As an OCD classicist, I feel compelled to point out the historical connection of "spleen" and "wrath."
As a moderately well-rounded individual, I feel the the need to point out that bile comes from the liver and goes to the gall bladder, whence elsewhere. "Black bile" =|= "bile."
As a healthy(ish) individual, I pass over these comments and away in silence.
Fascinating. Googling 'aposiopesis' returns ads for 'oral antiplatelet therapy', 'pulmonary embolism treatment' (hint: if you're having to google how to fix that, it's probably too late), 'vaginal pain intercourse', and 'HIV'.
Sounds like your Google is broken -- or like you or someone who uses your computer googles medical advice. When I type in "aposiopesis" I get a series of definitions. No ads. Even using image search, etc.
On a related note: When the comments on here stay on Classics-related topics, everyone seems at least minimally knowledgable ("Aristotally" aside). The arguments and complaints about "Why can't I get a job?!?!?!" sound reasonable. But get people off Classics, and suddenly FV is populated by a bunch of halfwits. Surprise surprise. New information recasts old.
I know I can probably Google this, but thought I would ask real people, especially after seeing all the expertise just demonstrated here: will my all-American cellphone work in Toronto, or is there a likelihood I'll have to do something with my Verizon plan?
Call Verizon and ask. Details vary by plan and by carrier. The cost to add an international element to your plan for one billing cycle is usually quite small. The cost for the data that your apps may use updating in the background or reporting to the NSA can be quite high--in the $1000s, even.
Or just put your phone on airplane mode and only take it off when you know you are reliably connected to wifi.
Geez. You write that as if spending $40 for a handful of phone calls over 3+ days is a minor matter.
If the APA did indeed decide to have a conference in a place where most of us can't use our phones without spending exorbitant amounts then the people who made that decision should spend some time in Purgatory. (Though not for many years, of course: I don't wish them physical harm, just divine justice.)
Seniors often forget how very poor most juniors are. Another example is the "stay an extra night at the meetings" advice above. I don't know if this is because they were relatively well off at this age compared to us, or just thoughtlessness, or both. But I guarantee you, nobody on the SCS is afraid that spending $40 is going to break the bank.
Last time I checked (about a year ago?), it was possible to use Verizon services from Canada and Mexico for an additional $2 per day. I think you have to register for the service ahead of time through.
Maybe you should do some research on how exchange rates work. The SCS/AIA is saving everyone a bunch of money this year just by virtue of holding the conference in a major metropolitan city where your dollars are worth 1.35x the local currency. Your CAD160 a night conference hotel rate is less than 120 US and you are whining about some cell phone charges.
Question for those on SC's or knowledgeable others...
As a VAP, I teach almost exclusively large lecture courses. My course evaluations are generally quite good, but there are always going to be a few "borings" and "too much readings" in the group. When putting together a teaching portfolio, I am never quite sure what to do about this--include full evaluations, in the hopes that SC's know that it is impossible to please everyone in a 200-person class? Send a "summary" with only the positive comments, in hopes that the sheer number will indicate that a majority of the students enjoyed the course (but risk the appearance--and tbh reality--of cherry-picking)? Any thoughts?
On the mixed teaching evaluations, give them all. People know what large lecture courses are like and it looks strange to have only glowing recommendations.
I'm sorry - when I said it wasn't hard, I meant that it wasn't hard to add the international option. They will also prorate the $40 so if you call before and after the conference they'll only charge you for those days, so it could end up being a few dollars. Of course, I am well aware of how the extra expense is not welcome, since I'm in that boat myself. If I were the OP, I simply wouldn't use my phone for a few days, but that may not be an option for some people. I just wanted to assure the OP that one *can* use a Verizon phone in Canada, but that it might cost you $$.
TF is that the field is totally effed. The stories in Eidolon are right on the money. Classics is classicist. Not elitist in the sense that intellectual best, creative best, and/or most hard-working rise to the top. No, it is classist in the sense that those with money and those with pedigree (often the same, except when pedigree is obtained by a noblesse oblige seeking to cover its own ass by condescending periodically to admit a novus/a homo) self-perpetuate, willfully and consciously excluding anyone they deem an outsider.
I enjoy reading ancient literature, I believe in its meritorious effects, and I want to keep my job, but like the FV poster quoted in the Eidolon article, I too want the field to die an inglorious death. Ah, the cognitive dissonance! O tempora! O mores!
The Classicist List is an email listserve that is not heavily moderated, so occasionally it goes off the rails, especially when people keep commenting on an issue that should be dropped. Yesterday a whole bunch of people felt compelled to weigh in on the question of whether individuals ought to be allowed to advertise their books on it, apparently under the impression that their opinions were relevant.
Strong evidence that the past several years of job market devastation have changed the tenor of this field is that nobody posted any angry, depressed, or just plain nasty stuff on this page during the meeting - virtually nothing about the meeting at all! And no Jeers on the Wiki for bad interviewers or the like -- it's almost as though those of us who are left have just come to expect it. Or maybe we actually had better things to do during the meeting. In any case, FV has been noticeably nicer and calmer this year than in years past. So that's something, even if it is just the effect of all of us being too worn out even to complain.
I think we're getting far enough along that many of those interviewing now began grad school *after* or only shortly before 2008, so that they are less likely to have ever had any reasonable expectation of eventual employment.
I think the job market shock has definitely worn off. In those first years after the crash, there was a lot more horror at the situation because it was new. FV also seems to be evolving into more of an all-purpose place to comment on Classical goings-on rather than pure job market. But it is interesting that even the rather shocking stories of our elders' (mis)behavior last year on Eidolon didn't elicit much.
Highly doubt it was a department. More probably one of the allied associations that has some cash, possibly even Eidolon -- Ms. Zuckerberg has a significant last name.
Presumably the distinction is one of doing the hard work to earn a PhD and has nothing to do with self-identification (or another's opinion of one's self-identification)
There is a wealthy donor who has sponsored large, lavish parties in New Orleans and San Francisco (and perhaps others). The donor is older and has nothing to do with FB. This information is far better than mere fama.
And Dr. Zuckerberg is a serious thinker with a real effin PhD.
Doesn't what you're saying fall precisely under "another's opinion of one's self-identification"? You're saying that Dr./Ms. Zuckerberg doesn't have the independent agency to decide her own title (whatever she wants it to be) and must be identified as you say based on the criteria you have chosen. Hmm.
You and 11:24/3:10 are both asshats.
I reserve judgment about 2:09 (if that is a different person).
@5:04: not saying that at all. She can identify as she wants, of course. But it is rude and sexist to default to Ms. when someone has earned the honorific of Dr.
I'd default to calling anyone with a PhD "Dr." unless they tell me not to (I know two people who, because of their professions, don't prefer "Dr.").
However, to add some weirdness to this conversation, it should be noted that in old-timey wedding invitation etiquette still followed in some elite southern social circles to this day, the only people who are addressed as "Dr." on wedding invitation envelopes (and, while we're at it, have "Dr." on their calling cards) are doctors of medicine.
I assume this has to do with the PhD coming to the US later than the MD?
I suspect it has more to do with the fact that when your appendix swells up a PhD in Classics can't cut you open and remove it before it bursts and kills you.
As someone with a PhD for some time now, I'd say that anyone who gets worked up over being addressed by a fellow PhD or a non-PhD as Mr./Mrs./Ms. is a bit too full of him/herself, and those who get worked up over OTHER people not being addressed that way should just find themselves another job... Uhm, I meant, hobby.
As a Ph.D., I don't get particularly worked up over what colleagues call me (and they usually default to first names anyway), but it is pretty irritating when students address me as MRS. X (especially considering that I'm not married). I assume this is just a habit left over from high school and I don't hold it against the students, but it does seem (anecdotally) that male colleagues are more likely to be addressed as Professor/Dr.
Come on, Classicists, if none of us are getting jobs, the least we can do to make Classics relevant again is to come up with some good Golden Showers / Zeus / Trump jokes.
I'm not the one who wrote "are," but couldn't one argue that's it should be "plural by attraction" because "jobs" is plural? That seems a logical way for the language to evolve.
One could argue it, sure. One might think one an idiot, but that's likely wouldn't stop one.
P.S.: The better argument would be that "none of us" is a logical plural, even though it is not a grammatical plural, and so it might reasonably take a plural verb. One would need a firm grasp of grammar to argue that.
So, are you feeling superior after anonymously insulting and mocking someone on Famae Volent for a minor, flippant comment about grammar? Your mastery over all matters grammatical is so awe-inspiring that I can only hope that you get a job where your students and colleagues will appreciate you for the being of pure intellect and wisdom that you are.
Dude. "But, but, the internet! But, but, I was just making a dumb joke!" That's weak. You tried to peacock. You failed and got shown how it's really done. Move on.
I would say that America needs a reality show featuring petty Classicist infighting, but I'm not sure the reality show demographic is ready to stoop that low.
I mean, I think the data is already pretty clear. I don't there's a further degree of "you're fucked" you can get to by filling in the picture a little more.
And there are people, we've already had one here, who will say "oh well the data is only partial and therefore misleading, I know that my university does better than it looks like on the tracker."
It's impossible to try and talk some of these undergraduate students who are hell bent on graduate school out of applying. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it's sad, especially when faculty who care more about their own grad-school placement record get angry when they find out what we told their "best and brightest" about their real academic job prospects.
I know some who feel their job would be in jeopardy if it was known by senior faculty that they were discouraging "promising" undergraduates from pursuing grad school.
Yes. The realization that remaining in Classics would put in a situation where I had to choose between my career and being honest with my students was one of the major factors in my decision to leave the field.
Daddy Cruel always did have a penchant for making fallacious arguments. This is just another one in a long list. That he can't distinguish cause and effect is a bit more of a surprise than his inability to get clear on the use/mention and sense/reference distinctions, but it's really all part of a single disorder of the rational faculty. No doubt his need to rationalize away his sins is also unbearably great.
