Thanks, folks, for all the support. I really appreciate it, and as you know, this kind of work can be pretty isolating. Just wanted to let a couple responses breathe here.
chufffedlittlemuffaletta replied to your post:Okay. I’m going to be honest and earnest for a…
i couldn’t deal with the idea of taking a month off of writing to deal with writing those fucking letters and all the other bullshit. so i opted out this semester. but! you are awesome and they’re idiots if they don’t want you.
A friend and I were talking yesterday about the fact that it can really be difficult to jump in the job search without being armed with 1) a certain kind of institutionally specific ambitiousness (which is often in explicit or implicit opposition to other kinds of ambitiousness), and/or 2) an ability to bullshit that is, really, not so much distinguishable from 1. Surely this is overstating the wackness of it all, but what I hate about writing those letters and those statements is that they sometimes ask me to project a future that I would like to leave more open-ended, or to lead in a different direction, rather than demonstrate how I can talk the talk in a way that doesn’t look like it’ll shake things up too much. Like I’m supposed to have my next book project already mapped out when I’m still finishing my dissertation. What if the stuff I’m working on needs some time to marinate? What If I want to become a better teacher? What if I’m not sure I want to stay in the academy for the rest of my life?
curate replied to your post: Okay. I’m going to be honest and earnest for a…
no more watered-down proposals: not worth it if you get the job/postdoc; not worth it if you don’t. go on, meaning-maker!
No doubt. I’m going to be strategic about things—as I’m sure you’ve noticed, my everyday relation even to academic language can border on the caustic, but I’m definitely going to stick to my guns on how I want to do this work and why I think it’s important. Because, you’re right, otherwise it’s not worth it.
Notes
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curate said:
“they” might want to fund folks who shake things up too much! just get the good recs & let your hard work speak for itself. —yr friend who buried her own ideas for too long & is now trying to do it differently on the job mkt this year
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lowendtheory posted this
