most gracious, the most informed, and the most polite men I had ever met (most of them had had wives who had stayed at home to raise their children). Perhaps they were concerned about legality, of course, but they were still great about it. It was the department's SINGLE WOMEN who work constantly that were cold and tried to avoid talking about the child, as if he were some sort of fancy bag I had brought along. or some sort of inconvenience that needed to be ignored entirely.

She goes on to say that this helped convince her that an R1 wasn't the place for her, and she's working at a small liberal arts college that allows for a much better balance between research, teaching, and family.

Having grown all cynical about the SLAC experience, I'm not sure that they're necessarily a panacea to the parenting issue - there are SLACs that will suck you dry, where parenting won't work very well, and there are doubtless R1s that are supportive. It varies so much from institution to institution.

But what I really wanted to do was talk about the cold single women for a second. Which will also entail quoting another anonymous comment at length (bear with me!):

It may be that the women don't like children. I know a number of women who pursue R1 positions with heavy research and publish expectations. They (all of the women I know) are in that particular sort of U specifically because they do not want to have kids - ever. 

It's hard to fake enthusiasm for someone else's children if you don't like kids generally. I'm at a comm. col. but have no intention of having offspring of my own. My husband and I have already decided that children are not something we want. Also, I don't particularly like to give any of my time or attention to other people's kids. They can stay at home as far as I'm concerned. It has nothing to do with my feelings on maternity leave or a woman's choice to reproduce. If you want to do so, live it up. Just don't involve me in the activity.

My point? Maybe the faculty members simply don't like 'little ones' and it has nothing to do with them being cold or disinterested in you as a candidate. Not all of us love kids or talking about them.

After reading people like Bitch Ph.D. and Anastasia, I kinda wanna call bullshit on this. I think there's a vast difference between not wanting to have children of your own - EVER - which, incidentally, describes me - and expecting never to have to interact with kids ever again. Because kids are, you know, actual human beings who have a right to experience the world, and more to the point, parents - especially moms - are people who should have the right to balance both work and family. I think that the statements "They [children] can stay at home as far as I'm concerned" and "It has nothing to do with my feelings on maternity leave or a woman's choice to reproduce" are fundamentally contradictory, because it seems like this commenter is saying that women are more than welcome to reproduce or take maternity leave, as long as that commenter never has to see those children because they never leave their house. Which is kind of like saying, sure, you can reproduce, but you can't occupy the same spaces that I do (because face it, if the children can never leave the home, in practice that's going to mean that the mom hardly ever can, either). Which kind of adversely influences mom's ability to work.

So, going back to the first comment, I do think one of the major problems women face in any kind of career is integrating parenting with working, and I think resolving that problem requires a little more patience/comfort with kids in places we often don't expect to see them. If a department is trying to recruit someone (man, woman) with a child, who has actually brought that child with them, it is polite - and more likely to endear you to the candidate - to try to make that person feel comfortable about the situation. There are a number of ways that this can happen, but acknowledging the child's existence is probably a good one. That doesn't mean conversation should be taken over by discussion of the child when the occasion is an interview; but more to the point, ackn

That being said - I also have some sympathy for those cold single women, because I could very well be one of them (though I'm married - probably a better characterization is cold childless women). The cold women may well just be unfamiliar with/uncomfortable with kids, as I am, and I can see my unease coming across as cold. Another possibility, though, is that they may well have felt that to draw attention to/talk about the baby would be too close to those kinds of questions of personal life that are illegal in interviews. Obviously, if you bring a child to an interview you're telling that committee something about your personal life, so you're opening the door for questions about it, and presumably you're okay with that. Still, I think childless women might err on the side of saying nothing in an effort to ensure that they're not AT ALL letting the candidate's personal life affect their assessment of the candidate's professional ability. If you're not supposed to ask a candidate about their plans for child-rearing when she DOESN'T bring her child with her, are you really supposed to do so even if she does??

It's kind of like the way that some white liberals get really uncomfortable with frank discussions of race, because they feel like acknowledging someone's race and the fact that it makes that person's experience different is vaguely racist - we're all supposed to be color-blind and treat everyone equally, right? This isn't really an effective way of dealing with real issues, in my opinion, but it's certainly not inspired by dislike of people of color.

I guess I'm bringing this up because there are people who come across as cold to children in certain circumstances, but it's not always because they are un-child-friendly. And I kind of resent the assumption that because I chose not to have children, I automatically dislike them and therefore shouldn't have to deal with them if I don't want to.

At the same time, I realize that for me, so much of this debate is moot, and it's much more complicated and troublesome for women who actually, you know, have children!

Because it is clearly the silly season of summer, academic news-wise

I feel like a stuffy old fart, but you know, I have to confess that I found this column kind of annoying. (A Chronicle column annoying? Never!) I get that it's supposed to be funny, and it is kind of clever, but I just found it slightly tacky. The premise? The little daily e-flyer from the Chronicle describes it in this way:

Ask for a smoking room. Wear the name tag of someone famous. And other helpful hints for academic-conference seduction.

And the author's opening lines?

Sex and the conference. Oxymoronic, I know, and in all three senses of the word. Yet there it is — the reason the married people go, the reason the single people go, the reason travel stipends were invented. Sex and the conference is proof positive that — in the face of all evidence to the contrary; despite what you see when you look at your fellow panelists; regardless of the fact that it is, after all, Iowa City — hope springs eternal.

Yes, there is such a thing as monogamy. I'm not talking about you. While you and your beautiful partner are headed for a summer sublet in Wellfleet, the rest of us are going to the conference. Following are some tips for the unwashed.

She goes on to suggest that on arrival, one find the smoking corral, because smokers are so desperate for acceptance that "the feeding chain is entirely askew, and you can often succeed outside your customary sexual tax bracket" and that "Smokers have the added bonus of a relatively short life span, so you run less risk of seeing them twice." She also advises you to keep your minibar keys on you at all times, because:

Should you find yourself wandering around some slumbering stranger's room at midnight, listlessly wondering what could have made you think that someone working on Trollope would become interesting when he stopped talking, it is entirely possible that one of those little keys will fit the lock of that minibar. Face it: You're never going to see him again, and after what you just went through, a few homuncular bourbons and an Almond Joy is the least he can do.*

You should also try to score someone else's nametag, preferably that of someone famous; you should throw away the program, because that's not what you're there for; the first thing you should do is find the bar. (Though I was amused by the advice pertaining to the latter: "You may have to elbow aside the medievalists, but they tip over relatively easily, having been there for several days running.")