^ If you were really concerned about the 'real' world and regarded it as irresponsible to talk about Classics instead, you wouldn't be wasting your time criticizing people who are talking about Classics. So stop trying to fool yourself; you're not even fooling us. If nothing else, stop using the word 'literal' like a child. This isn't the end of the world; Hitler wasn't the end of the world, and no matter how plausible one regards the comparisons, this is not Nazi Germany. If you for some reason feel that your own circumstances prevent you talking about Classics while also fighting the good fight, then I suggest you stop wasting your time on Classics blogs and go fight the good fight. But please don't let yourself believe that you can fight the good fight by writing on blogs.
This country has a shit ton of nuclear weapons. The continued existence of human life on earth depends on Trump's sanity and self-control, and there's no good fight to fight that can make that not so. We may all die tomorrow.
Maybe they're related. Maybe if academics taught more classes focusing on democracy and politics, and less courses on "weird s*** that outsiders rightly find creepy" as in the case of CD, or courses that will only appeal to those who are already members of the choir, we'd be in a less horrible situation today.
I want a fascist-killing cithara. Are such things for sale, or must I construct it from scratch?
I also second Jan 30 4:44 AM (what a timestamp!) re: teaching more on democracy and politics. Of course, it just so happens that I work on politics and democracy and such; but I'm sure that's an accident. Really, though, I think my research and teaching have more to offer general humanistic education than roughly 93.4282% of what is being published in classics these days. Yet I am about to join the club of unemployed former academics who have published books with major presses, because apparently teaching shit like democracy and politics while also publishing about it does not make a person an attractive job candidate in today's market (alternative explanation: I am an asshole, or visually unattractive, or a visually unattractive asshole). I'll be kicking myself forever for not choosing to write about meter in Pindar or intertextuality in metapoetic Second Sophistic discourses on gendered cultural practices bearing on both Classical mousike and epigraphic evidence from Hellenistic Crete instead.
Re: reductio ad VDH: if the new era compels classicists to come up with a way to talk about the positive value of ancient literature, thought, and culture while also being clearly at odds with VDH, then something good will have resulted from this nightmare. But I'm not holding my breath. I can't afford to make my oxygen supply contingent on classicists suddenly ceasing to be embarrassed at the thought that sexist, racist imperialists might nonetheless have produced ideas of enduring value.
I'm fine with reductio ad CD, if that is a tool for thinking more productively about how we can contribute to a society that needs it so badly. You know who is never going to take a course on e.g. the politics of menstruation in ancient Rome? Kids whose families lean right. Young men especially. The very people who need us the most. You know who might LOVE to take a class on warfare, politics, history, democracy? The same kids.
I like a lot of what the Eidolon pieces have said, but worry about reactions to the growing right that try to explicitly push the discipline, and especially the teaching part of it, leftward. We have a chance to reach people when they're young. 18-22 is a malleable age. But if we're teaching courses that in their very titles drive away students who may have come from a conservative background or have conservative tendencies, all we're doing as a discipline is deepening the chasm between "us" and "them." There are an awful lot of people out there right now who could have benefited from learning about the Peisistratids, but if we are deliberately marking our classes to signal that people with conservative viewpoints aren't welcome, we leave them ignorant. To be clear, these people are horrible and the misuse of classics by the "alt-right" is an abomination. But I see one of Classics' roles as correcting that misinterpretation while people are still relatively open-minded. Draw them into conversation and trust the texts, trust your teaching.
@6:50AM For what it's worth, my own thought is not that the discipline should move leftward, whether in scholarship or teaching. I'm not sure my own vision of good classics teaching in the current environment is best described in terms of a location on a spectrum of political opinions, since I envision my classes as places where die-hard Marxists can argue freely, seriously, and respectfully with die-hard right-libertarians and even the occasional Trump supporter (some of them are capable of serious and respectful argument; I had one last semester). I suppose if it's necessary to think of it in terms of its political leaning, it would be leaning toward the center, but only insofar as it takes a wider range of opinions seriously than many university professors of the current generation seem to find natural, and insofar as it affirms and tries to promote goods that are affirmed by serious, thoughtful people of otherwise wildly divergent persuasions. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the suggestions of the Eidolon pieces and therefore simply agreeing with you against them, but I wouldn't want to see teaching move toward classes that signal, by their very content, the exclusion of conservative viewpoints from consideration. I suppose it might be worth keeping in mind that the alt-right is not really representative of most of what has traditionally been labeled as 'conservative' in the U.S. I do suspect that there are more students in our classes who are quietly sympathetic to certain aspects of the alt-right rhetoric, and it's important that we not alienate them in ways that will encourage them to embrace it. But most of the students that folks think of as conservative are not alt-right, and we will do no good by conflating them. There is no reasonable discussion to be had with the alt-right; there is plenty of reasonable discussion to be had with more traditional forms of conservatism. Of course, very little reasonable discussion actually gets had in our culture; one of our jobs is to help change that, and one way we can do that is by not making conservative students feel unwelcome in our classes or ensuring that they will never take them in the first place. So I'm mainly agreeing, but I do so as someone whose political sympathies are decidedly on the left and who sees the goals of teaching mainly in terms of promoting values that I endorse as someone with such sympathies; I think I can do that, and that I do, to some extent at least, without alienating conservative students. I suppose it helps not to think that all conservatives are just idiots, as I know some professors find it very difficult to do. But, you know, reading, imaginative sympathy, and intellectual humility can help people get beyond that if they need it.
All that said, I would still support a move to kill fascists with citharas.
What are the rules about interviews at the SCS, anyway? Bilkent advertised through the SCS, but didn't state interviews would be held there, so I see the problem. But did they have the right to interview at the conference but at a location other than the conference hotel? Just curious.
Yeah, I don't see why this is a problem. How exactly does the SCS think it is ensuring that interviews are "safe and fair" anyway? Pretty sure they're always safe but not in fact fair for whatever unlucky SOB manages to get the 5PM interview slot when the day started at 9AM.
Thanks for your answer. It's been ~10 days and I haven't heard anything. Don't want to be a pest, but also don't want to get lost in the early-term madness.
There is nothing wrong mailing an editor to ask for a receipt. I usually do so if I have not heard back in a week. If you are polite, this will not prejudice them against their article. Given how an accepted article can be a big benefit for next years job market (or for the lucky few, tenure clock), it is in your interest to make sure the editor does not delay things by simply forgetting about it for a month.
I concur 12:45. I have in fact had a submission get misplaced in an egregious way. I received a receipt from the editor laying out the timeline, and then dutifully waited the six months or whatever that review would supposedly take. Having heard nothing, I waited another month not wanting to be a bother--only to find, when I did follow up, that through some sort of mix-up the manuscript had never been sent to reviewers.
Do follow up, 12:14! It has been a reasonable amount of time, and you should not waste further time waiting. Even if the editor is swamped and a missive is forthcoming, he/she ought to understand completely. And even beyond confirmation that your submission was received in the first place, you will want to know when you can expect to hear further information about the timeline for review.
If an SC is checking you out, they're going to do that whether you're on a bed or a chair. Bilkent probably just didn't understand the norms, but I wonder what Wash U was doing.
Inquire about the manuscript. I've heard stories about presses misplacing BOOK manuscripts for many months. Nobody but you has much reason to pay attention to what is happening with your manuscript, and that includes the editors whose job it allegedly is. Be polite, but inquire.
I'm sure that was a decision made purely on the merits. Publication in prestigious journals, creative teaching, presenting at the big conferences, and departmental service: that's what gets you a job, people. Just like your advisors have been telling you.
The arbitrary part of the job market is: there are an awful lot of candidates with multiple prestigious journal publications, book contracts, and extensive teaching experience. Among those candidates, the job market is essentially random but sorts toward those who present better socially. People who are inside candidates may be held to a lower standard, but not usually dramatically lower. But that is the extent to which it is arbitrary under normal circumstances.
Don't know which hire 12:54 is referring to (please do give some hints). One of the maddening things about this market is that people with impressive record in teaching and scholarship get passed over for people with nothing. Second and third tier institutions are hesitant to hire someone who is a research superstar--they fear superstar will soon try to move on to greener pastures.
Also, in this market, not having publications can actually be an advantage (optative word is sometimes, things are very capricious). Quite simply, every SC sees the hire as a jigsaw puzzle piece they want to fit perfectly into their department. A candidate with many publications also has many edges. An ABD in an amoeba. So if the SC wants someone who does gender, an ABD can bluff that they are interested in that topic, or that it is part of future (hazy) research plans. A candidate with many publications but nothing on gender has shown that they are not, in fact, interested in gender.
Same with teaching. An ABD from Princeton hasn't taught very much, but the SC can imagine them teaching all manner of different subjects. Someone who has been out for four years, however, has pretty much proven what their repertoire is. So the ABD can bluff and say, "I'd love to teach Greek prose comp!" If you've been out of four years, and haven't ever taught Greek prose comp, well clearly your fit is not perfect.
This means an ABD with a CAMWS paper can easily beat out someone with a tenure-packet worth of publications and a lengthy teaching portfolio. It does not always happen, but it happens more than it should.
Servius here. Issues involving professional ethics, and especially the ethics of hiring, are open for discussion on this blog. This includes discussion of instances where hiring departments appear to have behaved irregularly, and to the extent that is absolutely necessary, that may include some details about the qualifications of the person who was hired. But this is about departments. Speculation about the personal lives of individual scholars is far out of bounds. Critique of junior scholars' CVs that seem to us to cross the line will also be immediately removed. We are here as a forum to benefit the field: please post accordingly.
Are there others here, who, like me, have had to leave the field but can't seem to shake the Classics itch?
If so, how do you get your Classics fix?
I have a career where I go do a thing during the day and make money. All told, that's a pretty good setup. I'm certainly not willing at this point to go back to calling myself a Classicist and sitting around unemployed. But I do miss it, and being an adjunct as a way to get the fix is no good, both because I have to work during the day and because I don't want to take that spot away from someone who is still trying to succeed as a professional in the field and needs the affiliation.
