http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/10/chimpanzee_farewell.php
The crying student
I get one – at least one – every semester. It’s usually a woman, but men cry, too. (Tracy Budd, who sent into my office the most lachrymose individual I’ve ever had the pleasure, knows exactly what I’m talking about.) Usually it’s someone who’s well indoctrinated into the educational system, enough anyway to regard my pronouncements as not only authoritative but somehow bearing on her or his respective worth or character, has been receiving therefore high marks throughout high school, and has been performing well below level of the typical Rutgers student. And yes, the typical Rutgers student is, while often obnoxious and possessing of a stunning sense of self-entitlement, actually capable of a very high degree of critical intelligence and expression.
They show up in my office mid-semester or a little before because I’ve been giving them poor grades, and they’re trying and trying, but they’re still not getting the grades that would validate them as worthy individuals. And it’s not like I don’t know who they are: usually have been trying to get them into my office so we can figure out what they can do to improve, but this type of student is eager to please and therefore somewhat intimidated by the idea of speaking one-on-one with the person who dispenses knowledge and judgment. But finally they muster up the courage, they come to my office during office hours, and the combination of the humiliation of the poor grades, the habitus of respect for educators and higher education, and the shock of finding themselves in a chair in my office engaged in a conversation with their tormentor reduces them to tears.
Filed under teaching
Letter, CV, abstract
Deadlines are coming up – and I missed one: Princeton as usual had some humanities postdoctoral thing up to apply for with a ridiculously short deadline of October 1. Highly desirable position, of course, being that it’s Princeton and they’re paying more than a lot of Associate Professors make just for a 2-year research position with a teaching load of maybe two sections a year. Yeah, like I’d be able to compete for that one. That deadline was up even before I did my first search, so I’m just going to be relieved I didn’t feel like I had to be responsible enough to actually apply.
The application packet for these positions is remarkably standardized. They ask for a letter of application and a CV*, and you send them a letter of application, a CV, and an abstract of the dissertation. They never – or hardly, hardly ever – actually ask for the abstract but apparently just expect you to know to send it. I have two different letters of application drafted up – one for a research university/literature position, and one for a composition heavy/heavy teaching load position. Postdocs require an even different array of qualifications and aspirations in the letter of application (generally known in the culture as the “job letter”), since you have to propose a course of research you’ll engage in that’s working off from the dissertation and into new and unexplored realms, and I don’t have anything drafted up for such a purpose. There are just very few postdocs that come up in the humanities, and it’s rare to see one that I would qualify for or would consider accepting. Except that I see that Harvard has a postdoc up, and the deadline isn’t until December 1. Well. That’s different.
Filed under job search
Rooster sauce
You get your choice of rooster sauce at Pho Ha in South Philly: smooth or chunky.
Rooster sauces
Filed under eating
Eggs and Potatoes
Eggs and potatoes are significant part of my diet and a frequent evening meal. The other night it was pan-fried potatoes and chard omelets. Don’t laugh: spinach and eggs is classic, and chard can do anything spinach can do. I won’t rave about them, but they were tasty enough. I like making omelets; I confess, though, that my hand-flip technique is poor – bashful, really. I don’t commit enough to the forward swoop, so omelets that close as tidy as a clam are rare. The other night I just cut to the chase and broke out the spatula.
I want to praise the eggs – my ingredients, not my cooking. We are luck enough to live down the street from a genuine organic, free-range chicken farm. It’s run by neighbors who have full-time off-farm careers and an active, beautiful family, but they’re hardcore farmers nonetheless. They keep a few dozen chickens, plus assorted ducks and geese, and do some vegetable farming as well. They supply us with all of our eggs at $4 a dozen, and it’s a steal. The eggs are organic, meaning that the chickens are fed organic feed and not juiced up on antibiotics, and although one might say accurately say the chickens are free-range, the chickens are allowed a range of freedom many household pets would envy, making the term somewhat inadequate in application here. Every day the chickens and other fowl are let out of the barn to roam, and roam they do, but never stray, as no matter how much bugs and grass the chickens take in on their own, the spell of their feed keeps them in thrall: they slowly spread out pecking as the day begins, by midday they seem to reach the limits of their exploration, and they then turn and begin to peck slowly back to the barn to gather for their evening feed.
Filed under cooking
Searching the Job Information List
The ritualized and routinized job market for English Ph.D.s begins with the posting of the Job Information List. Open faculty positions in modern languages for the next academic year are submitted in the early fall to the Modern Language Association (MLA), and the Association of Departments of English then posts the relevant listings on a password-protected list made available to those currently affiliated with an English Department.
In the past, I’ve drawn up a list of seventy to ninety jobs for which I’m qualified to apply. I then spend a fair amount of time organizing those job postings to highlight deadlines and the documentation required for application. It’s a fairly compressed timeframe to process applications to these posts, with most of the major research universities asking for documentation to come in by mid-October and second-tier institutions and many of the more prestigious liberal arts colleges having deadlines in November. Less competitive institutions may still have application materials coming in right up to the dates for the MLA conference that happens just after Christmas each year and where many of the interviews are done, with some continuing to interview through January and February. This year the first round of results from my search yields less than thirty job postings. There will be a smattering of positions advertised later, so I can expect to add maybe as much as a dozen to that total, but it’s still a grim sign for the profession and for my efforts to locate a better position within that profession.
Continue reading
Filed under job search
Beet barley risotto with the red greens
We had gotten a couple bunches of beets with brilliant red stems and leaves from our CSA share, and I was very excited to cook them up. I was also craving risotto, so voilà: beet risotto. Although risotto has a medium-long cooking process, prep is pretty easy, and while it takes a while on the rangetop, you can – despite the common assumption – leave the risotto pot alone for periods at time. Perfect for an evening spent grading papers.
I had the beets roasting in the oven and the onions and garlic cooking along in brown butter in the dutch oven before I realized that I was out of arborio rice. As I was rummaging through the pantry I came across a fresh bag of pearl barley. Always handy for excellent soups, but it also makes an excellent if a bit toothy risotto. Problem solved. I poured some chardonnay over the barley after cooking it in the onions and butter, ladled in some stock after the wine cooked off, and went off to grade a paper. I’d come back after a paper, stir in a ladle-and-a-half of stock, and head back to another paper. With a glass of chardonnay for myself, natch.
Continue reading
Filed under cooking
Job search
Last week – or nearly a week and half ago – the job postings for tenure track positions at English departments around the country were released by the Modern Language Association, inaugurating the seasonal academic job market for all us literature PhDs. I haven’t had a chance to look to see if there are any jobs for me to apply for. Part of that is cynicism and weariness: I’ve been on this carousel a few times already with largely disheartening results. But the main thing of it is I’m just too damn busy!
Continue reading
Filed under job search
Wood Thrush 