tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post6359703281740373147..comments2024-01-28T03:35:51.182-05:00Comments on Reassigned Time: Academic as Performer and Product: Professionalization and ScholarshipDr. Crazyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12457967076373916629noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-59475682810837926982008-05-11T06:13:00.000-04:002008-05-11T06:13:00.000-04:00Despite the fact that when I chose my subject area...Despite the fact that when I chose my subject area I did not consider this, the more I write, the more I realise that my work, however marketed, is auto-biographical. The direction in which my thesis took, the theories and ideas I engaged with, my topic area, my style of writing, are all reflections of my upbringing and background and in some respects and attempt to tie many of the disaparate parts of my identity together- to rethink what it meant to be me. This was not intentional and not something I realised until I was nearly finished.<BR/><BR/>And despite all of this, I wrote a well-received thesis and believe it has the potential to be quite marketable. <BR/><BR/>I wonder whether, however calculated we are about our topic area, we can get away from the fact we shall eventually write something very personal- maybe this is just me.Feminist Avatarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03364456372396228106noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-30344906517174030102008-05-09T23:52:00.000-04:002008-05-09T23:52:00.000-04:00Thanks for the link to your post, Shaun!Susan, you...Thanks for the link to your post, Shaun!<BR/><BR/>Susan, you're right that certain specializations are much more difficult to fit into public scholarship/public engagement, for any number of reasons. One of the reasons that I don't position myself that way is because with my specialization it's a huge stretch. What's interesting is that I have medievalist colleagues who actually have an easier time of that in my location than I do. I think the issue if one is not at a school with a lot of clout (and cash) is that configuring one's work to fit into a "public engagement" model takes a lot of energy and creativity (time) as well as material resources, so it's not that it would be impossible for me to do it, but given the constraints on resources for me, it's too difficult to embark on such an endeavor. <BR/><BR/>Also, I didn't mean to imply that one should choose a "hot" topic that one wasn't passionate about or that one shouldn't consider one's own interests in conceiving one's scholarship. (This is actually where Sisyphus was right on in a comment to a previous post in which she noted that it's bad to throw in the postcolonial/african-american/whatever chapter into a dissertation to attempt to increase marketability when that's not really what one wants to do in a whole-hearted way.) I was (and really still am) passionate about the ideas in my dissertation. But I could have done something similar theoretically with different texts and been much less successful - by writing on the canonical but with an off-center theoretical approach, I was able to market myself better than if I had written on the non-canonical from that same approach. Obviously I'm coming from the perspective of my discipline, and the possibilities and options differ by discipline. I guess what I'd say, though, is that regardless of discipline we all have to pick our battles and think about our scholarship in terms of the practical outcomes that we hope to achieve for ourselves. But so all of that is a long way of saying that I think that we basically agree :)<BR/><BR/>As for what you say about the job that you got, well first, congratulations! Second, I'd say you're right: that is what we hope to find. The difficulty, I think, is that it's very easy to conceive of research as totally separate from the rest of our professional lives, which can land people in institutional situations that *don't* actually fit what they want for their careers. So if you write super-esoteric dissertation in English, probably only a huge research university could support you. You might get that job, but if what you love most is teaching, you're screwed. Or you might end up with no offers at all, if you don't hit the market at the right time. If you write slightly off-center but also mainstream dissertation, you have more options. (I know a few people who've been burned on the market by going with their esoteric passions without considering the market at all, and so that's where I'm coming from with this.)Dr. Crazyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12457967076373916629noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-14695199703150429722008-05-09T19:24:00.000-04:002008-05-09T19:24:00.000-04:00I think in some ways you are right about scholarsh...I think in some ways you are right about scholarship and professional positioning, but as a historian I find it more complicated. (We don't have canonical authors, and there are fashions that you may catch the wave on or not.) My reaction to Limerick was that she's a historian of the US west at an institution in the west, which allows certain kinds of public activity. I'm a historian of a different country, and back some centuries. I don't live in the places I write about. That does actually limit some of my ability to do public work.<BR/><BR/>That said, the other thing I'd say is that given the uncertainty of academic careers, you totally have to write the dissertation/book you want to write. People I know who don't tend not to finish. That doesn't mean you don't adapt and do something that might have a better chance of being marketable.<BR/><BR/>I've always taken somewhat sideways approaches to my work, and have been oddly marginal and engaged in wider professional contexts. I've just got a job where the somewhat odd way I approach issues is a strength rather than a weakness. And that's what everyone hopes to find.Susanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09716705206734059708noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20099192.post-13323575789481459232008-05-09T14:23:00.000-04:002008-05-09T14:23:00.000-04:00Awhile back I posted an entry that picks up the sa...Awhile back I posted <A HREF="http://olympus_mons.typepad.com/short_circuit_signs/2008/01/valuing-popular.html" REL="nofollow">an entry</A> that picks up the same threads as Limerick. I think you're right to note that those of us at regional/smaller state schools (my institution is in the process of "rebranding" itself to be considered less regional) have more freedom to pursue less traditional, and often more publicly minded, publishing, but that resource limitations, including time, means that we face a different set of constraints than those at R1 schools when making such choices. My blog entry discusses the issue of professional positioning as well, but less elegantly than you do here.Shaun Hustonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05374693213232236154noreply@blogger.com