I'm not sure there's a good answer here aside from "read some OCTs on the train". I find I'd like to have the kind of community I had when I was a Classicist, but I can't really interact with professional Classicists anymore without depressing everyone.
7:43, if there's a classics department near where you live you could try to get on a departmental mailing list and thereby attend talks or other events. Additionally, if there are research topics you want to pursue that department's faculty could provide a sounding board for ideas and other potential resources. As someone on the edge of the field myself (recently unemployed, now happily on a very short term teaching contract), it has made a huge difference to me having colleagues of some kind, even if they were getting paid to be classicists while I wasn't.
Original U of C question-asker here. I'm so sorry my badly-worded query caused a problem. I'm still curious about the recent job ad, but I'm going to assume from that lack of answers no one knows any rumors.
For those out of the field but with a Classics itch, there are a number of people in that position who have kept up (very useful) blogs or gone on to translate an obscure text or stay in some other way in touch with their prior academic research. My advice would be to find a research question or project that you can do very slowly in your spare time, and to keep doing so until you get bored. Translate Servius? Keep an annotated bibliography online?
You could, if you think trying to publish peer-reviewed articles is the most enjoyable and best way to contribute to the discipline. But things like editions and annotated translations, which are SUPER useful and enduring but not necessarily rewarded by the discipline, might be the sweet spot for at least some people.
Original "Classics itch" person here. An edition actually sounds like just the thing. Some of the texts I'm most intimately familiar with could use such a thing, and since I don't need to care about this work doing anything to advance my no-longer-extant Classics career, I can just make my own digital edition and cut out the publisher rigmarole.
The TT rat race encourages a lot of projects that have little value (do we need another monograph on say, Horace), while failing to reward the kind of work that could really be useful.
11:06: nobody knows. This is a university that should require you to be a superstar. You should be required to have what's listed above: multiple publications in the very top journals, a finished book manuscript, stellar, creative teaching experience, a track record of SCS presentations, preferably some service as well. You can judge for yourself by the comments here about their hiring practices.
Has anyone heard anything about Rome Prize finalists? I'm assuming I should count myself as rejected at this point, but some confirmation would be appreciated.
The recent U of C position posted on the SCS placement service is intended for a specific person. It's not an open search, it's a poaching situation in which HR requires a job ad to be circulated.
For the Rome Prize, recipients tend to be notified as soon as the decisions are made, but are asked to keep it a secret until the official announcement in the spring. Rejections are sent out at the time of the official announcement. It a situation, unfortunately, where no confirmation will come until you find out who was selected by the committee.
It's only a waste of time if the Chicago search committee does not even bother to look at applications. Otherwise, you're letting several people at a top program know who you are, and if you are any good how can that be bad?
Re Chicago: it is worth applying, but don't take too much time. You might still be invited to give a job talk (depending if they plan to go through this motion, sounds like this may have already happened), and it could still be a way to make connections. And getting "known" is important. For all you know, someone on the "fake search" committee might be putting together an edited volume next year and remember your name. If they think you're good--even someone who might have been a finalist if this were a real search, they may even feel they owe you one after running a fake search.
For what it's worth, I wouldn't be surprised if they do go ahead with inviting people to campus, etc. I know a senior faculty member in an unrelated field there, and he once lamented to me about some of the absurd policies that H.R. had regarding treating every interviewee precisely the same way, even if, for example, it meant asking irrelevant questions of some candidates just because those questions had been asked of other candidates for whom they were relevant. (That probably does not sound absurd, but believe me, if I remembered the details it most certainly would.) I don't see how the U-Chicago H.R. automatons would be such sticklers then, but now permit a blatantly non-search search to take place.
Perhaps we should start an office pool? I'll run it if I can skim 10% off the top as the "house."
Re: the UChicago inside hire; this person isn't currently teaching at Princeton, are they? The UChicago Classics website isn't being very helpful in giving up clues from the invited lecturers listed.
8:03pm again. I believe I found the UChicago inside hire. They currently teach...on the West Coast. I'm not familiar with them but their work sounds interesting. At least they're not another bore who studies Vergil or Horace. And they'll check more than one diversity box for UChicago's Classics Dept.
In my experience there is significant overlap between the users of the classics job wiki and those who frequent this site. Your pleas, albeit understandable, are not apt to be answered here I'm afraid.
Note that the rumored object of the UChicago job also appears to be on the shortlist for a different Very Prestigious Job -- Chicago might well want to hedge their bets so they don't lose the line if their ideal candidate turns them down.
With reference to the U of C discussion, please note: Do not list names on this site. As hires are announced in the spring and summer the wiki will be filled in by those made offers, and who are willing to post such information on the wiki. Any comments which reveal names, directly or indirectly by posting TMI will be deleted post-haste. Most importantly, please, please, please maintain a supportive and helpful environment! Applicants and Search Committees are all in this together, even though it often does not feel that way. This process is brutal enough without exacerbating it by impugning the methods and motives of others. Remember, we are all present and future colleagues. Let's live up to our now not-so-recent reputation (scroll down about a third of the way) as model academic citizens!
I was with you right up to "Applicants and Search Committees are all in this together."
Applicants and Search Committees are most certainly NOT all in this together. This isn't some mythical, unicorn-land where we all go around shaking hands and finding our personal best fits. It's a buyer's market where even compassionate search committees are forced by systemic problems to treat candidates like meat. Most search committees are NOT staffed by compassionate individuals -- or at least they make no efforts to appear so in official or personal correspondence.
Eh, I've had some really compassionate interactions with SCs and some that were not so much. It's a mixed bag, but I'd say the good and neutral ones have outnumbered the bad ones in my experience.
On SCs, I've had some bullies: few, but they're out there! Some incompetents: more, but not too many. And a lot of very nice people. With regard to the last category, I go back and forth between being desperately grateful for their kindness and thinking that their sympathy does me a fat lot of good as I watch my future go up in flames.
@11:51 BOOM! Nailed it! Once again, can we please stop acting as if Famae Volent and the Classics Wiki are one and the same thing? They are not, even if they are administered/moderated by the same Servii (are they?).
Famae Volent is for rumors that may or may not be confirmed. As part of gossip, that means FV will be less accurate. So please get over the possible lack of truths/"alternative facts" and allow us to vent and suggest hypotheticals.
If we want facts, we shall go to the Classics Wiki (or departmental pages). The Classics Wiki is where we post only verifiable information, and therefore should be the go-to for actual job placement information.
Please quit policing FV in instances where no actual names are listed.
Are you serious? There are dozens of people more qualified. This isn't some SLAC either, where having a long list of publications might scare potential colleagues who are hyper-focused on teaching and service. The idea that UChicago would hire someone who has had their PhD for several years now and has zero peer-reviewed publications is ludicrous.
Number of peer-reviewed publications is so clearly is NOT the ruler that determines who gets jobs. Not remotely, and I doubt it ever has been. It's a popularity contest, fortuna, nepotism, or whatever, but there's no point in being outraged on behalf of your CV. (In the case of UChicago-- the job is going to make the career of whoever gets it; they could give it to Caligula's proverbial horse and the horse would have a couple of book contracts and a host of articles out in a few years. There's just no incentive for the SC to count lines on a cv instead of picking their favorite person.)
1) Part of what motivates hiring decisions at a place like Chicago is the desire to land people with the potential to make a major impact on their particular subfield, i.e. by reshaping the dominant conversation. Current publications aren't necessarily the only measure of that potential. A high-quality book manuscript that is being vetted by a leading press is just as good, if not better.
2) It is entirely possible for a candidate to have a finished manuscript that has in fact been peer reviewed by a leading press and has received glowing reports, but is not yet under contract, and for that reason doesn't appear on the candidate's cv.
This is an excellent example of why judging someone based on publicized CV/internet presence alone is worthless. If you knew this candidate, you would likely have a very different impression of their qualifications and it would make a lot more sense why they are a competitive candidate. I very much wanted my institution to hire this person when they were ABD. We thought this person was a phenomenal candidate even then. I hope you get to meet this person at some point and that you feel embarrassed that you judged them based on what you could glean from the internet.
RE: 5:26 and 8:28 - thanks for the comments, which I hope will put an end to the rather appalling and completely inappropriate questions about the candidate's qualifications.
I'm perfectly willing to trust that the fut. Chicago assist. prof. will be an excellent choice for the department, but even so, I don't think it makes Chicago's position much better here. The fact is there are - or so I had thought - strong disciplinary norms to the effect that job searches should be fair and reasonably transparent, this is neither. Rather, this seems to be a blatant return to the buddy hiring system I had hoped we had moved away from. Does anyone know if the SCS can get involved here? At the least perhaps they could issue a letter strongly denouncing unfair hiring practices and reaffirming the field's norms?
Those norms include suspending the usual rules in the cases of spousal hires and poaching. Sucks, but I can’t imagine that anyone in their glass house is going to want to throw a stone.
So long as Chicago is not wasting a tenure-stream position on someone whose main area of research is digital humanities I couldn't begin to give a damn how they run their search, or how much their desired candidate has already published.
Yes, this is on Chicago. They have two fixed searches in as many months, both of which produced.... interesting results. This isn't about the people who are hired, much less on such a personal level that getting to know one of them personally would add anything to the conversation, 8:28!!! The conversation here is about Chicago using tenure lines in a way that breaks with field norms. Which would normally require a prestigious publication record within ten years of an undergraduate degree to acquire basically any job, and these are very plum ones. This is patently unfair to those having to earn jobs the normal way, and I'm not surprised they're upset.
Servius: As those following the discussion the first time this came up will have noticed, we aggressively removed comments in the previous instance, leaving only enough to trace the main points. We are absolutely not here to litigate the hiring choices every university decides to make. It benefits all of us, however, if institutions have open and clear hiring practices, and hire according to standards that are generally agreed upon field-wide. We will leave a fuller discussion in this second case since it has now come up twice. That said, please be careful to keep the emphasis upon institutional practices rather than individuals, and especially individual junior scholars. To that end, we have removed some redundant comments above.
