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Today I received a letter from Editor at University Press, asking to review the manuscript of Major Academic Project (also known as the book from which I barely escaped with my life). I feel like a rookie baseball player who has been given the chance to hit in the big leagues.** Of course, I’m breaking out the champagne, dancing around the room, and emailing everyone I know with the news. I’m also terrified.
I don’t want much: I don’t expect to redefine the field. I don’t expect to sell many copies. I know I won’t be hailed as a genius. Really, all I want at this point are two modest things:
1. Tenure.
2. To never have to think about Major Academic Project ever again. Ever.
This letter may be the next step in the arduous process of achieving these two goals. I am trying to live in the moment of this achievement, to not spend too much time anticipating how the reviewers will respond, which flaws they will identify, or speculating about what I will do if they say it’s not publishable. (Please, dear anonymous reviewers, be kind.) Instead, I’m going to go to yoga, do some twists and inversions and hope all the anticipation will settle down in my mind.
** That is the extent of my sports-related metaphors and is taken, not from experience with baseball or any other national past time, but from the movies, of course. Bull Durham to be precise.
UPDATE: The manuscript in all it’s glory.
I remember distinctly the first time I ever attended Big Annual Literature Conference from Hell (you know the one). I was a graduate student and an academia groupie, enchanted with everything about the conference: the nametag around my neck with my name printed above the name of my Graduate School, riding on elevators with Internationally Renowned Scholars, the packed sessions with people standing 3 deep against the walls to see Famous and Influential Critics, the beautiful people with cool shoes and funky eyeglasses sprawled on every surface in the lobby. Ah, the stars were in my eyes then.
I spent most of my time hanging on the margins, observing and awestruck. In the midst of all the pontificating, gabbing, gossiping, and schmoozing, I felt like I was alone in my own quiet little bubble. Then, one day I was on an escalator and another conference-goer struck up a conversation with me. I was so thrilled to be acknowledged, to have anyone speak to me. He was a 40ish man in the regulation professorial garb of tweedy sportcoat and khakis. We chatted about the conference, the conference city, and the weather — a neutral but pleasant exchange. Then the conversation went something like this:
PROF: (Gesturing at my nametag) So, how long have you been teaching at Graduate School?
ME: (Flattered) Oh no, I’m just a graduate student…
PROF: (Turning on his heel and walking away.)
ME: (Mouth agape.)
I wish I could say I was exaggerating but he really, truly turned around and walked away, even as the words were still coming out of my mouth. His about face was my rough introduction to the uglier aspects of Big Conference from Hell, a lesson in how stringently the gates are guarded against the unworthy.
It is a testament to my naiveté that I didn’t notice his nametag or I would certainly identify the reprehensible fellow here.
I will be attending the BCFH this year but I will keep my nametag in my pocket, ignore the cool kids hogging all the chairs, avoid like the plague all the Famous Scholars’ panels, and try to maintain some semblance of humanity in the midst of the Hellmouth.
I recently hiked near one of the vortexes* in Sedona. I wish I could say that I achieved some mystical connection to an elemental reality, as many visitors to the vortexes report experiencing. One of my companions felt a tingle in his sinuses, but he was recovering from a cold so this was dubious evidence. My experience was mundane but wonderful. I spent the whole day feeling positively assulted by the beauty of the place: the red cliffs against the crisp blue sky, the silver juniper trees twisted from the vortex energy, the extraordinary expanses all around us. I sat high on the crest of a cliff, overlooking a valley with towering bluffs in the distance. I closed my eyes and felt the sun on my skin, the breeze against my face, and listened to the silence that emerges in such peaceful moments. Nothing mystical but magical nonetheless.
* “Vortexes” is the term used in Sedona, instead of the grammatically correct “vortices.” Go figure.
Surely we all know by now that student evaluations are an inaccurate measure of successful teaching?
Surely we are aware of the ways that race, gender, and even beauty, determine student evaluations? And that they correlate to grades? Or that distributing candy makes a difference?