I don't know; I'm probably a humorless Puritan. I'm sure people have sex at conferences. I've never found conferences the massive pick-up central that this column describes (I know, I know, it's humor, not literal, but it's not even a parody of my own conference experiences), but then I'm not very good at that kind of thing outside of conferences, either. Lord knows that when I go to the AHA conference, I almost never go to sessions (maybe one per conference), and those sessions I do make it to are pretty poorly attended. 

But as unfashionable as it apparently is, I actually LIKE conferences. For, you know, the conference part - not for the sex. And I guess I'm a little tired of the whole "academia = bar where hipsters can hook up" trope. I'm not upset or offended, just over it.

Thoughts? Is this column funny?

*Okay, I admit that this part is actually kind of funny.

Binge and purge

And no, I'm not talking about my eating habits - I'm talking about buying books.

Preparing for this move, I'm trying to pare down as much as I can. Our new apartment isn't that big, and because LDH won't be able to be here for that much of the process, I'm keenly aware that anything I keep will have to get boxed up, hauled down the stairs, loaded in a truck, driven across country, hauled into the new apartment, unpacked and set up again in limited space. I'm exhausted just typing it. Much of the stuff I'm getting rid of will still require packing and hauling away, but at least I won't have to fit it on a truck or unpack it again later.

LDH is a devotee of minimalism, and therefore this thrills him mightily. He's also a devotee of libraries, and has made a personal vow to no longer buy books, but get everything through libraries. I'm not willing to go that far, but I've been taking a hard look at my bookshelves and asking myself what I REALLY need to keep.

One rule of thumb - or perhaps strong suggestion of thumb - that I've been using is that if I haven't cracked a book since I moved it from Rural Utopia, I probably don't need it after all. I'm squelching the little voice that fears I MIGHT need (say) a prosopographical study of Clunaic monks in the southern Loire region from 800-860 by telling it that if I do, surely I can get it from a library.  And by the time I do, chances are good that someone will have written a better one.

Strangely enough, another principle I've found operating is that if I know a book really well, I don't need to keep it, either. My graduate advisor's second book is a really great introduction to its subject, and it gets used in courses regularly. I've taught it three or four times, and had a couple of copies lying around. And you know what I realized? I know what's in it by now. I don't need to look at it to decide whether I'd assign it again - and if I do assign it, I can get a desk copy. So I'm not keeping it. (And no, the fact that my advisor wrote it had nothing to do with this decision!)

This casting-aside of books has become positively addicting. I find myself returning to my shelves again and again, asking myself, What else can I dispense with? How can I make my life even lighter? Of course, there's a purely material side to this addiction - I've been running the ISBNs of all my prospective ditch-ees through facultybooks.com (an exceedingly useful site, by the way) to see if I can get any filthy lucre for them. There are plenty of books they don't buy, and I've figured out that if a book is hardcover or old enough that it doesn't have an ISBN listed, they're not going to want it. And most of the books that they do want are only going to fetch a dollar or two, or even just fifty cents. Still, those dollars add up, and occasionally I hit the jackpot of finding a textbook, which might get me seven or eight whole bucks. Purging my campus office of books will net me $400 - that's over half of the cost of the moving truck! And I the stuff I have at home is probably another $150. Plus I have to sort through a bunch of LDH's old books, so that total should rise. Score!

Only time will tell if I regret getting rid of any of these books, but I kind of don't think I will. Most of them were acquired in binges, inspired by greed to have the books rather than to read them. When I started my job at Rural Utopia I was so thrilled by the whole "free desk copies to faculty" thing, for instance, that I requested whole piles of stuff. It was all stuff that looked interesting, or that I was convinced I would use to for teaching, but a lot of it has simply sat on the shelf, making me feel like a smart, well-read person for no good reason at all. I'm sure you are all better people than I am and actually do more research on the stuff you teach than I do, but I found that if I was teaching a survey of early modern Europe, for example, I was not as likely to consult that 500-page tome on, say, the English Civil War as I'd thought I would be. If I were teaching an English Civil War course? It would be great. In a course where we spent maybe 3 days on the English Civil War? Yeah, not so much - give me a good survey book that has a chapter or so on it, not 500 pages of dense prose. (Which makes me think about the issue that ADM's been raising in recent posts about how we stay current in our fields and do research while teaching as generalists - if I were teaching a graduate seminar on the century and region of my own research I suspect my teaching books and research books would be one and the same - but that's another post.)

Then there are the older books, the ones I got in grad school. I remember scouring the local used-book stores and the used-book stalls at Kzoo for the classics in the field, and the triumph with which I would pounce upon that copy of Haskins or Southern. (Most of these are the books printed before the advent of ISBN numbers.) Especially during coursework and preparing for my doctoral exams, the accumulation of used books by eminent medievalists of days past reassured me that I would similarly accumulate the knowledge and erudition to join their ranks. These were binge buys, too, of a different kind.

By purging myself of these books now, I don't know whether I'm trying to lighten my footprint, or trying to reinvent myself. My future in academia is uncertain; I have a job for next year, but nothing beyond that. Will I need any of my medieval history books after that? Will I want them?

An update (because I know you couldn't live without one)

My essay has, at long last, been purged of all those messy notes in all caps telling me to ADD CITATION HERE or CHECK THESE NUMBERS or ADD COMMENT RE: EMINENT SCHOLAR'S WORK. Hooray! Now I just need to, um, cut way too many words. But I can do that - I'm good at cutting. Really. (I just never exercise this skill on my blog posts.) So I'm thinking I might be able to send this sucker out this evening or, at the latest, tomorrow morning. Huzzah! Monkey on back goes bye-bye (soon, at least)!.

I had to laugh because I worked today at, yes, the coffeeshop - home is way too distracting right now, I keep looking around at things I need to pack or pitch - and when I got there, I saw someone from Former College  - who was denied tenure this year. I've seen him here quite a bit. Maybe history prof is right, maybe it is the coffeeshop! Though I have to confess that I'm more inclined to celebrate the fellowship of the rejected at this point, and so this makes me like the coffeeshop even more.