I, for one, think the field could benefit from breaking some of the old norms. If you think having peer-reviewed articles within a year of finishing the PhD is more important than a record of innovative and successful teaching, for example, then I think you're part of the problem. If a candidate's research/writing/ideas are excellent (as demonstrated by a writing sample and/or by publications that aren't peer-reviewed) then it shouldn't matter how many times they were published as a grad student or while juggling the teaching load of a VAP while also being back on the market. It seems a lot riskier to hire someone who could turn out to be a disaster in the classroom.
RE: 11:44. I agree that SCs should value creative and successful teaching highly, but in the context of the thread I'm a bit confused by the comment: are you suggesting that fair and open norms of hiring don't matter so long as the norm-flouting hiring departments value teaching appropriately? If so, I couldn't disagree more strongly. Fair play in our hiring processes, as in peer-review...etc., is not some HR hurdle, it really is valuable and is also quite fragile - if other departments don't adhere to it, there's little reason to do so oneself. I would be very interested in hearing from a faculty member from Chicago, who might defend their behavior, as, on its surface, it suggests a simple and blatant disregard for quite basic and important norms of conduct.
These are separate issues: (1) running what is in essence a fake search to make a pre-determined hire, and (2) hiring someone whose cv doesn't meet the standards of the FV commentariat. The first -- if that's what is indeed happening with the UChicago job -- would seem to violate transparency and 'fair and open norms of hiring'. The second doesn't.
I'll take a stab at what I suspect is the underlying issue behind your second item.
It's not so much that a particular CV "doesn't meet the standards of the FV commentariat." It's that the field and Academia generally operate on a fiction of "merit." "Better"* people get the "better" jobs. "Lesser" people get the lesser jobs. No-goodniks get no jobs.
The post-2008 market has gone a long way toward to revealing that this narrative is false. Too many "good" people get the "lesser" jobs or no jobs at all. But we still operate on the fiction of merit: those who do get jobs are a combination of the meritorious and the lucky.
The tension here seems to me to come from definitions of merit. Most of us would like --at least openly -- to define merit as quality contributions to the field through scholarship and teaching. The "better" places (R1s) openly focus on scholarship (that is inarguable), and that is immediately evident in the CV.
We know that R1s are not hiring based on teaching. Period. If a leading school is also not hiring based on scholarship, then what exactly is the definition of "merit"? Is it now something beyond an applicant's control? Connections? Wealth? Race? Gender? Pre-existing networks? (We used to call those "good ole boys' clubs.) Is it "promise"--another word used as prophasis to disguise ulterior motives? THAT upsets people. And rightly so.
What's going on with Chicago, I couldn't say.
*"better" and "lesser" in ironic quotations because they contain their own set of patently false assumptions.
I agree with 12:49 PM: (1) is the problem here. As long as a university runs their search in a fair and open manner, they should be able to determine for themselves what qualifications they value most. We all know that "checking all the right boxes" (i.e., conforming to the old norms) won't guarantee any of us a job, and it's silly to be upset that someone lands a job just because they appear to lack a particular qualification that you personally think is important.
I personally think that it's better for the field if most departments (even R1s) put more emphasis on teaching than on publication record, but I'm not going to get upset because a search committee chose someone with a lot of publications but little or no teaching record. It's their department and they'll build it however they choose. I've been told by a search committee member (not one that was considering me as a candidate) that they "tend to hire people based on research and hope that they figure out how to be good teachers." I personally think this is a terrible idea (and in this particular instance I think it has something to do with the particular ways in which this department is struggling), but it's their decision, not mine.
It sounds like you agree with both 12:49 AND with me (1:28). You gave two criteria: "open" refers to 12:49's item #1 (fake searches), and "fair" refers to 12:49's item #2 / my description of "merit."
Or are you saying that departments can define "merit" however they choose but can do so without publicizing that definition in the job ad and then sticking explicitly to the publicized definition? (Right now we don't have to specify what we mean by "merit" because there are generally agreed upon field norms. If we reject those norms, then the search is not "fair and open" without explaining one's new norms up front.) The reason we have generalizable norms and rules (even if they're soft, socially-enforced rules) is because letting people do whatever they want is a sure way to create injustice. An unregulated free market only abuses those without power.
Yes, I (most recently 1:33) pretty much agree with you. Ideally job postings would be as clear as possible about the search committee's priorities. For what it's worth, the Chicago posting does specify that they want candidates to provide both a writing sample and "evidence of success as a teacher." That's a pretty clear statement of priorities.
I'm not saying we should reject all the established norms (except for the Old Boys Network and the sexist and racist elements...those can go) but that I personally think that the field would benefit from realigning our priorities to make sure we're reaching a wide audience and inspiring the next generation to love and appreciate what we study.
"Evidence of success as a teacher" is boilerplate, some variation of it probably appeared in 90% of the job ads this year. It certainly does not announce "we, as a prestigious institution, are changing our adherence to field standards dramatically." In my experience, excellent teaching is a basic minimum bar to clear for almost any job. Scholarship is where you have a chance to shine.
Paradoxically, the better the institution, the less pedagogical skills matter. At a place like U Chicago, which is very selective, the students will learn about as well from a merely competent teacher as they will from the next incarnation of Socrates. It is at less selective colleges--where the students need more hand-holding, that teaching excellence goes further.
On the contrary, in this market, I think that most of the top places are not willing to accept sub-par teaching in exchange for great research, since so many of the top candidates can do both. Look at the Yale history ad, for example, which, in contrast to Chicago, does clearly send that message: "The department seeks to foster dynamic, imaginative, and research-led teaching and places great value on the quality of undergraduate instruction and advising." The other Yale ads from this year also emphasized that anything less than an excellent teaching record wouldn't cut it.
Yale is simply paying lip service to caring about its teaching. Trust me, Yale has an abysmal record of teaching excellence in recent hires (with only one or two bright spots in its recent hiring record on that front).
I heard similar reports about Yale Classics. I wouldn't put too much credibility into "the department seeks to foster dynamic, imaginative, and research-led teaching and places great value on the quality of undergraduate instruction and advising."
1,146 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 401 – 600 of 1146 Newer› Newest»When it comes to spleen, Galen has nothing on the commenters at FV.
Therein lies the humour of the commenter's wrath!
"Therein lies the humour of the commenter's [bile]!"
I fixed that for you.
@Aristotally
As an OCD classicist, I feel compelled to point out the historical connection of "spleen" and "wrath."
As a moderately well-rounded individual, I feel the the need to point out that bile comes from the liver and goes to the gall bladder, whence elsewhere. "Black bile" =|= "bile."
As a healthy(ish) individual, I pass over these comments and away in silence.
@ December 21, 2016 at 8:28 AM
+1
I am witnessing the same process right now in another department. It's not just Classics!
@Splenetically - More, more, I prithee, more.
Lol. Arisnotatally totally didn't get the references to praeteritio and aposiopesis.
I'm not even going to talk about praeteritio, but the first rule of aposiopesis is...
Ecce! The Classics version of a Dad-joke!
Fascinating. Googling 'aposiopesis' returns ads for 'oral antiplatelet therapy', 'pulmonary embolism treatment' (hint: if you're having to google how to fix that, it's probably too late), 'vaginal pain intercourse', and 'HIV'.
And people say classicists don't get out enough.
Sounds like your Google is broken -- or like you or someone who uses your computer googles medical advice. When I type in "aposiopesis" I get a series of definitions. No ads. Even using image search, etc.
On a related note:
When the comments on here stay on Classics-related topics, everyone seems at least minimally knowledgable ("Aristotally" aside). The arguments and complaints about "Why can't I get a job?!?!?!" sound reasonable. But get people off Classics, and suddenly FV is populated by a bunch of halfwits. Surprise surprise. New information recasts old.
I know I can probably Google this, but thought I would ask real people, especially after seeing all the expertise just demonstrated here: will my all-American cellphone work in Toronto, or is there a likelihood I'll have to do something with my Verizon plan?
Call Verizon and ask. Details vary by plan and by carrier. The cost to add an international element to your plan for one billing cycle is usually quite small. The cost for the data that your apps may use updating in the background or reporting to the NSA can be quite high--in the $1000s, even.
Or just put your phone on airplane mode and only take it off when you know you are reliably connected to wifi.
Or cast the die and hope for the best!
Adding international coverage to your Verizon plan should run about $40 a month or so. It's not hard.
Geez. You write that as if spending $40 for a handful of phone calls over 3+ days is a minor matter.
If the APA did indeed decide to have a conference in a place where most of us can't use our phones without spending exorbitant amounts then the people who made that decision should spend some time in Purgatory. (Though not for many years, of course: I don't wish them physical harm, just divine justice.)
Seniors often forget how very poor most juniors are. Another example is the "stay an extra night at the meetings" advice above. I don't know if this is because they were relatively well off at this age compared to us, or just thoughtlessness, or both. But I guarantee you, nobody on the SCS is afraid that spending $40 is going to break the bank.
Last time I checked (about a year ago?), it was possible to use Verizon services from Canada and Mexico for an additional $2 per day. I think you have to register for the service ahead of time through.
@9:54
Maybe you should do some research on how exchange rates work. The SCS/AIA is saving everyone a bunch of money this year just by virtue of holding the conference in a major metropolitan city where your dollars are worth 1.35x the local currency. Your CAD160 a night conference hotel rate is less than 120 US and you are whining about some cell phone charges.
All I've learned is that no one appreciates my sense of humour or indeed Shakespeare.
Poor Aristotally....
Arisnotatally: "I was making a joooooke! You didn't think it was funny because you didn't GET itttttttt! Waaaaaah!"
The world: .
Question for those on SC's or knowledgeable others...
As a VAP, I teach almost exclusively large lecture courses. My course evaluations are generally quite good, but there are always going to be a few "borings" and "too much readings" in the group. When putting together a teaching portfolio, I am never quite sure what to do about this--include full evaluations, in the hopes that SC's know that it is impossible to please everyone in a 200-person class? Send a "summary" with only the positive comments, in hopes that the sheer number will indicate that a majority of the students enjoyed the course (but risk the appearance--and tbh reality--of cherry-picking)? Any thoughts?
