@7:59. you sound incredibly bitter/jealous and your accusations are unwarranted. How can you judge this candidate's abilities -- much less speculate about some hypothetical person at Columbia calling some hypothetical other person at GT -- without having read any of their work or spoken to them about their skills and interests? And anyway, it's a one year VAP, not a TT job, so a strong candidate with a lighter CV would not strike me apriori as a suspicious hire...
@ I still don't understand your logic. This is a one year VAP. I don't expect much teaching or publications under his belt. It would be another story entirely if we were discussing a TT position. To me it seems a logical progression to go from ABD to a VAP / post-doc.... what ELSE are ABDs supposed to get if not VAPs????
@ I really do think you're projecting your insecurities onto this candidate. This is understandable given how desperate we all are; but speculations are just that....
Comment number 1800 is pretty rich too because of its overt claim that whomever gets hired at three specific institutions will necessarily suck (unlike the author of the post, perhaps, whose natural brilliance and awesomeness is precisely what caused these schools not to hire him/her instead?).
Let's not forget that this whole thing about Georgetown was the result of a TYPO. Again-a TYPO.
I got an interview request for my current VAP job 2 days after the deadline and the job offer exactly 1 month after the initial deadline. I had no inside track on the job at all, just a good fit and good luck. Some schools, particularly private schools, just move quickly. Not everything is an elaborate conspiracy.
I think that some of the takeaways from the now-deleted comments are worth considering. Namely, that many of us here fail to comprehend how certain folks get certain jobs. I'm not naming names or narrowing-on on any particular hire, but many will cry foul when an ABD candidate with a "light CV" (as it was phrased) gets hired over what surely was a massive amount of fellow candidates whose credentials would have been much more developed.
Many of us struggle to make sense of this process and that's what this forum should be about. Let's have the conversation that OP wanted to start but let's not narrow in on a specific person, who, might I add, is a fellow junior scholar of us all.
The question that I interpret as being at the root of it all is rather simple: How can one whose CV is under-developed and whose PhD is yet to be granted 'win out' over dozens of more-developed scholars ? ...This is a fair question and does not seek to target anyone specific, but it is a question worth exploring further.
...It's because of a lack of understanding that is fanning the flames of a certain job that's been discussed heavily here. So, rather than simply deleting negative comments, let's follow that up with an actual discussion of the question that sits at the heart of the rumors and speculation and attempt to remedy it.
First, these feelings are not unique to any job or any job cycle; certainly this is a recurring issue and won't stop being one for future years. So let's not take my post here as a continuation of the assault on our peer, but rather as an attempt to flesh out the underlying issues and try to understand things better.
So...the issue at hand is simple:
***Folks with PhD and 3-4 years of teaching experience, maybe a PostDoc too, and numerous publications and conference presentations who also have a strong pedigree are not getting interviews/campus invites/job offers this year.***
Add to this that (inevitably) some ABDs will land some great jobs. Consequently, more-seasoned folks will be angry at this--and understandably.
I think that many people who do not get jobs will, upon seeing who did get a job, search that person out online to see what is missing from their own CV; to see where they can improve for next year. This is not a problem, and in fact is very healthy, in cases where the individual who received the job is unambiguously a superior candidate. In this case, one can compare/contrast CVs to evaluate one's weaknesses.
But, when the 'winner' of the job has less, and in some cases FAR less than you do, it triggers anger and resentment and it makes a person's mind go wild with ideas of what "must have happened to explain this injustice."
My opinion on this issue is that, yes, there always will be fixed searches and often an inferior candidate will get hired, and that is unfair. But, life is unfair. While we ought to strive for equality and fairness (and we should always), we have to also be realistic and understand that some people will just win out though they may not deserve it.
Second, luck is a HUUUGE factor in all of this. Every single SC is looking for something different, as is every individual member of a SC, and this can vary year-by-year, at the same school with the same SC even. One can never know what attribute on a CV either will attract or turn-off a SC member.
...I truly hope that this post can help to get the dysfunctional conversation being had off to a better direction, and that it, too, won't find itself deleted, but let's try to address the underlying concerns of 'conspiracy theorists' rather than just shooting them down as they pop up. In short, let's not just sweep under the rug the problems here but attempt to remedy it by talking about it.