Speaking of fellowship, I was thinking again today at how good my grad program was at instilling fellowship in its alumni. When I resigned from this position (that sounds much better than saying "when I lost this position"), a friend of mine from grad school told another mutual acquaintance, who e-mailed me right away to let me know about a position that was opening up where s/he was working. This person isn't someone I'm in touch with at all or ever knew very well, yet s/he actually contacted me at a couple of addresses to make sure I got the message. It was really nice. And I get the sense that not all grad programs foster this kind of behavior.

Finally, I am so craving dessert right now. Who's bringing me ice cream?

Deep thoughts

Can I tell you, I am so ready to leave this place.*It's funny, I think I have a talent for putting things behind me - too quickly, probably. I'm not in touch with any of my (few) former boyfriends, for instance, and it's not because the breakups were screaming nightmares - it's just that that was then, and this is now. (I have a friend from college who was almost pathological about remaining friends with exes. I still don't know how she did that. So not me.) So non-renewal? Over and done with.

I'm probably overestimating my degree of over-ness; if I stop and think about the details of what happened and how it went down, I can still get pissed off (partly at myself, but mostly at them. I'm sort of surprised at the degree to which I'm ready to blame them and not myself. I'm probably turning into one of those people who loses their jobs but it's NEVER their own fault. Like all those people who write in the Chronicle about not getting tenure, always from the perspective of the wronged innocent. I never thought they could be QUITE as innocent as they made themselves out to be - there had to be some sign, some hint of what they did wrong - because they had to have done SOMETHING wrong, or they wouldn't have been denied tenure. Because the system is logical and rational and works, right?  So that people get what they deserve, right? Um, yeah. Note to self: Academia is NOT a meritocracy. Wanna remember that this time??) (that being said, a lot of it was my fault. I gave them reasons to get rid of me. So there you go). But mostly, I feel over it.**

So, in the finest tradition of the Chronicle's First Person columns, let me extrapolate wildly from my own individual experience and offer up conclusions that you guys out there all probably knew already but that I will present as new and precious information.

Fit matters. I know you all knew this one, but it's weird, because fit is one of those things that you can't quite understand until you're on the other side of it. For instance, when I was on the market coming out of grad school, I couldn't understand how a search might fail. There are so many wonderful scholars out there who don't have jobs! There are routinely 100 applications for a medieval history position! How can you NOT find the right candidate? What are you, a bunch of snooty sadistic #^$@^s who live to torture poor new Ph.D.s, who love to make educated folk grovel?

Well, 99 times out of 100, the answer was probably fit. Only a few people fit the position, and those few ended up taking jobs elsewhere. Just because a lot of people could do the job, doesn't mean that those people were all right for the position. (The problem with the market for medieval historians at the moment is that there are enough of us floating around that the distance between those who can do a job and those who are right for it is pretty big. In other fields - for instance, Middle Eastern history - being able to do the job is almost synonymous with being right for the job. Which doesn't guarantee a Middle Eastern historian the specific job that they want, but they're more likely to get one at all.) And while I got the whole role of "fit" in the hiring stage, I didn't realize that the degree of fit at hiring didn't guarantee the degree of fit once actually on the job.

Basically, I think it boils down to this: If your department wants to keep you, if they think you fit, then they will find a way to keep you. I definitely did not make the strongest case I could have, going up for third-year review. But I also don't believe that my case was so clear-cut terrible that there was no option other than to get rid of me. Or in other words, if the department had wanted to keep me, they could have - there were positive points to my evaluation as well as negative. (I'm not sure they'd agree with me about this, but this is how I see it.)

ETA: I made a long-winded response to history prof in the comments below, which goes into more detail about the points in the above paragraph.

So, how to cope with the question of fit? I think that if you don't fit, the only thing you can do to make up for it is to be so impeccable in all matters being evaluated that you give no one any excuse to get rid of you. Obviously, this doesn't guarantee anything - doing your job well may not be sufficient. But not doing your job well will certainly lead to your doom - if you don't fit.

There are also doubtless things one can do in order to become a better fit. But it's getting late, and I'm hugely rambly right now, so I think I'll stop for the moment and come back to these thoughts in future posts.

*Emotionally, that is. Materially? Not so much. We have lots of crap to get rid of and then I have to pack. Anyone want a new washer and dryer? They're really nice. How about a stationary bike? Wanna drive a truck over to our storage space and haul it away yourself? No? How about coming over to help me pack?

**Never mind that dream I had a week or so ago, in which the Dean wrote up a summary of my time in this position trashing me in the meanest, stupidest school-yard terms you could imagine.

Who taught this person writing??

So I'm reading a book for which I owe a review - it's a book that I've tried to read about three times before this, and something about the author's writing is impenetrable, or else I've just got a terminal case of the stupids recently. But what is currently driving me INSANE is something for which I slam my students ALL THE TIME: the insertion of disconnected quotations. Seriously, this author keeps throwing in passages from texts THAT S/HE DOES NOT INTRODUCE OR IDENTIFY. And I knew there was a reason I told my students not to do this: IT'S CONFUSING. Sure, s/he cites them properly, but the notes are all the way at the back of the book, and I have no idea what s/he's talking about as I read.

Really, really annoying.

Note to self: do not do this in your own writing!

(Oh, and I should add that this author also uses the second person. Yes, s/he addresses the reader directly. I am finding this writing style VERY odd. Maybe the question shouldn't be who taught this person writing, but who edited this book??)

Obligatory disclaimer: I give all props to this person for having, you know, written a book and got it published, neither of which accomplishments I can claim for myself, and I think the issues in question are important and difficult to talk about. I don't want to trash the book. But if I could understand what it's saying, it would make my life so much easier!

When recycling may not be a good thing

Over at Blogenspiel, ADM was talking about her experience submitting a panel for one of the big history conferences, and the issue of re-hashed papers arose. ADM wrote:

It was a little weird -- the CFP for pre-modern, especially medieval, was fairly desperate -- I've never actually seen one that said, "hey, we want you all so much that you can give papers you've given at the Zoo and MAA!" Maybe I should have suggested a re-hashed paper panel -- except that most of us can't really get funded to present the same paper twice, and it seems kind of dishonest to just change the name.