On the mixed teaching evaluations, give them all. People know what large lecture courses are like and it looks strange to have only glowing recommendations.
@December 23, 2016 at 9:54 PM
I'm sorry - when I said it wasn't hard, I meant that it wasn't hard to add the international option. They will also prorate the $40 so if you call before and after the conference they'll only charge you for those days, so it could end up being a few dollars. Of course, I am well aware of how the extra expense is not welcome, since I'm in that boat myself. If I were the OP, I simply wouldn't use my phone for a few days, but that may not be an option for some people. I just wanted to assure the OP that one *can* use a Verizon phone in Canada, but that it might cost you $$.
well done, fellows, another shout-out in Eidolon...
and, for those Toronto-bound, may the gods be ever in your favor!
Those stories in Eidolon. WTF, people??
@ January 4, 2017 at 7:44 PM
TF is that the field is totally effed. The stories in Eidolon are right on the money. Classics is classicist. Not elitist in the sense that intellectual best, creative best, and/or most hard-working rise to the top. No, it is classist in the sense that those with money and those with pedigree (often the same, except when pedigree is obtained by a noblesse oblige seeking to cover its own ass by condescending periodically to admit a novus/a homo) self-perpetuate, willfully and consciously excluding anyone they deem an outsider.
I enjoy reading ancient literature, I believe in its meritorious effects, and I want to keep my job, but like the FV poster quoted in the Eidolon article, I too want the field to die an inglorious death. Ah, the cognitive dissonance! O tempora! O mores!
Everyone on the Classicists List: stop talking now, please.
No no, please keep it coming. This story is amazing, and the commentary about it is spot on.
I checked Classicists List -- it's about as boring as you can get...announcements of upcoming conferences, etc. Where is this discussion???
Yeah, what?
Hey let's all talk about the Classicists while they're away at their conference!
The Classicist List is an email listserve that is not heavily moderated, so occasionally it goes off the rails, especially when people keep commenting on an issue that should be dropped. Yesterday a whole bunch of people felt compelled to weigh in on the question of whether individuals ought to be allowed to advertise their books on it, apparently under the impression that their opinions were relevant.
Strong evidence that the past several years of job market devastation have changed the tenor of this field is that nobody posted any angry, depressed, or just plain nasty stuff on this page during the meeting - virtually nothing about the meeting at all! And no Jeers on the Wiki for bad interviewers or the like -- it's almost as though those of us who are left have just come to expect it. Or maybe we actually had better things to do during the meeting. In any case, FV has been noticeably nicer and calmer this year than in years past. So that's something, even if it is just the effect of all of us being too worn out even to complain.
I think we're getting far enough along that many of those interviewing now began grad school *after* or only shortly before 2008, so that they are less likely to have ever had any reasonable expectation of eventual employment.
I think the job market shock has definitely worn off. In those first years after the crash, there was a lot more horror at the situation because it was new. FV also seems to be evolving into more of an all-purpose place to comment on Classical goings-on rather than pure job market. But it is interesting that even the rather shocking stories of our elders' (mis)behavior last year on Eidolon didn't elicit much.
Honestly I thought those stories were pretty far down the tamer end of the spectrum of Things That Classicists Actually Do.
Which department hosted the party with the black busses? Do they do it every year?
Highly doubt it was a department. More probably one of the allied associations that has some cash, possibly even Eidolon -- Ms. Zuckerberg has a significant last name.
I mean, the conference was held in SF. In SF it's weird to be the guy that's *not* on a privately chartered bus.
And the rejections keep rolling in...
I believe the black bus party was Stanford. I don't recognize the other.
Actually, her name is Dr. Zuckerberg...
Eh, I stand by my terminology. Neither her general self-description nor her general conduct would suggest she particularly identifies as an academic.
Presumably the distinction is one of doing the hard work to earn a PhD and has nothing to do with self-identification (or another's opinion of one's self-identification)
There is a wealthy donor who has sponsored large, lavish parties in New Orleans and San Francisco (and perhaps others). The donor is older and has nothing to do with FB. This information is far better than mere fama.
And Dr. Zuckerberg is a serious thinker with a real effin PhD.
@4:30 PM
Doesn't what you're saying fall precisely under "another's opinion of one's self-identification"? You're saying that Dr./Ms. Zuckerberg doesn't have the independent agency to decide her own title (whatever she wants it to be) and must be identified as you say based on the criteria you have chosen. Hmm.
You and 11:24/3:10 are both asshats.
I reserve judgment about 2:09 (if that is a different person).
@5:04: not saying that at all. She can identify as she wants, of course. But it is rude and sexist to default to Ms. when someone has earned the honorific of Dr.
I'd default to calling anyone with a PhD "Dr." unless they tell me not to (I know two people who, because of their professions, don't prefer "Dr.").
However, to add some weirdness to this conversation, it should be noted that in old-timey wedding invitation etiquette still followed in some elite southern social circles to this day, the only people who are addressed as "Dr." on wedding invitation envelopes (and, while we're at it, have "Dr." on their calling cards) are doctors of medicine.
I assume this has to do with the PhD coming to the US later than the MD?
I suspect it has more to do with the fact that when your appendix swells up a PhD in Classics can't cut you open and remove it before it bursts and kills you.
@ 5:12 pm
Do you also boycott the Chronicle of Higher Education, then, for its policy of avoiding "Dr." when referring to individuals by name?
Nah, keep on looking for some moral high horse you can beat to death. Feels good, doesn't it? Kind of like self-pleasuring, huh?
As someone with a PhD for some time now, I'd say that anyone who gets worked up over being addressed by a fellow PhD or a non-PhD as Mr./Mrs./Ms. is a bit too full of him/herself, and those who get worked up over OTHER people not being addressed that way should just find themselves another job... Uhm, I meant, hobby.
otoh, it's understandable that someone would get worked up over sexism
@ November 29, 2016 at 12:32 AM: https://classicalstudies.org/professional-matters/professional-matters-data-collection
As a Ph.D., I don't get particularly worked up over what colleagues call me (and they usually default to first names anyway), but it is pretty irritating when students address me as MRS. X (especially considering that I'm not married). I assume this is just a habit left over from high school and I don't hold it against the students, but it does seem (anecdotally) that male colleagues are more likely to be addressed as Professor/Dr.
Come on, Classicists, if none of us are getting jobs, the least we can do to make Classics relevant again is to come up with some good Golden Showers / Zeus / Trump jokes.
@ 6:38 pm
Nah. The least we can do is use correct subject-verb agreement. "If none of us is getting jobs."
I'm not the one who wrote "are," but couldn't one argue that's it should be "plural by attraction" because "jobs" is plural? That seems a logical way for the language to evolve.
Damn, didn't mean to write "that's" -- I hereby acknowledge my error, before someone can jump on me for not proofing before posting.
@ 8:58
One could argue it, sure. One might think one an idiot, but that's likely wouldn't stop one.
P.S.: The better argument would be that "none of us" is a logical plural, even though it is not a grammatical plural, and so it might reasonably take a plural verb. One would need a firm grasp of grammar to argue that.
Anon. 8:58 here.
So, are you feeling superior after anonymously insulting and mocking someone on Famae Volent for a minor, flippant comment about grammar? Your mastery over all matters grammatical is so awe-inspiring that I can only hope that you get a job where your students and colleagues will appreciate you for the being of pure intellect and wisdom that you are.
Dude. "But, but, the internet! But, but, I was just making a dumb joke!" That's weak. You tried to peacock. You failed and got shown how it's really done. Move on.
I would say that America needs a reality show featuring petty Classicist infighting, but I'm not sure the reality show demographic is ready to stoop that low.
That's basically what university is already...not just Classics.
^ Critiquing petty infighting by engaging in petty infighting. Clever.
C'mon, people, let's get back to complaining about terrible interviews and the deplorable state of the discipline! It is January, dammit!
The job listing for "Wesleyan College" on the wiki is incorrect. The job is at Wesleyan University in CT, not Wesleyan College in GA.
Speaking of Wesleyan, what a cluster****
Deplorable. Deplorable. I've got no future.
sic transit gloria...universitatis? spei? academiae? nostrum?
nostra, folks, nostra
"Nostrum" is only partitive.
People! Keep filling in the placement tracker!! Nudge older friends to do their years. The more data, the better.
I mean, I think the data is already pretty clear. I don't there's a further degree of "you're fucked" you can get to by filling in the picture a little more.
I worry that student's I'm advising (and therefore showing the placement tracker to) will take blank departments as a hopeful sign. *sigh*
And there are people, we've already had one here, who will say "oh well the data is only partial and therefore misleading, I know that my university does better than it looks like on the tracker."
January 22, 2017 at 3:26 PM here.
Corrigendum: "students"
Sorry, that was a really strange typo. I blame being depressed about the state of the field.
It's impossible to try and talk some of these undergraduate students who are hell bent on graduate school out of applying. That doesn't mean we shouldn't try, but it's sad, especially when faculty who care more about their own grad-school placement record get angry when they find out what we told their "best and brightest" about their real academic job prospects.
If you actually try to talk to undergrads about this problem, you are a good person, and you should feel good.
Seconded.
I know some who feel their job would be in jeopardy if it was known by senior faculty that they were discouraging "promising" undergraduates from pursuing grad school.
Yes. The realization that remaining in Classics would put in a situation where I had to choose between my career and being honest with my students was one of the major factors in my decision to leave the field.
Oh no I accidentally a word
Classics in the Chronicle: http://www.chronicle.com/article/From-Homer-to-High-Tech/238982
Anyone see the latest on Daddy Cruel? Blames the extracurriculars on his scholarly interests. That Eidolon article couldn't have been more perfect.
An no advertisement for his position this year....that tenure line sure got yanked fast.
Daddy Cruel always did have a penchant for making fallacious arguments. This is just another one in a long list. That he can't distinguish cause and effect is a bit more of a surprise than his inability to get clear on the use/mention and sense/reference distinctions, but it's really all part of a single disorder of the rational faculty. No doubt his need to rationalize away his sins is also unbearably great.