Many SCs view their VAP positions as a stepping-stone towards a t-t job elsewhere (think of it like a helot post-doc). That is, while they of course need certain courses covered during a fellow faculty member's leave (the most common scenario in which VAPs are hired), they also want to invest in the development of a future member of the field. This development takes the form of allowing the person to get some real teaching under their belt, while also mentoring him/her about how to craft a stronger research profile, etc. Accordingly, many SCs are much more likely to hire someone young with "promise" (and a light CV) than someone who has been bouncing around for a few years already (and has more teaching experience, and arguably would do a better job qua VAP) but seems, in their view, (therefore) less likely to land a t-t job straight out of the VAP position (a scenario that makes the VAP position look good: it raises the individual department's profile a little, and makes the position more attractive to the best candidates in subsequent years).
It seems like a lot of people on here ignore the fact that SCs are mostly hiring based on promise. Not what your CV looks like now, but what it will look like in ten years. When someone one year out is competing against someone five years out, the SCs do not perceive their CVs to be on equal footing. They imagine what the recent PhD's CV will look like in five years and judge on that basis. Unfortunately, the longer you are on the market, the less promise you are perceived to have. That's the reality, no inside wheeling and dealing necessary.
Does anyone know if U of Toronto has already extended an offer to someone for the ancient history postdoc? I interviewed with them a while ago and haven't heard since, so I'm assuming that's what happened...
@11:20, While I agree that many SCs view their positions as a stepping-stone towards a TT job elsewhere, in the SCs I have served on (admittedly at a SLAC) I have never heard the idea that we should target someone according to how we think that person would do on the market post-VAP. We always looked for the person with 1) the best teaching record (experience with the specific courses we would need and recommendations/evaluations), then 2) some "special sauce" (able to offer something that will attract more majors/people in our classes), and finally 3) interesting research. One of the things I might note is that you would be shocked how many people on the market have letters of recommendation that do a VERY poor job of discussing a candidate's teaching; in this way, I can easily see an ABD (who might have a great letter from their DGS or from a professor for whom they've TA'ed) have a better reference than someone currently in a VAP, where candidates have difficulty getting their teaching observed in a thorough way (not just "I sat in one class") in time for the market.
Listen to 12:00, folks. This happened to me. My advisors, otherwise supportive to the point of doting, just didn't realize that none of them had even mentioned my teaching, for years, quite probably leaving people reading my recs with the impression that I was only interested in research and/or a crappy teacher. And I'm not ivy, so I was never really in the running for the hot shot jobs they thought I should get in the first place. I'm pretty sure this oversight really made a difference on my career or lack thereof.
Is it jeer-worthy if the Clemson SC said they'd be in contact in the new year following a skype interview in December and then proceeded to send out invites two days later? ...and have still yet to be in contact since December even though the job has been offered and accepted?
3:23, their point, obviously, was that no one with a t-t job offer so far is ABD, per the wiki, not that no ABDs have had interviews or campus visits. Perhaps that will change with the Stanford job you mention, or others yet to be finalized.
3:40: Thanks for getting in touch with 6:19 and clarifying what they "obviously" meant, despite what they actually said! Keen of you to volunteer your time like that, merely for the sake of public record.
Many ABDs will not get anything at all. With the current job market being as much of a buyer's market as it is there really isn't a reason for a school to take the risk on offering the job to an ABD.
In fact, my advisor stresses that VAPs are far less likely to go to ABDs that TT-jobs to ABDs. Reason being, a dept that has a posting for a VAP *needs* to get that slot filled, especially at smaller institutions. A T-T line, if it fails, will not cause as much collateral damage to the dept for the upcoming year. So, since any ABD carries the risk for a SC that if they select Mr.ABD only to have him not get his degree in time, they are really screwed. On the reverse, if an ABD offered a T-T job fails to get his degree, the SC in question can still have time to put forward an ad for a VAP(if needed).
Most consider the ABD year as a 'trial run.' An opportunity to get general impressions of the job market and maybe land an interview or two.
"A dept that has a posting for a VAP *needs* to get that slot filled, especially at smaller institutions. A T-T line, if it fails, will not cause as much collateral damage to the dept for the upcoming year. So, since any ABD carries the risk for a SC that if they select Mr.ABD only to have him not get his degree in time, they are really screwed.So, since any ABD carries the risk for a SC that if they select Mr.ABD only to have him not get his degree in time, they are really screwed. On the reverse, if an ABD offered a T-T job fails to get his degree, the SC in question can still have time to put forward an ad for a VAP(if needed)."
Uh -- how you figure? This seems precisely backwards to me.