Obviously on a certain level we all  recycle work all the time, because most of our conference presentations derive from work we've done sometime in the past, not research done freshly for that specific presentation. The more potentially vexing question, however, is how much does one recycle from papers one's previously delivered (as opposed to written down at some point in the privacy of your own home ;-D)? While there's a sense, I think, that every paper one gives should be written afresh for that specific occasion, my answer is that it completely depends on context.

I don't think it's a bad thing to give substantially the same paper more than once if you can be sure that you're reaching substantially different audiences.* For instance, although I did revise somewhat (mostly in terms of framing the paper), one year I presented largely the same paper at Kzoo and then a few months later at SHARP (the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing, which has a web presence you can google if you feel like, but which I'm too lazy to link to). The audience for the latter had absolutely NO overlap with the audience for the former. So while no, the paper may not have been utterly new to me, or even very new at all, both times I was presenting something to the audience that they hadn't heard before, which is what I think the point is. Plus, I also ended up with responses from two very different kinds of audiences, which was helpful to me.

Another example is when Judith Bennett came and gave a talk at my grad school - she'd just finished a book and I'm quite sure that the talks she was giving at that time were a little bit like a scholar's version of the lecture circuit - she was giving the "here's the overview of my book" talk. And I'm quite sure that if she trotted off to Berkeley to give a talk after having done ours, she'd have given largely the same talk.

Now, this isn't the same as someone who shows up at Kzoo year after year saying basically the same damn thing. And I think too it's a little different if you've already published that material somewhere - if it's been accepted but isn't out that's fine, but if the article/book actually exists in hard copy, then I wouldn't want to see someone present that at Kzoo all over again (actually, I kind of take that back; I wouldn't want to see someone present an *article* all over again. If you have a book just out, I do think it's okay to do a kind of "this is all the cool stuff my book does" talk, though again, more if you're doing invited lectures at schools rather than, say, Kzoo or AHA. But I think you've only got, say, 6 months to do this kind of thing - after that you're getting stale).

So my short answer is: it depends on where you're presenting and why. Not all talks actually serve the same purpose.

This is why I could actually see the purpose behind the AHA's plea for "rehashed" medieval papers; presumably the audience at the AHA is rather different/broader and more diverse than the audience at medieval conferences. If the program committee's goal was to ensure that there was medieval content to create a comprehensive kind of program, then I think rehashing is fine. (In practice, the people who go to a medieval session are most likely medievalists, so I'm not sure you'd really reach a different audience, but the potential is there!)

I think one of the other things that makes this issue confusing/fraught is that there are a variety of different purposes saddled onto presenting a paper. If we're doing it to prove that we're active and keeping up in the profession and that yes, our institutions really should renew our contracts/give us tenure, then I think there's a fear that presenting the same basic thing more than once will look bad - it doesn't necessarily work for the "accounting" mindset of T&P. If, however, the point of presenting papers is to enter into a scholarly conversation, then I think the context of that presentation is what should determine what it looks like. But unfortunately, these two goals - promotion, and productive participation in a scholarly community - can come into conflict.

*I'm sure all the comp people reading this are rolling their eyes at the obviousness of this statement, but I think sometimes it's funny how like our students we can be - although we learn something as a general principle, in a new context we need to be reminded that yes, the same principle still holds even though we've shifted settings. It's like when I teach students, oh, I don't know, how to organize a compare/contrast paper, and then when they have the same assignment in another class with me, I have to tell them that yes, my expectations for such a paper are the same in THIS class as in the other one!

A little self-absorption

This may be a little impolitic to post, but what the hell, it's bugging me, so I'm going to.

The whole non-renewal thing has been an interesting experience, to say the least. But you know what's been nagging at me lately?

The fact that except for my chair - who kind of had to talk to me about it - not one of my senior colleagues has said anything to me about the non-renewal.

Not ONE.

Heck, four out of the five have not even acknowledged the fact that I'm leaving at all, even if they don't want to talk about why.

I'm not looking for them to justify themselves or anything - they don't have to do that, I accept the decision. I'd just like recognition of the fact that I have worked here for three years, and that this is not the outcome that anyone envisioned or wanted when I was originally hired.

So, to make this a little less self-absorbed: if you're working with someone who doesn't get hired long-term/doesn't get renewed/doesn't get tenure, they will probably appreciate it if you at least acknowledge that it's happened.

ETA: Okay, now I feel a little ashamed of how whiny this post is, but I'll keep it up to remind me not to whine in future, because then I feel bad about it!

Yeah, so I spoke too soon about that never teaching again thing

I have a one-year teaching gig in LDH City for next year.