Meanwhile in the real world, the literal end of the real world. But by all means, let's chat about Classics.
^ If you were really concerned about the 'real' world and regarded it as irresponsible to talk about Classics instead, you wouldn't be wasting your time criticizing people who are talking about Classics. So stop trying to fool yourself; you're not even fooling us. If nothing else, stop using the word 'literal' like a child. This isn't the end of the world; Hitler wasn't the end of the world, and no matter how plausible one regards the comparisons, this is not Nazi Germany. If you for some reason feel that your own circumstances prevent you talking about Classics while also fighting the good fight, then I suggest you stop wasting your time on Classics blogs and go fight the good fight. But please don't let yourself believe that you can fight the good fight by writing on blogs.
This country has a shit ton of nuclear weapons. The continued existence of human life on earth depends on Trump's sanity and self-control, and there's no good fight to fight that can make that not so. We may all die tomorrow.
Maybe they're related. Maybe if academics taught more classes focusing on democracy and politics, and less courses on "weird s*** that outsiders rightly find creepy" as in the case of CD, or courses that will only appeal to those who are already members of the choir, we'd be in a less horrible situation today.
Quick, someone, do a reductio ad VDH!
Can folks who have gotten/will get Vassar, W&M, and other non-TT interviews please update the wiki when convenient?
Man, before someone went and spoiled it by asking about specific searches that was one of my favorite exchanges on FV.
Only MOAR INTERTEXTUALITY AND METAPOETICS will save us from fascism.
HAHA...and aesthetics, and mousikē...don't forget those radical socialist anti-fascist topics.
This machine (sc. the cithara) kills fascists.
I want a fascist-killing cithara. Are such things for sale, or must I construct it from scratch?
I also second Jan 30 4:44 AM (what a timestamp!) re: teaching more on democracy and politics. Of course, it just so happens that I work on politics and democracy and such; but I'm sure that's an accident. Really, though, I think my research and teaching have more to offer general humanistic education than roughly 93.4282% of what is being published in classics these days. Yet I am about to join the club of unemployed former academics who have published books with major presses, because apparently teaching shit like democracy and politics while also publishing about it does not make a person an attractive job candidate in today's market (alternative explanation: I am an asshole, or visually unattractive, or a visually unattractive asshole). I'll be kicking myself forever for not choosing to write about meter in Pindar or intertextuality in metapoetic Second Sophistic discourses on gendered cultural practices bearing on both Classical mousike and epigraphic evidence from Hellenistic Crete instead.
Re: reductio ad VDH: if the new era compels classicists to come up with a way to talk about the positive value of ancient literature, thought, and culture while also being clearly at odds with VDH, then something good will have resulted from this nightmare. But I'm not holding my breath. I can't afford to make my oxygen supply contingent on classicists suddenly ceasing to be embarrassed at the thought that sexist, racist imperialists might nonetheless have produced ideas of enduring value.
I'm fine with reductio ad CD, if that is a tool for thinking more productively about how we can contribute to a society that needs it so badly. You know who is never going to take a course on e.g. the politics of menstruation in ancient Rome? Kids whose families lean right. Young men especially. The very people who need us the most. You know who might LOVE to take a class on warfare, politics, history, democracy? The same kids.
I like a lot of what the Eidolon pieces have said, but worry about reactions to the growing right that try to explicitly push the discipline, and especially the teaching part of it, leftward. We have a chance to reach people when they're young. 18-22 is a malleable age. But if we're teaching courses that in their very titles drive away students who may have come from a conservative background or have conservative tendencies, all we're doing as a discipline is deepening the chasm between "us" and "them." There are an awful lot of people out there right now who could have benefited from learning about the Peisistratids, but if we are deliberately marking our classes to signal that people with conservative viewpoints aren't welcome, we leave them ignorant. To be clear, these people are horrible and the misuse of classics by the "alt-right" is an abomination. But I see one of Classics' roles as correcting that misinterpretation while people are still relatively open-minded. Draw them into conversation and trust the texts, trust your teaching.
Which institutions conducted illegal job interviews at the SCS? Did they take place on hotel beds? Do tell.
I came to ask the exact same question!
@6:50AM For what it's worth, my own thought is not that the discipline should move leftward, whether in scholarship or teaching. I'm not sure my own vision of good classics teaching in the current environment is best described in terms of a location on a spectrum of political opinions, since I envision my classes as places where die-hard Marxists can argue freely, seriously, and respectfully with die-hard right-libertarians and even the occasional Trump supporter (some of them are capable of serious and respectful argument; I had one last semester). I suppose if it's necessary to think of it in terms of its political leaning, it would be leaning toward the center, but only insofar as it takes a wider range of opinions seriously than many university professors of the current generation seem to find natural, and insofar as it affirms and tries to promote goods that are affirmed by serious, thoughtful people of otherwise wildly divergent persuasions. Perhaps I'm misunderstanding the suggestions of the Eidolon pieces and therefore simply agreeing with you against them, but I wouldn't want to see teaching move toward classes that signal, by their very content, the exclusion of conservative viewpoints from consideration. I suppose it might be worth keeping in mind that the alt-right is not really representative of most of what has traditionally been labeled as 'conservative' in the U.S. I do suspect that there are more students in our classes who are quietly sympathetic to certain aspects of the alt-right rhetoric, and it's important that we not alienate them in ways that will encourage them to embrace it. But most of the students that folks think of as conservative are not alt-right, and we will do no good by conflating them. There is no reasonable discussion to be had with the alt-right; there is plenty of reasonable discussion to be had with more traditional forms of conservatism. Of course, very little reasonable discussion actually gets had in our culture; one of our jobs is to help change that, and one way we can do that is by not making conservative students feel unwelcome in our classes or ensuring that they will never take them in the first place. So I'm mainly agreeing, but I do so as someone whose political sympathies are decidedly on the left and who sees the goals of teaching mainly in terms of promoting values that I endorse as someone with such sympathies; I think I can do that, and that I do, to some extent at least, without alienating conservative students. I suppose it helps not to think that all conservatives are just idiots, as I know some professors find it very difficult to do. But, you know, reading, imaginative sympathy, and intellectual humility can help people get beyond that if they need it.
All that said, I would still support a move to kill fascists with citharas.
Bilkent was one.
Has anyone submitted an article to Helios? Do they typically respond to submissions with a confirmation of receipt?
What are the rules about interviews at the SCS, anyway? Bilkent advertised through the SCS, but didn't state interviews would be held there, so I see the problem. But did they have the right to interview at the conference but at a location other than the conference hotel? Just curious.
Umm, I'm pretty sure search committees have the right to interview wherever the fuck they want...
Yeah, I don't see why this is a problem. How exactly does the SCS think it is ensuring that interviews are "safe and fair" anyway? Pretty sure they're always safe but not in fact fair for whatever unlucky SOB manages to get the 5PM interview slot when the day started at 9AM.
(@Feb 3 1:41) Yeah, it's not like women were ever interviewed on a bed in a hotel room before. Oh wait...
How recently?
About Helios: I have published there and the editor (Steve Oberhelman) has always responded to submissions with an acknowledgment.
@11:32 AM
Thanks for your answer. It's been ~10 days and I haven't heard anything. Don't want to be a pest, but also don't want to get lost in the early-term madness.
There is nothing wrong mailing an editor to ask for a receipt. I usually do so if I have not heard back in a week. If you are polite, this will not prejudice them against their article. Given how an accepted article can be a big benefit for next years job market (or for the lucky few, tenure clock), it is in your interest to make sure the editor does not delay things by simply forgetting about it for a month.
I concur 12:45. I have in fact had a submission get misplaced in an egregious way. I received a receipt from the editor laying out the timeline, and then dutifully waited the six months or whatever that review would supposedly take. Having heard nothing, I waited another month not wanting to be a bother--only to find, when I did follow up, that through some sort of mix-up the manuscript had never been sent to reviewers.
Do follow up, 12:14! It has been a reasonable amount of time, and you should not waste further time waiting. Even if the editor is swamped and a missive is forthcoming, he/she ought to understand completely. And even beyond confirmation that your submission was received in the first place, you will want to know when you can expect to hear further information about the timeline for review.
The other "off book" institution interviewing at the conference was Wash U, though they too advertised through the placement service.
Does anyone know anything about the Arizona Latin job?
Arizona has scheduled campus interviews.
Well, that, and that you do not want to interview there.
If an SC is checking you out, they're going to do that whether you're on a bed or a chair. Bilkent probably just didn't understand the norms, but I wonder what Wash U was doing.
Inquire about the manuscript. I've heard stories about presses misplacing BOOK manuscripts for many months. Nobody but you has much reason to pay attention to what is happening with your manuscript, and that includes the editors whose job it allegedly is. Be polite, but inquire.
Thoughts on the recent University of Chicago job posting?
I'm sure that was a decision made purely on the merits. Publication in prestigious journals, creative teaching, presenting at the big conferences, and departmental service: that's what gets you a job, people. Just like your advisors have been telling you.
‘that decision’ refers to which one, 3:47 PM?
Except in a world where 50 out of 100 applicants have all of those things... Then it's just luck or, sometimes, who you know, which is itself luck.
9:24 here: I meant the job ad! Sorry for the confusion.
oh, lol, i see there should be a U of C trigger warning
@4:45 The comment was sarcastic. A trip to the Chicago website will reveal why.
I'm 4:45. Took a look and I understand the sarcasm now. Unfortunately.
Hypothetically, if such a decision were made, would it be more likely to be out of pure arbitrariness or something less kosher?
The arbitrary part of the job market is: there are an awful lot of candidates with multiple prestigious journal publications, book contracts, and extensive teaching experience. Among those candidates, the job market is essentially random but sorts toward those who present better socially. People who are inside candidates may be held to a lower standard, but not usually dramatically lower. But that is the extent to which it is arbitrary under normal circumstances.
I doubt the SCS would be willing to risk slipping down that particular slippery slope.