And yet …
There is nothing more gut-wrenching, anxiety-producing, and self-doubt creating than bad evaluations. Even when you know beyond a reasonable doubt that they are not a reliable source of information about the quality of your teaching, is there anything worse than being condemned by your students?
You may ask why I am thinking about student evals at this point in the semester, when the end is still many weeks away. It’s Yearly Review time here at Mid-State U. and, in compiling my teaching materials I made a tragic mistake and looked at my evals from last year. I generally don’t read them. I put them on a bottom shelf behind a door and forget all about them. I know what a black hole they are — that even if 90% are rave reviews, I will be staring at the ceiling at 3 a.m. thinking about the other 10% who criticized me.
This time it’s worse than usual because I had a particularly bad class last year, one terrorized by a little gang of smart ass students who would come swaggering in to class everyday, sit in a huddle together, talk and pass notes in class, disagree with everything I said, smirk at everything their fellow students said, and generally radiate scorn for we lesser-mortals. The worst part about it: they were really smart. And I was really burnt out. A deadly combination. Their comments were usually insightful and interesting, but delivered with palpable condescension. I was slow to catch on to their attitude and inconsistent with my policing of their behavior. I didn’t realize until too late that they had bullied the entire class, including me, into a defensive posture.
Today I read the reviews written by these students and, naturally, they’ve taken the time to write copious comments, describing what they see as the outrageous failures of my pedagogy. Their accusations are well-stated, detailed, and compelling — not the least because they clearly consulted beforehand and all of the critiques are identical. (I can’t help imagining the conversations they had about me after every class, rolling their eyes over my terrible teaching, congratulating themselves for being so much smarter than me, and coming to a consensus about the ways I sucked.)
I don’t know what I hate more: that the administrators who will read my file will be likely to believe these students (and disregard the other evals with concise but unconvincing reviews like “Great!” and “Good job”) or that I find myself taking their critiques to heart. I can’t believe that they are still bullying me!
Did I mention that this was a graduate seminar? And that the students in question all plan to become academics and teachers? The only consolation I have right now is the prospect that maybe, one day, they too will be reading their evaluations and cringing at the thought that they once had so little compassion for the challenges of teaching.
Many others have written about this problem, including a memorable post a few years ago at Bitch PhD. Just for good measure, I’ll throw in a cranky rant by Stanley Fish, who writes that student evaluations “are invitations to grind axes without any fear of challenge or discovery.” I’m not a fan of the Fishster, but I take a great deal of satisfaction from the picture he paints of himself tossing his evals in the garbage and never looking back. (Ah, to be tenured and famous.)
As for me, since I cannot avoid my own evals (at least until I get the elusive golden mantle of tenure), I can only try to drown out the snide voices of these students (which sound awfully like my own personal demons) with the voices of friends, real and virtual.
I’m late getting on the Nellie McKay bandwagon. Evidence: I’m still tempted to pronounce her last name “mc-kay” instead of the appropriate “mc-eye.” But, I am digging this song off her new CD, Obligatory Villagers, which takes on the conventional image of the feminist as a humorless bitch. As anyone who reads I Blame the Patriarchy knows, feminism done right is a festival of belly laughs, guffaws, and ironic smirks. So, here’s to feminists who know that, when the world’s this grim, all you’ve got is your sense of humor and your sisters to get you through.
Lyrics to Nellie McKay’s “Mother of Pearl”
Feminists don’t have a sense of humor
Feminists just want to be alone (boo-hoo)
Feminists spread vicious lies and rumor
They have a tumor on their funny bone
They say child molestation isn’t funny
Rape and degradation’s just a crime (lighten up, ladies)
Rampant prostitution, sex for money
(what’s wrong with that)
Can’t these chicks do anything but whine
They say cheap objectification isn’t witty, it’s hot
Equal work and wages worth the fight (sing us a new one)
On demand abortion, every city (okay, but no gun control)
Won’t these women ever get a life
Feminists don’t have a sense of humor (poor Hilary)
Feminists and vegetarians
Feminists spread vicious lies and rumor
They’re far too sensitive to ever be a ham
That’s why these feminists just need to find a man
I’m Dennis Kucinich, and I approve this message
Here’s a truly terrible YouTube video of McKay performing the song (starts in the middle & is tilted to the right).