RBOC, Mondo Medievalist Conference version

• It's done! My paper is done! Let the choirs of angels sing Hallelujah!!
• I'm not quite sure why that is such an incredible load off my mind, since I've presented a slew of conference papers before and it doesn't usually stress me out quite so much, except that I think for me this paper represented the Last Thing I had to do from spring semester. So now that it's done, what has been one of the worst semesters of my life is officially OVER. Things can get better now, thanks! /self-pity
• And you know, actually, I think the presentation turned out okay. I managed to muster the energy to present it in what I think was a remotely entertaining manner - people laughed at the right places, and I try really hard not to read word-for-word like a robot. If I'd had a little more sleep I'd have done better, but hey, let's not shoot for the moon here. I had a couple of decent questions and some nice comments/conversation afterwards.
• Though Another Damned Medievalist asked me a really tough question during the Q & A, curse her! (Just kidding, you know I love ya!)
• A colleague of mine from my current school came to hear my talk. I actually was really kind of chuffed by that, because it's not like I think he had any great interest in the theme of my session (he studies India, about which this session was not. Although I think he's kind of an intellectual omnivore, so he probably enjoyed it). It was actually amazingly nice to see him walk in.
• If I may be cynical for a moment, never underestimate the importance of looking good and sounding good when presenting papers. You know those experiments they've done (whoever they are) in which a professor presents a lecture, and then a professional actor who knows nothing about the topic presents a lecture, and students who see both invariably rate the actor's knowledge of the subject more highly? I'm convinced the same thing works with conferences. Sure, the audience is made up of pretty smart people who often actually know a lot about your topic, and you're not going to get utter bullshit past someone in your field, but I think that just minimizes the effect, it doesn't neutralize it entirely.
• Which is probably why I have a better conference record than publication record. (Okay, well, there are doubtless other reasons, too. But still.)
• And is also probably why people who know you already (*cough*ADM*cough*) can ask the toughest questions, because they're immune to your glamour.
• I actually made an argument (albeit a very, very brief one) about Chaucer's Knight in my paper. Don't ask what the hell I was thinking, it just happened somehow. Now I probably need actually to look up, you know, actual research by actual literary scholars about the Knight and find out what I got wrong.
• Oooh, yeah, blogger meetup yesterday morning. Those of you who were there, I have to apologize for my less than stellar social skills at the time. My sleep debt had reached chronic levels (hmm, mixed metaphor?), and there was a moment or four on Wednesday night when I came really really REALLY close to backing out on the conference altogether (thank you to Dr. Moonbeam and Pilgrim/Heretic for talking me down from that ledge). I hope I didn't look too antisocial at the meetup, but it was a bigger crowd than I'd expected and I'm not really a morning person. I did enjoy seeing everyone!
• The group was big enough this time that I never did match up everyone's faces with their virtual spaces, but those present that I could identify were owlfish, Karl (formerly the Grouchy Medievalist) Steel, J J Cohen of In the Middle, Scott Nokes of Unlocked Wordhoard, Michael Drout of Wormtalk and Slugspeak, Lisa Carnell, Tiruncula, Another Damned Medievalist, Medieval Woman, Holly (I'm sorry not to have had a chance to speak with you) and my perennial roommate, Dr. Moonbeam. And of course, the indefatigable organizer, Dr. Virago - thank you for taking the lead (and for the promised hug)! I'm sorry to have missed out on who the other people there were. It was kind of interesting to see so many blogging medievalists in one place - perhaps akin to the shock I experienced on my first visit to Mondo Conference, and saw thousands of medievalists in one place for the first time (okay, I never saw all thousand+ in the same place at the same time, but the atmosphere is different with that many medievalists around, trust me.)
• J J Cohen looks NOTHING like how I'd imagined him. Have you ever had that happen? You get a really really strong visual impression of someone from their blog, and then you meet them and it takes you a moment even to accept that they are who they say they are, because they so don't look like what you expected? Medieval Woman, for instance, looks like she sounds - not that I'd have been able to describe to you what that was, but when I met her, I was like, "Oh, yeah, that's Medieval Woman." Whereas when I met J J Cohen? Totally different. (Not in a bad way! Just that I had thought he'd look much more intimidating. He doesn't.)
• Whereas I, apparently, am much more, um, directive on this blog than I am in real life. (No, that's not coming from J J Cohen, whom I only met briefly.)
• Dr. Moonbeam and I had a lovely dinner with Tiruncula last night (as well as dinner with a grad school friend the night before).
• I'm writing this in Mondo Conference's library, because to be honest, there really wasn't anything I wanted to see in this time slot. Which is really really really pathetic because there are something like 60 sessions going on right now. All the ones I wanted to see? At the same time as mine.
• But I think now I will go visit the book exhibits, because I'm hungry, and one of the booksellers always puts out bowls of jellybeans. I ALWAYS look through their wares VERY CAREFULLY.

The joys of conference information networks

Gah. I just have to blog this briefly to get it out of my system. I have been in contact with one of the schools in LDH City about the possibility of at least part-time (ideally full-time, but even part-time would be great) work next fall/year. They were relatively encouraging, but said that they would have to wait a few weeks before they would know exactly what their needs were and they would be in touch. (That’s relatively encouraging in that they didn’t flat-out say no, you understand.) Anyway, this afternoon at the Mondo Medievalist Conference, I ran into the reason why they still don’t know: a woman from my grad program is deciding between an offer from them and an offer from somewhere else (she didn’t say where). Since Grad School Woman is also a medievalist (who else would be at Mondo Medieval Conference!), what I can conclude from this is that if she doesn’t accept (or for whatever other reason the job search fails - they may well have other candidates in the wings), they may have need of my brilliant (heh) medievalist services next year. If she does accept, of course, their need for me declines precipitously (it may not vanish, as I can slog in the trenches of Western Civ and World History with the best of them, and I know that they have a pool of part-time people who teach these courses, but my appeal as a medievalist would be significantly lessened. And even if it worked out, I’d be teaching Western/World Civ the livelong day – which, you know, I can do, and is in some ways rather appealing as a very different grind from the one I’m leaving, but is not quite as much fun as teaching medieval things. Though I’d still be happy to do it).

Anyway, does it make me an evil person if I really hope she turns the job down??? (Apparently she has done so once, and they came back with some kind of counter-offer to try to entice her. Stay strong, Grad School Woman! Don’t succumb to their lures!)

Want to know the even greater irony involved in this? I actually applied for a tenure-track job at this place the year I got the job at Rural Utopia, and I got the latter job before LDH City School finished their process so I don’t know for sure how I’d have done with them, but I know I held some appeal to them because they contacted me for an interview. (I’m quite sure that if I had got/taken that job to begin with, my and LDH’s career trajectories would not have landed us both in that city, because life just never works like that, but I still find it kind of funny.) 

So. The job market still manages to give one fits, no matter when/where/how one encounters it. In some ways I’m unhappy with myself for even caring about this, because I’m not sure that jumping right back into academia/teaching is necessarily the best thing for me right now. But I do know that employment is good, and paychecks are good, and credit card debt is evil. And that since all my experience/skills are in academia, academic employment is the simplest and most immediately promising route. I’m just not sure that right now I need to do what is easy, or if I should be figuring out what is right.

(Aside, of course, from living with my husband again, which is a no-brainer on the “what is right” scale.)

And an era has ended (maybe)

I have just submitted grades for what may be my last semester ever as a full-time professor.

Okay, lest this sounds melodramatic, I really won't miss the grading.

Though for one of my classes, the students wrote screenplays for their final project, and those were actually FUN to grade.

Anyone else (of my academic readers) done, or are you still slaving away?

Help, please?

Okay, o wondrous intarwebs, I have a question for you: in applications/job interviews, what is the best way to address the fact that leaving your previous job was not necessarily your own choice?