Don't know which hire 12:54 is referring to (please do give some hints). One of the maddening things about this market is that people with impressive record in teaching and scholarship get passed over for people with nothing. Second and third tier institutions are hesitant to hire someone who is a research superstar--they fear superstar will soon try to move on to greener pastures.
Also, in this market, not having publications can actually be an advantage (optative word is sometimes, things are very capricious). Quite simply, every SC sees the hire as a jigsaw puzzle piece they want to fit perfectly into their department. A candidate with many publications also has many edges. An ABD in an amoeba. So if the SC wants someone who does gender, an ABD can bluff that they are interested in that topic, or that it is part of future (hazy) research plans. A candidate with many publications but nothing on gender has shown that they are not, in fact, interested in gender.
Same with teaching. An ABD from Princeton hasn't taught very much, but the SC can imagine them teaching all manner of different subjects. Someone who has been out for four years, however, has pretty much proven what their repertoire is. So the ABD can bluff and say, "I'd love to teach Greek prose comp!" If you've been out of four years, and haven't ever taught Greek prose comp, well clearly your fit is not perfect.
This means an ABD with a CAMWS paper can easily beat out someone with a tenure-packet worth of publications and a lengthy teaching portfolio. It does not always happen, but it happens more than it should.
1:16, read a few posts back and you will understand which hire is being referred to
Servius here. Issues involving professional ethics, and especially the ethics of hiring, are open for discussion on this blog. This includes discussion of instances where hiring departments appear to have behaved irregularly, and to the extent that is absolutely necessary, that may include some details about the qualifications of the person who was hired. But this is about departments. Speculation about the personal lives of individual scholars is far out of bounds. Critique of junior scholars' CVs that seem to us to cross the line will also be immediately removed. We are here as a forum to benefit the field: please post accordingly.
HAHA. Seriously, Servius? Famae volent as a forum to benefit the field? You must be joking...
If you don't think it is beneficial, you are welcome not to spend your time here. The Servii hope that it is.
Are there others here, who, like me, have had to leave the field but can't seem to shake the Classics itch?
If so, how do you get your Classics fix?
I have a career where I go do a thing during the day and make money. All told, that's a pretty good setup. I'm certainly not willing at this point to go back to calling myself a Classicist and sitting around unemployed. But I do miss it, and being an adjunct as a way to get the fix is no good, both because I have to work during the day and because I don't want to take that spot away from someone who is still trying to succeed as a professional in the field and needs the affiliation.
I'm not sure there's a good answer here aside from "read some OCTs on the train". I find I'd like to have the kind of community I had when I was a Classicist, but I can't really interact with professional Classicists anymore without depressing everyone.
7:43, if there's a classics department near where you live you could try to get on a departmental mailing list and thereby attend talks or other events. Additionally, if there are research topics you want to pursue that department's faculty could provide a sounding board for ideas and other potential resources. As someone on the edge of the field myself (recently unemployed, now happily on a very short term teaching contract), it has made a huge difference to me having colleagues of some kind, even if they were getting paid to be classicists while I wasn't.
Original U of C question-asker here. I'm so sorry my badly-worded query caused a problem. I'm still curious about the recent job ad, but I'm going to assume from that lack of answers no one knows any rumors.
For those out of the field but with a Classics itch, there are a number of people in that position who have kept up (very useful) blogs or gone on to translate an obscure text or stay in some other way in touch with their prior academic research. My advice would be to find a research question or project that you can do very slowly in your spare time, and to keep doing so until you get bored. Translate Servius? Keep an annotated bibliography online?
edit texts!
Nothing stopping you from spending your Saturday mornings working on an article!! Blind peer review ftw!
You could, if you think trying to publish peer-reviewed articles is the most enjoyable and best way to contribute to the discipline. But things like editions and annotated translations, which are SUPER useful and enduring but not necessarily rewarded by the discipline, might be the sweet spot for at least some people.
Original "Classics itch" person here. An edition actually sounds like just the thing. Some of the texts I'm most intimately familiar with could use such a thing, and since I don't need to care about this work doing anything to advance my no-longer-extant Classics career, I can just make my own digital edition and cut out the publisher rigmarole.
The TT rat race encourages a lot of projects that have little value (do we need another monograph on say, Horace), while failing to reward the kind of work that could really be useful.
11:06: nobody knows. This is a university that should require you to be a superstar. You should be required to have what's listed above: multiple publications in the very top journals, a finished book manuscript, stellar, creative teaching experience, a track record of SCS presentations, preferably some service as well. You can judge for yourself by the comments here about their hiring practices.
Has anyone heard anything about Rome Prize finalists? I'm assuming I should count myself as rejected at this point, but some confirmation would be appreciated.
The recent U of C position posted on the SCS placement service is intended for a specific person. It's not an open search, it's a poaching situation in which HR requires a job ad to be circulated.
For the Rome Prize, recipients tend to be notified as soon as the decisions are made, but are asked to keep it a secret until the official announcement in the spring. Rejections are sent out at the time of the official announcement. It a situation, unfortunately, where no confirmation will come until you find out who was selected by the committee.
Hints about who they are aiming to poach?
A very talented junior scholar who works on Latin narrative literature and who would help improve the diversity of the department.
The U of C poachee was invited to campus to give a talk on campus a few months ago. It was a disguised job talk.
LOL the story checks out! Thanks for saving many folks a lot of time they can use in millions of better ways.
It's only a waste of time if the Chicago search committee does not even bother to look at applications. Otherwise, you're letting several people at a top program know who you are, and if you are any good how can that be bad?
Re Chicago: it is worth applying, but don't take too much time. You might still be invited to give a job talk (depending if they plan to go through this motion, sounds like this may have already happened), and it could still be a way to make connections. And getting "known" is important. For all you know, someone on the "fake search" committee might be putting together an edited volume next year and remember your name. If they think you're good--even someone who might have been a finalist if this were a real search, they may even feel they owe you one after running a fake search.
Re: 2:07 pm,
This is exactly what happened to me. I didn't get the job, but the publication invitation a few months later was nice.
Original person asking about Chicago here: Thank you all so much! Very helpful all around!
For what it's worth, I wouldn't be surprised if they do go ahead with inviting people to campus, etc. I know a senior faculty member in an unrelated field there, and he once lamented to me about some of the absurd policies that H.R. had regarding treating every interviewee precisely the same way, even if, for example, it meant asking irrelevant questions of some candidates just because those questions had been asked of other candidates for whom they were relevant. (That probably does not sound absurd, but believe me, if I remembered the details it most certainly would.) I don't see how the U-Chicago H.R. automatons would be such sticklers then, but now permit a blatantly non-search search to take place.
Perhaps we should start an office pool? I'll run it if I can skim 10% off the top as the "house."
Re: the UChicago inside hire; this person isn't currently teaching at Princeton, are they? The UChicago Classics website isn't being very helpful in giving up clues from the invited lecturers listed.
8:03pm again. I believe I found the UChicago inside hire. They currently teach...on the West Coast. I'm not familiar with them but their work sounds interesting. At least they're not another bore who studies Vergil or Horace. And they'll check more than one diversity box for UChicago's Classics Dept.
Seriously, though. Has anyone heard anything about Vassar?
In my experience there is significant overlap between the users of the classics job wiki and those who frequent this site. Your pleas, albeit understandable, are not apt to be answered here I'm afraid.
Note that the rumored object of the UChicago job also appears to be on the shortlist for a different Very Prestigious Job -- Chicago might well want to hedge their bets so they don't lose the line if their ideal candidate turns them down.
does said rumored object have any peer-reviewed scholarship?
Vassar has done first-round interviews. Not sure beyond that. If you haven’t heard back, you aint getting the job.
With reference to the U of C discussion, please note:
Do not list names on this site. As hires are announced in the spring and summer the wiki will be filled in by those made offers, and who are willing to post such information on the wiki. Any comments which reveal names, directly or indirectly by posting TMI will be deleted post-haste.
Most importantly, please, please, please maintain a supportive and helpful environment! Applicants and Search Committees are all in this together, even though it often does not feel that way. This process is brutal enough without exacerbating it by impugning the methods and motives of others. Remember, we are all present and future colleagues. Let's live up to our now not-so-recent reputation (scroll down about a third of the way) as model academic citizens!
@ 11:12
I was with you right up to "Applicants and Search Committees are all in this together."
Applicants and Search Committees are most certainly NOT all in this together. This isn't some mythical, unicorn-land where we all go around shaking hands and finding our personal best fits. It's a buyer's market where even compassionate search committees are forced by systemic problems to treat candidates like meat. Most search committees are NOT staffed by compassionate individuals -- or at least they make no efforts to appear so in official or personal correspondence.
Spare us your platitudes.
Read the landing page of the site.
Eh, I've had some really compassionate interactions with SCs and some that were not so much. It's a mixed bag, but I'd say the good and neutral ones have outnumbered the bad ones in my experience.
On SCs, I've had some bullies: few, but they're out there! Some incompetents: more, but not too many. And a lot of very nice people. With regard to the last category, I go back and forth between being desperately grateful for their kindness and thinking that their sympathy does me a fat lot of good as I watch my future go up in flames.
@10:24 An excellent question indeed...
@11:51 BOOM! Nailed it! Once again, can we please stop acting as if Famae Volent and the Classics Wiki are one and the same thing? They are not, even if they are administered/moderated by the same Servii (are they?).
Famae Volent is for rumors that may or may not be confirmed. As part of gossip, that means FV will be less accurate. So please get over the possible lack of truths/"alternative facts" and allow us to vent and suggest hypotheticals.
If we want facts, we shall go to the Classics Wiki (or departmental pages). The Classics Wiki is where we post only verifiable information, and therefore should be the go-to for actual job placement information.
Please quit policing FV in instances where no actual names are listed.
Does rumored object really have no peer reviewed publications?? I find that hard to believe, but I am not quite curious enough to look it up myself.
FV-policing can get sanctimonious at times, but I'd rather have that than the bloodbath of viciousness that FV was back in the good ol' days.