An ABD hired for a T-T, who says s/he'll be finished in August and then isn't, is a disaster for a department. If the administration signs off on the hire "contingent on degree in hand by start of academic year" and then the candidate doesn't finish, either the contract is cancelled and the dept. is left with no-one to teach those courses at all (August is way, way too late to get a VAP lined up) or, more likely, the position is redefined as a one-year lecturer. In either case, the dept. then has to go through the whole process of reapplying for a t-t line to do a search the next year . . . and depending on who else is asking for t-t lines, a second search may not be approved--and the dept. may simply lose the position. Hiring an ABD for a t-t line is taking a very big risk indeed; everyhing rides on that person finsihing in time.
Here at my SLAC, at least, the Administration doesn't require that the PhD be finished by August for a VAP; If that person wants to come teach for us for a year and doesn't manage to finish his/her dissertation beforehand, well, that doesn't harm US in any way at all. It may be a bad career move for the candidate, but from the point of view of the Administration, for a VAP it really doesn't matter if the diss. is finished before the year starts or not. So an SC here wouldn't hesitate to offer a one-year VAP to an ABD if that person seemed like the best fit, but would be very reluctant indeed to offer a T-T to an ABD.
Some perspectives from an old timer here, which I hope will be helpful. In my institution, if an ABD is hired for a tt job and they don't finish, they don't lose their tt job, but it is downgraded to a lectureship (with salary adjusted to reflect the lower rank) and, when they finish, they become Assistant Profs. Their clock though is ticking. Which means they will probably not have time to do enough to get tenure. Our univ. has recently implemented a limit of three years to finish. If they don't, then they lose their job. Apparently this has been enough of a problem (not in Classics) that the Deans decided to create a policy.
Our medium-sized classics dept has hired ABDs for VAP positions who had no problem finishing. We have also hired an ABD who never finished after quite a few years with us. In my experience, that's not the norm. We have also hired people who had been out for a few years and fresh PhDs with a strong teaching record. And we have also rejected candidates of all three kinds because they seemed not to be a good fit for our dept and institution. We have had only one disastrous VAP hire in the last 10 years, and we would never had suspected it at the time of the hire. That person was a PhD from an elite univ with a few years of teaching experience under their belt. I agree with the previous post that even in VAPs, we look for good teaching, interesting research, and collegiality. Ideally, we look for people who we think have a future in the field, hoping our position will help them get a tt job down the line. But the primary criterion is their ability to teach our courses well and hit the ground running.
One thing I have learned serving on SCs is that the candidate may do everything right, but still lose against someone else. SCs have the complete picture of the field. It is very illuminating to read the files one after the other, because elements emerge that make it clear to you which candidate is a potential fit and which one isn't. In tt searches, I look at the CV first for publications and topic of diss. Then I read the cover letter, where I get a sense of the candidate and their own sense of who they are relative to their research and teaching. Then I read the rec letters. Each time, I look for excellence in research, teaching, and service. If a candidate looks like they favor one over the other, then they are not going to be a good fit for us. We need strong research record for tenure, but also we need to keep enrollments up. During the interviews, candidates may answer an interview question well, but they might be eclipsed by a candidate who will give an original, unique, surprising answer that sets them apart. Or there are candidates who appear equally good, but one has a particular interest or skill who will help us with x course or y program. Or they will help us branch out in areas that are exciting and new for us. Sometimes the candidate will look good on paper, but is unable to speak intelligently about their work. This is much more common that you might think. It is only in the juxtaposition of the candidates that these differences can be perceived. If you could be in the room where we interview, you would see for yourselves how candidates shoot themselves in the foot. The most common errors: people ramble in answering questions or don't answer the questions (it is actually astonishing how many people do not even listen to the question); they don't explain their research well; or show that they know very little or nothing about the institution and give the impression they don't really care about the job. Every time the candidates seem completely unaware of the fact that they are doing these things.
I sincerely hope this information is helpful to my young colleagues.
^very helpful indeed! Thank you. Your description of the process that goes into evaluating applications makes perfect sense to me.
I am one of those candidates who often trip up during interviews because of nerves. How to improve one's interview skills probably differs case-by-case, but do you get the general sense that candidates simply lack of sufficient interview practice? Do you think slowing down one's thought process during the interview might have helped some of these candidates?
Does your department do mock interviews, or could you arrange one if they do not?
Do you prepare for the standard questions in a way that is also genuine and reflects both you as a person and the needs of the department (aka not memorizing canned answers, but thinking about how you would propose courses, help build programs, etc. as outlined in Joy's The Classics Job Market: An Affable Guide, for example)?