On the one hand, I have a great built-in reason to give to potential employers in LDH City - I left my position in order to relocate where my husband works (and lives). My plan for cover letters is just to give this reason (for jobs in LDH City, that is).

On the other hand, I don't want to lie to anyone, even by omission, partly because I'm all moral 'n' shit, but mostly because I figure chances are good that potential employers can/will find out the real reason easily enough.

And I guess the variation on this theme is what to say to those from whom I'm requesting letters of recommendation (that is, those who aren't at my current institution - the latter already know what's going on, obviously). Again, I don't want to lie to anyone, but there's a little part of me that's afraid they'll decide that I must be a loser and so they won't want to write me letters anymore. (Paranoid much?)

Just when I thought I had all the job-application wrinkles figured out...

Some clarifications to my clarification

First of all, let me thank you again for your support and good wishes. Seriously.  Ralph Luker over at Cliopatria is definitely right, the blogosphere can do amazing things in the way of offering support at a difficult time. (And since I can't actually comment over there, because if I remember correctly, Cliopatria doesn't accept anonymous/pseudonymous comments, let me respond to Alan Allport by saying that he's absolutely right. Though I'm honored that Ralph Luker even mentions me in the same context as Invisible Adjunct, the much-missed matriarch of pseudonymous blogging.) I'm sure my situation could be worse, because I do have a supportive cadre of junior colleagues here, but it is a little odd to walk around campus and wonder whether people are avoiding me, I'm avoiding them, or if I'm just reading way too much into entirely normal interactions.

Second, I also want to thank you all for your congratulations on my resignation. I'd love to think that it says something about my grace, dignity, self-respect, or backbone, but really, it doesn't. Resigning is a pure luxury, available to me because I'm married and my husband has a good job with benefits, and is a relatively painless step as our long-term plan (as vague as it was) had me probably leaving this job to live in LDH City anyway. No, this isn't how I saw that happening, but it is what it is. If I were single, or in a relationship that didn't bring me medical benefits, I doubt I'd have the luxury of ditching this job, and I'd probably be here next year, miserable, and probably making my department miserable as well. So I'm extremely grateful that resigning has been an option.

I also wanted to add a little more about my non-renewal as I've received further info (and hopefully this will be the last post about that - I'm sick of it myself!). I know I made comments earlier about a pissed-off chair, and I need to retract those, or at least, amend them. It turns out that I was stupid, and fell into a classic academic mistake - I didn't sufficiently cultivate my department. When third-year review came round, and there were problems with my teaching, my senior colleagues felt insufficiently connected to me to feel confident that I could turn those problems around by tenure. If I had cultivated them and they felt invested in me, they'd have been willing to work with me towards getting tenure. In short, I failed on the collegiality front.

It's funny to compare this to my previous experience at Rural Utopia. At RU, there were structural things that at once meant that there was no way my department could NOT feel like they knew me (we met ALL THE TIME, much more than here), and also minimized the influence of one's actual department (departments had much weaker individual identities, and were subsumed into divisions made up of a number of departments. The division chair was really the person who exercised the role traditionally held by department chairs). So because I was successful there, I didn't think about how the different structures here would require me to act differently.

Plus, I'm of the mindset that my responsibility is to do my job and not bug anybody. Gotta work on my definition of "bug."

I am still annoyed by a number of things: that the review system here is structured in such a way that I had no idea how those senior colleagues felt until I reached third-year review; that the annual reviews are disconnected entirely from the third-year review, so that what your chair writes about you in your annual review may have no resemblance at all to how your senior colleagues see you or how you'll be evaluated at third-year review; that my jr. colleagues' opinions of me mean nothing (and I know that this is standard in academia, and yes, they're my friends as well as my colleagues in a way that my sr. colleagues aren't, but they're also the people I'd work with the longest if I'd been successful here, and I also like to think that they're intelligent and objective enough to be able to see my flaws despite being my friends. But their opinions are irrelevant); that I had no idea going into the meeting that this might happen. It turns out that my chair didn't know the decision until just a few days before the meeting, either, but that in itself is weird to me: how does one's chair not know what the outcome is going to be? Such a decision shouldn't be a surprise to ANYONE. So that seems to be a disconnect between the administration and the department.

So anyway. I thought that I understood the structure and politics of academia, and maybe I did in an abstract sense, but I clearly failed to apply that understanding to my own situation. But it doesn't matter anymore. Onwards to the next adventure!

 

Since it's Friday

I just wanted to comment that every time Youngest Cat walks on the keyboard of my laptop - EVERY time! which is often! - he manages to find a new keyboard command of which I was blissfully unaware, and change something on my computer. This time he got rid of the menu bar and it took me a little while to figure out how to get it back. How the hell does he do it?!?!?

In other breaking news, I officially resigned yesterday. I am so not interesting in being the dead man walking. I'll say more about it when I have some energy, but I'm definitely relieved (and I'm sure my department is, too).

A little clarification

First of all, I want to thank everyone so so much for all your good wishes. I really appreciate them, immensely - I can't even tell you how much. It makes a huge difference to feel how supportive you guys are.

Second, I should probably offer some clarifications. (And since this gets ridiculously long, I'm going to put it behind a cut, so you're not confronted with my rationalizations unless you feel like it!)

At least I no longer have to worry about whether I look professional in this space

Because my third-year review was unsuccessful. So I have a terminal year here, and then that's it.

Conference ambivalence

I never know quite how I feel about conferences. I always tell my colleagues (a couple of whom profess to hate conferences) that I love conferences, and in some ways I do, but in some ways I don't.

What I love:

- working at a weeny little school where I'm the only medieval historian, and only one of a few medievalists scattered through other departments, it's pretty cool to rejoin my academic community and hear actual real medieval RESEARCH. Going to this conference always gets me excited about doing research again (which is good, because I have to write a Kzoo paper for the beginning of May...). Like I did last year, this year I spent much of my time in the sessions making little notes to myself about my own projects. It's not that the sessions weren't interesting (although they all turned out to be literature sessions, so at times they were a bit beyond me), but being surrounded by research presentations gets my own research juices flowing.