I was amazed when I met students in graduate school who did not enjoy reading. Graduate school in literature, mind you. They could write brilliant literary analysis that would squewer the less theoretically savvy, but read for fun? Never.
I even knew some grad students who held the opinion that deriving pleasure from reading was a “social construction” or a form of “false consciousness” that made one complicit with dominant ideology. I was told repeatedly that my job as a professor would be, in part, to disabuse my students of their expectation that they would enjoy their assigned reading.*
Even now, as a professor, I know numerous fellow academics who never, ever crack a book** for their own enjoyment. They read copiously, of course, for teaching and research purposes. But they know nothing about what’s happening in literature outside their areas of specialty — what books have won awards, who’s on the best-sellers list, what Oprah is reading. I can only suppose that this is because they don’t want to read anything else. I can only suppose that they don’t derive pleasure from reading more generally.
To me, there is a distinct difference between “reading for work” and “reading for pleasure,” even though there are certainly books that fit into both categories. I’ve read fiction for fun that I ended up incorporating into my classes. I’ve read novels for my classes that I discovered I loved. But, I have always, constantly, and continuously been reading for pleasure.
To me, the idea that someone should devote his/her life to the study and teaching of literature — no matter what time period or genre or media or critical approach — but not be a reader, I find that horrifying. I find myself suspicious and distrustful of these people because their motives are so mysterious: why are they teaching literature, anyway?
On the other hand, whenever I discover that a colleague is an avid sci-fi fan, or reads young adult novels, or re-reads the works of Henry James every year, I feel a sense of kinship and admiration. Even when I don’t share their particular passion (Henry James, anyone?), I recognize that we have similar values — that living a reading life is a good thing.
I am applying something of a double standard, I know. I wouldn’t expect a math professor to spend his/her free time completing equations — although, the math professors I know do read and think about math for fun. But, I do feel that there is something different about literature and that to be a good teacher/scholar of literature means to have deep understanding of the joys and discoveries of reading.
What do you think?
* Of course I know that one of the problems lit teachers encounter is that students want to respond to reading from an uncomplicated emotional place: “either I like it or I don’t” or, more specifically, the annoying, “I didn’t like it, therefore I don’t have to think about it” attitude that some adopt. I recognize that part of the work of teaching lit is encouraging students to move from this simplistic reaction towards a critical engagement with the text. But, this can and, in my opinion, should be paired with a celebration of reading as a source of pleasure.
** By “book” I don’t mean simply novels, although that’s my reading of choice: non-fiction books, magazines, newspapers, and, yes, even blogs — I think if you are a passionate and consistent reader of any form of writing, you’re doing okay.
You know that the universe is conspiring against you when, wide-awake at 3 a.m. and driven from your bed, you turn on your TV and discover that your cable provider is running a “System Integrity Check.” That’s right, you are awake and watching TV at precisely the moment that your cable company has identified as the best time, statistically speaking, to run said check — because no one in their right mind would be awake.
Yesterday I posted my first snarky blog rant. It felt good to get it off my chest but I’ve spent the time since feeling guilty and embarrassed for putting such bitchiness out there. Clearly I was channeling all of my pent-up cynicism about the profession, but I don’t want to be that kind of blogger.