I mean, gosh, it couldn't be that a search committee considered quality of work rather than just quantity, could it?
@3:31pm
Are you serious? There are dozens of people more qualified. This isn't some SLAC either, where having a long list of publications might scare potential colleagues who are hyper-focused on teaching and service. The idea that UChicago would hire someone who has had their PhD for several years now and has zero peer-reviewed publications is ludicrous.
Quality in this field is measured by peer-reviewed publications. It's not perfect, but that's the ruler for all of us. Or should be.
Number of peer-reviewed publications is so clearly is NOT the ruler that determines who gets jobs. Not remotely, and I doubt it ever has been. It's a popularity contest, fortuna, nepotism, or whatever, but there's no point in being outraged on behalf of your CV. (In the case of UChicago-- the job is going to make the career of whoever gets it; they could give it to Caligula's proverbial horse and the horse would have a couple of book contracts and a host of articles out in a few years. There's just no incentive for the SC to count lines on a cv instead of picking their favorite person.)
pretty often
Two quick thoughts:
1) Part of what motivates hiring decisions at a place like Chicago is the desire to land people with the potential to make a major impact on their particular subfield, i.e. by reshaping the dominant conversation. Current publications aren't necessarily the only measure of that potential. A high-quality book manuscript that is being vetted by a leading press is just as good, if not better.
2) It is entirely possible for a candidate to have a finished manuscript that has in fact been peer reviewed by a leading press and has received glowing reports, but is not yet under contract, and for that reason doesn't appear on the candidate's cv.
Re: Assumed U of Chicago hire
This is an excellent example of why judging someone based on publicized CV/internet presence alone is worthless. If you knew this candidate, you would likely have a very different impression of their qualifications and it would make a lot more sense why they are a competitive candidate. I very much wanted my institution to hire this person when they were ABD. We thought this person was a phenomenal candidate even then. I hope you get to meet this person at some point and that you feel embarrassed that you judged them based on what you could glean from the internet.
RE: 5:26 and 8:28 - thanks for the comments, which I hope will put an end to the rather appalling and completely inappropriate questions about the candidate's qualifications.
I'm perfectly willing to trust that the fut. Chicago assist. prof. will be an excellent choice for the department, but even so, I don't think it makes Chicago's position much better here. The fact is there are - or so I had thought - strong disciplinary norms to the effect that job searches should be fair and reasonably transparent, this is neither. Rather, this seems to be a blatant return to the buddy hiring system I had hoped we had moved away from. Does anyone know if the SCS can get involved here? At the least perhaps they could issue a letter strongly denouncing unfair hiring practices and reaffirming the field's norms?
Those norms include suspending the usual rules in the cases of spousal hires and poaching. Sucks, but I can’t imagine that anyone in their glass house is going to want to throw a stone.
So long as Chicago is not wasting a tenure-stream position on someone whose main area of research is digital humanities I couldn't begin to give a damn how they run their search, or how much their desired candidate has already published.
Yes, this is on Chicago. They have two fixed searches in as many months, both of which produced.... interesting results. This isn't about the people who are hired, much less on such a personal level that getting to know one of them personally would add anything to the conversation, 8:28!!! The conversation here is about Chicago using tenure lines in a way that breaks with field norms. Which would normally require a prestigious publication record within ten years of an undergraduate degree to acquire basically any job, and these are very plum ones. This is patently unfair to those having to earn jobs the normal way, and I'm not surprised they're upset.
Servius: As those following the discussion the first time this came up will have noticed, we aggressively removed comments in the previous instance, leaving only enough to trace the main points. We are absolutely not here to litigate the hiring choices every university decides to make. It benefits all of us, however, if institutions have open and clear hiring practices, and hire according to standards that are generally agreed upon field-wide. We will leave a fuller discussion in this second case since it has now come up twice. That said, please be careful to keep the emphasis upon institutional practices rather than individuals, and especially individual junior scholars. To that end, we have removed some redundant comments above.
I, for one, think the field could benefit from breaking some of the old norms. If you think having peer-reviewed articles within a year of finishing the PhD is more important than a record of innovative and successful teaching, for example, then I think you're part of the problem. If a candidate's research/writing/ideas are excellent (as demonstrated by a writing sample and/or by publications that aren't peer-reviewed) then it shouldn't matter how many times they were published as a grad student or while juggling the teaching load of a VAP while also being back on the market. It seems a lot riskier to hire someone who could turn out to be a disaster in the classroom.
RE: 11:44. I agree that SCs should value creative and successful teaching highly, but in the context of the thread I'm a bit confused by the comment: are you suggesting that fair and open norms of hiring don't matter so long as the norm-flouting hiring departments value teaching appropriately? If so, I couldn't disagree more strongly. Fair play in our hiring processes, as in peer-review...etc., is not some HR hurdle, it really is valuable and is also quite fragile - if other departments don't adhere to it, there's little reason to do so oneself. I would be very interested in hearing from a faculty member from Chicago, who might defend their behavior, as, on its surface, it suggests a simple and blatant disregard for quite basic and important norms of conduct.
These are separate issues: (1) running what is in essence a fake search to make a pre-determined hire, and (2) hiring someone whose cv doesn't meet the standards of the FV commentariat. The first -- if that's what is indeed happening with the UChicago job -- would seem to violate transparency and 'fair and open norms of hiring'. The second doesn't.
@12:49
I'll take a stab at what I suspect is the underlying issue behind your second item.
It's not so much that a particular CV "doesn't meet the standards of the FV commentariat." It's that the field and Academia generally operate on a fiction of "merit." "Better"* people get the "better" jobs. "Lesser" people get the lesser jobs. No-goodniks get no jobs.
The post-2008 market has gone a long way toward to revealing that this narrative is false. Too many "good" people get the "lesser" jobs or no jobs at all. But we still operate on the fiction of merit: those who do get jobs are a combination of the meritorious and the lucky.
The tension here seems to me to come from definitions of merit. Most of us would like --at least openly -- to define merit as quality contributions to the field through scholarship and teaching. The "better" places (R1s) openly focus on scholarship (that is inarguable), and that is immediately evident in the CV.
We know that R1s are not hiring based on teaching. Period. If a leading school is also not hiring based on scholarship, then what exactly is the definition of "merit"? Is it now something beyond an applicant's control? Connections? Wealth? Race? Gender? Pre-existing networks? (We used to call those "good ole boys' clubs.) Is it "promise"--another word used as prophasis to disguise ulterior motives? THAT upsets people. And rightly so.
What's going on with Chicago, I couldn't say.
*"better" and "lesser" in ironic quotations because they contain their own set of patently false assumptions.
11:44 AM here.
I agree with 12:49 PM: (1) is the problem here. As long as a university runs their search in a fair and open manner, they should be able to determine for themselves what qualifications they value most. We all know that "checking all the right boxes" (i.e., conforming to the old norms) won't guarantee any of us a job, and it's silly to be upset that someone lands a job just because they appear to lack a particular qualification that you personally think is important.
I personally think that it's better for the field if most departments (even R1s) put more emphasis on teaching than on publication record, but I'm not going to get upset because a search committee chose someone with a lot of publications but little or no teaching record. It's their department and they'll build it however they choose. I've been told by a search committee member (not one that was considering me as a candidate) that they "tend to hire people based on research and hope that they figure out how to be good teachers." I personally think this is a terrible idea (and in this particular instance I think it has something to do with the particular ways in which this department is struggling), but it's their decision, not mine.
@1:33
It sounds like you agree with both 12:49 AND with me (1:28). You gave two criteria: "open" refers to 12:49's item #1 (fake searches), and "fair" refers to 12:49's item #2 / my description of "merit."
Or are you saying that departments can define "merit" however they choose but can do so without publicizing that definition in the job ad and then sticking explicitly to the publicized definition? (Right now we don't have to specify what we mean by "merit" because there are generally agreed upon field norms. If we reject those norms, then the search is not "fair and open" without explaining one's new norms up front.) The reason we have generalizable norms and rules (even if they're soft, socially-enforced rules) is because letting people do whatever they want is a sure way to create injustice. An unregulated free market only abuses those without power.
@ 2:26 PM
Yes, I (most recently 1:33) pretty much agree with you. Ideally job postings would be as clear as possible about the search committee's priorities. For what it's worth, the Chicago posting does specify that they want candidates to provide both a writing sample and "evidence of success as a teacher." That's a pretty clear statement of priorities.
I'm not saying we should reject all the established norms (except for the Old Boys Network and the sexist and racist elements...those can go) but that I personally think that the field would benefit from realigning our priorities to make sure we're reaching a wide audience and inspiring the next generation to love and appreciate what we study.
"Evidence of success as a teacher" is boilerplate, some variation of it probably appeared in 90% of the job ads this year. It certainly does not announce "we, as a prestigious institution, are changing our adherence to field standards dramatically." In my experience, excellent teaching is a basic minimum bar to clear for almost any job. Scholarship is where you have a chance to shine.
Paradoxically, the better the institution, the less pedagogical skills matter. At a place like U Chicago, which is very selective, the students will learn about as well from a merely competent teacher as they will from the next incarnation of Socrates. It is at less selective colleges--where the students need more hand-holding, that teaching excellence goes further.
On the contrary, in this market, I think that most of the top places are not willing to accept sub-par teaching in exchange for great research, since so many of the top candidates can do both. Look at the Yale history ad, for example, which, in contrast to Chicago, does clearly send that message: "The department seeks to foster dynamic, imaginative, and research-led teaching and places great value on the quality of undergraduate instruction and advising." The other Yale ads from this year also emphasized that anything less than an excellent teaching record wouldn't cut it.
Yale is simply paying lip service to caring about its teaching. Trust me, Yale has an abysmal record of teaching excellence in recent hires (with only one or two bright spots in its recent hiring record on that front).
I heard similar reports about Yale Classics. I wouldn't put too much credibility into "the department seeks to foster dynamic, imaginative, and research-led teaching and places great value on the quality of undergraduate instruction and advising."
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