- I love meeting people, especially those who are pretty established in their fields, and finding that they're friendly, warm, and generous people. Sure, not all of them are, but it's fun to find the ones who are. I had an especially fun moment this time round of meeting someone who joined my grad program right after I finished - and this person came up and introduced themselves to me by saying, "We just missed each other at [university]..." Dude, that means that my existence in that program was discussed after I left! That means I'm, like, FAMOUS! (okay, well, I realize that's not really what it means. But let me enjoy my little moments, okay?)

- this is probably going to come out sounding snotty, and I don't mean it to be, but going to conferences reminds me that I am not a grad student. In fact, I don't even quite count as newbie faculty any more. I'm certainly not one of the Great Ones in my field, but when I deal with grad students at a conference I realize how relatively secure I am in this profession. And while I'm untenured, my book isn't out yet, I'm at a weeny little teaching school (continue list of reasons why I'm not especially impressive), I've made the transition from grad student to faculty. There were a couple of very new faculty at this conference who still seemed to be working on that. This is not at all meant as a criticism of grad students or newbie faculty - it's just a reminder that I'm SO glad I'm not in that position any more. (It's kind of like saying I'm SO glad I'm not 18 again. It's not that there's anything wrong with being 18 - it's just that I've been there, done that, and do NOT need to do it again.)

- observing academics from other environments. I think the greatest outfit I saw was (on a man) clay-brick-colored pants, a lemon sweater, a lavender shirt, and green sneakers. It was pretty awesome.

What I do NOT love:

- the process of re-entry into research-academic pretentiousness. Mostly, this conference was pretty reasonable. One of the plenary speakers dipped into the self-indulgent side of the pretentiousness spectrum. It's not that there are no pretentious people where I work, but at a teaching school, I think you tend to focus on/talk about the nitty-gritty of teaching, schedules, etc. etc. more than research. So you're spared some of the more indulgent research-focused brands of tediousness.

- meeting people. Yeah, yeah, I know I said above that I liked it - well, I like it when it turns out well. The process still makes me cringe. I'm proud of myself that I mostly managed to avoid hiding in the restroom because there wasn't anyone I knew to talk to, but there are times when I still feel like a huge dork who's not getting asked to dance.

- feeling less successful than other people who've finished when/since I did. Like the woman who earned an M.Phil. at one of England's Fancy Pants Universities, and then her Ph.D. from THE Fancy Pants University, and is now at a R1 university with a book out. Did I mention that she's spectacularly gorgeous in a totally unique yet academic way? And that she presented brilliantly? And was also really nice. Damn her.

And then there is the problem of recovery. Did I mention that it's after 5 pm here and I've yet to get out of my pyjamas? And that I have oodles of things to prepare for teaching tomorrow? Thank God Kzoo happens after classes are over this year.

Oops

So, um, somehow I managed to agree to write three book reviews this semester.

Why? I'm so not sure what I was thinking.

Well, okay, I do know why I agreed - first, I'm always flattered when someone contacts me, specifically, directly, to ask for a review. I shouldn't be, I'm sure, but I'm still tickled if someone actually knows who I am, for whatever reason. (Goofy example given as a tangent: I was walking into the bathroom at Kzoo one year and nearly walked into someone who was walking out. As you do, we glanced at each other's nametags, and then she peered at me intently and said, "Your name is familiar. Do I know you?" And I said, "Well, your name is familiar, too, but no, I don't think we know each other." So she stuck out her hand, and we shook hands and introduced ourselves. And then fifteen minutes later when I was on my way to a session I suddenly remembered why our names would be familiar to each other: She had cited me!) And two of the reviews in question were solicited of me, personally. (Which leaves me no excuse for the third.)

Second, I like getting free books. I know, mercenary and all that, but I do - I can't help it.

And finally, these are three books that I should read. Okay, the first is one that I really really really really should read, like, yesterday. The second is right in my field and is by someone who I know uses some of the same sources that I do, and while the subject might not turn out to be absolutely incredibly directly pertinent, I suspect it will be somewhat useful for my research, and something that I could make decent use of in my teaching. And the third - well, right at the moment I can't remember what it actually is. So the chances of it being really NECESSARY for me to read are pretty slim, but I know it's relevant. Oh, wait, I remember now! Yeah, it's quite a bit like the second book - probably helpful in some way. And the author is someone whose work I really respect, so that's cool.

And honestly, agreeing to write the reviews is a pretty good way to ensure I read these books. Otherwise, who knows when I'd get to them?

Still, I'm a little horrified that I agreed to do three of these (though I exaggerate when I say "this semester" - at least one of them is due before July). Because the time spent reading and writing for reviews is time not spent on articles or the book (or even on teaching and grading), and reviews are not going to get me tenure. They're kind of nice for demonstrating my general engagement with my field (which has been praised). But that and a buck will get me a cup of coffee, y'know?

The reason I'm thinking about this is that I'm sitting at the coffeeshop, working my way through the book I really should have read already. And it's, well, a little slow. It's important stuff, conceptually, but I'm having the hardest time paying attention or following the argument. (And come on - how do you use a term to "gesture at a notion" of another concept? Ick. My inner curmudgeon is getting cranky.) But it probably will be worth reading now, so I can "gesture" at it in the article I'm currently revising.

Back to it.

Fall semester leave

My junior sabbatical application was successful, and I was awarded a leave for next fall!!!!

YIPPEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(No offense, students, I love teaching - most of the time - but I GOTTA finish this manuscript!)

Can I tell you how excited I am at the prospect of spending next fall in sweats and jeans? ;-)

To make this post something more than sheer jubilation, I have a question for you, o wise ones of the internet: what are your tips for making the most of a leave, rather than frittering away your time on the internet?

My wisdom *cough, cough* on LD relationships

There were some comments on a previous post requesting my take on the long-distance relationship (LDR from henceforth, because I'm lazy). Well, my primary take is that it sucks, but I suspect that's not quite what people had in mind. So I'll see if I can come up with something more substantial. I won't claim to be helpful, because I think the only ways to cope with this kind of thing are individual. But here are my thoughts, worth exactly what you paid for them.