What I was trying to say, in between all the sarcasm, was that I have been thinking about writing the Acknowledgments for the recently completed Major Academic Project and that, while I know exactly what the formulas are and how to follow them, they just seemed so fake. I want to say something REAL about how terrible the entire experience was, how close I came to not surviving, and how many people and institutions were not supportive, how many jobs I was turned down for, how many fellowships I didn’t get, how many cruel rejection letters I’ve received, how much debt I accumulated trying to complete my research and present my work, etc. The polished discourse of the Acknowledgments page masks these realities and it would be considered déclassé to admit them in the reputable pages of a monograph. Yet, I chafe at the expected formula because it presents a false image of a seamless and painless journey.
I suppose that’s what this blog is all about. Here I can say some of the things that the conventional avenues of academic discourse won’t allow.
I’m going to leave the first post up, even though I’m slightly ashamed of myself, because it’s part of my learning process about what this whole blogging thing is about.
You know what I’m referring to. You’ve encountered it at the start of every scholarly book: the acknowledgments page. And, you know that there is an standard formula that goes a little something like this:
- Acknowledge that the book began as a dissertation at Fancy Pants Graduate Program and list the names of all Big Shot Professors on your dissertation committee, inferring a greater degree of comradery and support than you ever got from them.
- Be sure to also name fellow graduate students, but only those who have been successful, repressing all mention of those who never finished their PhDs or who “just” got jobs at teaching schools.
- Acknowledge colleagues from First Job School, where you went because Big Shot Professors failed to warn you that the job market was terrible and that not everyone would be as rivited by your jargon-laden and super specialized research topic as they were.
- Acknowledge Small Research Grant you received from First Job School, that they gave you because they were worried that you were going to flee the coop, which you did, using Small Research Grant to pad your CV.
- Trumpet the fact that you now teach at Big Shot U. and list every single Important Person you met there, from those that shook your hand at university functions to those that you slept with, so that everyone will know who you know and that you are a member of the elite cabal in your little corner of academia. Do your best to infer that all of these people contributed in some ways to your book, either by nodding absent-mindedly while you pontificated about it or by inviting you to be on conference panels with other cool academics, where you all looked really cool in your expensive and trendy suits, creating a little blackhole of coolness that everyone in the audience envied.
- Mention that being at Big Shot U. also got your foot in the door for Prestigious Fellowship which gave you a year off to sit in coffeeshops and look like you were thinking deep thoughts while actually checking email every 5 minutes and wondering why no one was emailing you to be on more panels or to contribute to their collections.
- Try to insert sentimental acknowledgement here to try to make you sound like a human being and not just a scheming academic climber — perferably to an inspirational third grade teacher, a family member who died before they could see the project in its published glory, or maybe a loyal pet.
- Use the word “finally” to indicate that you are getting to the personal stuff and express your love in gushingly inappropriate or ickily sacchrine terms to your spouse or partner, and to your assorted children named after literary characters, being sure to state that your life would be meaningless without them.
Whatever you do, do not suggest that writing the book made you want to kill yourself several times over and that you think anyone who reads it must be pretty desperate, maybe trapped on a desert island with only your crummy little academic monograph about the price of peas in 17th C Bourgoyne. You know that if you were trapped on an desert island with only your book to read you would absolutely kill yourself, but only after you had a good laugh over the complete fabrication that is your acknowledgments page.
Shout out to Mouse at Notes of a Neophyte for inspiring this rant with her hilarious — and terrifyingly accurate — mock grad application essay.
This is the article I wish I had read ten years ago, that might have saved me some of the pain I experienced while I was carving Major Academic Project out of hard stone.
Chronicle: What are Book Editor’s Looking For?
I really appreciate the author’s matter-of-fact attitude — that writing an academic book is not about finding the Holy Grail but about identifying an interesting topic and making a reasonable argument about it. If only my grad school advisors had demystified the process like this, perhaps I wouldn’t have felt that if my work wasn’t “changing the shape of the field,” “intervening in a major political crisis,” “giving voice to underrepresented and downtrodden people,” “challenging dominant paradigms of race/class/gender/sexuality/nation,” or all the other lofty goals I felt I had to meet — well, perhaps, I could have valued my own work for what it was.