In some ways, I think that I find the LDR more congenial than some people might, because I like quite a lot of space and downtime. I am irretrievably introverted in the Myers-Briggs universe, and time to myself to recharge is important. I quite like spending time with myself. Which is good, because in a LDR, that's what happens. If you are an irrepressible extrovert who needs people around you to energize you, you may find the LDR harder to negotiate. I had a friend in college who just needed to have someone there, right there with her, and if her boyfriend wasn't available, she found someone else (they made their peace with this so it's not my place to judge, though it wouldn't work for me).

Given that I'm okay with spending some time by myself, one of the biggest issues I have with the LDR is the logistics. Maintaining two households is a pain in the ass. Money is no longer just money, but some kind of referendum on your relationship. (Okay, I suppose if you have enough money that you have no debt, and you can easily afford the travel that a LDR requires without going into debt, all the while putting money away for retirement, this isn't the case, but I wouldn't know about that.) Money that goes to non-essential items is money that could be going towards travel, money that goes to travel is money that could be going to provide you (collectively) a comfortable retirement. Moreover, there's much less give in your schedule, and scheduling everything around when you can/will see each other is also really tedious. I hope this isn't TMI, but (for example) you start to have sex when you can, not necessarily when you want to.

Maintaining two households can also take an emotional toll, at least in my experience. It's hard for both places to feel like "us" places, rather than one place being his and one place being mine. This isn't such a big deal for short visits, but if one goes to stay with the other for a few weeks, it can get frustrating quickly. For us, a problem was (is) that I'm quite a bit messier than LDH is, and coming home to visit and finding the place a mess wasn't just an inconvience, it was something that made him feel like this apartment isn't our home, it's MY home. (Yes, the obvious solution to this is for me to clean up more, which I acknowledge, but it's not just about cleaning - it's about what we think should go where, that kind of thing. Because he's not here very much, for instance, I organize the kitchen cupboards according to what works for me, which is decidedly not what works for him. When we lived together, we kind of organically developed a system that worked for both of us, but when only one of us is around, there's nothing that makes us do that.)

Something that's kind of a corollary to this, I think, is just the danger of getting really set in your ways in a manner that doesn't really fit your partner in very clearly. LDH was here for the last month and a half or so, and yeah, it was a little hard to adjust my routines back to having him here. This was way outweighed by the pleasures of living with him again, definitely!, but, for instance, after coming home from school, it was really hard to make myself work in the evenings, which is what I tend to do when on my own, rather than hanging out with LDH. Now, this is not to say that I shouldn't have hung out with LDH in the evenings! Rather, I wasn't very good at recognizing that therefore I needed to reorganize the rest of my time so that I found a place to fit in the activities that I used to do during that time.

And there is a little bit of guilt, in that now that he's gone for a while (he took off this morning), there's part of me that's relieved to have some time to myself again. I know that this will wear off pretty quickly. But such a reaction, which is probably kind of natural (you should have seen my mom's glee at those few few few occasions she had, growing up, to have the house to herself with no kids OR husband) (of course, we could just both be heartless selfish creatures!), takes on a whole different tone in the LDR. Under the tyranny of the LDR, I MUST be excited and happy to spend time with LDH ALL the time, because the time we spend together is limited. And if I'm NOT excited and happy in the manner aforesaid, well, I must be a terrible wife and our marriage is doomed. 

Having outlined this stuff, I have no glorious solution with which to conclude this post. There are some things that LDH and I seem to do in the context of the LDR. We have a rule that we never go more than six weeks without seeing each other - and that's just a maximum. We'd rather not go more than four weeks, and preferably, no more than two. (Ideally, we'd see each other every weekend, but that's not really feasible when flights are involved.) We talk to each other on the phone every day (unless there's some kind of schedule conflict where we just can't). Some days it might just be for fifteen minutes, other days it's more like an hour. We usually set a general time for the call, since one of the things that bugs me a lot is getting caught up in the middle of something and then being interrupted (for a while the system was that I would call him every night, since he was more amenable to interruptions than I was). Sometimes we set up virtual dates - usually around movies, because LDH is a big movie fan, and the simultaneity works well. So this would mean that we'd go see the same movie at the same time, in our respective cities.

I guess I'd say the most important thing is learning to be more flexible. Many of you out there may not need to hear this as much as I do, since by inclination I'm about as flexible as granite; I like to do things on my time, when I want to do them. But I have learned to remind myself that LDH is only here for a limited time, and that I can do [whatever it is] at another time when LDH isn't around. Or, say a short-notice opportunity to see each other arises. You'd think this would be a no-brainer, but no one has ever accused me of being spontaneous, and I hate last-minute travel (I like to plan WELL in advance). So if I have to get all Pollyanna on y'all and point to a silver lining to this whole LDR thing, it has taught me to be more adaptable, and to recognize that not doing things in absolutely the right, correct, PERFECT way is really not the end of the world.

Which, of course, I'd have rather learned in a different context. But you take what you can get, I suppose.

I don't think we're in graduate school any more, Toto

I'm writing a grant application, and I just had to look up my dissertation title because I completely couldn't remember what it was.

Yes, I'd like some cheese with that

My department is currently running a search, and I am NOT going to talk about how it's going or the candidates in any kind of specific way; that would be inappropriate, and besides, this is a purely self-centered post about how it feels to be on this side of a search - the hiring side.

And before I go further, let me note that I would MUCH RATHER be on the hiring side than on the applying side, and the whining that's about to ensue here should not be taken to suggest that I think I have it bad like someone who's job-searching does. Just so that's clear.

I should also say that while I am on the hiring side, I'm not a major player. I'm not on the official search committee, the members of which have the most direct input into the outcome. And while I know that I'm more than welcome to air my opinions when we do make a final decision, and that my senior colleagues are good people who listen to what others say, I also know that I am one of the more junior members of the department. It's not so much that the senior faculty here don't care what junior folk think; it's more that I've been here the shortest amount of time and don't have the same understanding of the department, the campus, and the needs of both that my senior colleagues do. Moreover, the field we're hiring in is rather removed from my own, so I don't have the same investment in this hire that I might have in some other fields.

That being said: Goodness, the hiring process can be disheartening.

I'm sure you job candidates out there do NOT need me to tell you this. But it's disheartening from the hiring side as well.

First, there's the inferiority complex. Candidates have the luster of the new and fresh, and therefore look much more sparkling and exciting than - well, than you. Scanning their c.v.s can be an exercise in sadomasochism. You yourself were never as ta