Do you go into interviews cold, or do you try to warm up before with a friend or mentor?
These are just suggestions. But if you know that you trip up during interviews, practice (and varieties of kinds of practice and preparation) are important. I concur with @7:16 that I see more candidates shoot themselves in the foot at an interview than I would have expected when I was first on the market.
On the flipside, analyze the SC members beyond their specialties and scholarship. Watch out for the grizzled ones that don't give a shit, have random agendas, ask inappropriate questions b/c they could in the 70s, etc. They are easy to spot; they will speak way to much and dominate the proceedings. Huge red flag for both the interview and the dynamics of the department. For the untenured on the committee, it's usually amateur hour so you need to watch out for them as well. They might feel threatened about the new shiny thing in front of them or otherwise want to make an impression to the rest o the committee that they belong in the room. I've seen these sits go bad real fast. Generally, mid-career folks (though not the one's stuck at Associate at the age of 60) are the best.
@10:51, ageist much? "because they could in the 70s" -- anyone now old enough to be still employed but also be on hiring committees and be "grizzled" will have been too young even in 1979 to have been able to display the kind of conduct you claim used to happen. Nor am I going to ask how you know what happened in job interviews some 40 years ago given you identify with the "young" among us. Famae volent indeed.
Time to move on, old man. You're making no temporal sense. You've not made the world better and it's clear now that your generation has made it worse. Listen to someone from your generation...
And these children that you spit on. As they try to change their worlds. Are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through.
@7:56, practice simulations are certainly your best friend, but you need someone who is familiar with them and is willing to invest the significant time and energy.
In terms of nerves, this exchange from Band of Brothers always helps me:
Capt. Ronald Speirs: You know why you hid in that ditch, Blithe?
Pvt. Albert Blithe: [quietly] I was scared.
Capt. Ronald Speirs: We're all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier's supposed to function. Without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.
As heretical as it sounds, I think the placement process we generally have in place is rubbish. The stakes are so high, which already conspire to complicate the process. Then we place candidates in a fairly artificial situation, a beauty pageant where they heavily invest in skills that translate poorly to what actually matters for the long term well being of both the individual and program. And like prep for professional programs, it favors those who are often not the best fit but lucked into having the resources, including advisors who give a fuck. I know, all's fair as snidely outlined by some Cincinnati friends, but does this produce the healthiest discipline in the long run? I say no.
Barely literate unwashed plebs from Cincinnati took away jobs from those deserving, well-heeled, intellectual heavyweights from departments at assorted Ivies and par-Ivies. What an outrage! Apparently it is all due to the machinations of the faculty there, led by a former ASCSA director who has managed to become the dreaded Éminence Grise of all Classicsdom.
Search committees tremble at the sight of one of his letters of recommendation in an applicant's dossier. SC members who know him personally and perhaps owe him favors lay awake at night, soaked in cold sweat, waiting for a behind-the-scenes email or phone call from him on behalf of one of a Cincinnati student. They know that once he reaches out, they won't be able to cast their vote to hire Sterling Blueblood III from Haaarvard or Chaddington Silverspoon IV from Princeton.
How it wrenches their elitist hearts! O tempora, o mores! Where is their brave Tully to cast down this beastly Catiline of the Midwest!
@10:37, I for one love the vacillating displays of boomer fragility and self-righteous man/white/classics-splaining with occasional doses of justified millennial angst. Isn't this what 'Murica is all about these days?
11:34, I'm not one of the above posters (nor am I a boomer or millennial, for that matter), so this is an interjection rather than a response: only someone truly self-righteous could write a sentence like yours. So this is the pot calling the kettle black & a case of projection & failure to look in the mirror, & cetera.
@11:34. Indeed. Many decades ago a mentor told me that the academic mind is made up of alternating delusions of grandeur and persecution. I guess he's still right.
Reminder: Classics is for the most part a swamp of arbitrariness. There are too few jobs, and there is usually no good reason why someone (rather than the other 50/100/200+ qualified people) should have gotten them. If you got one, thank your lucky stars, your pedigree, and your supporters. If most of us were rational actors, we'd be actively looking for other things to do with our time and our lives.
"Fair is the prize, and the hope is great." In our case, the prize isn't so fair (tenure at some mediocre school in a moribund field, dealing with constant Fake News of various kinds), so why is the hope so great?
Let's get real, enjoy whatever we do in Classics, and try to get out before we sink with the ship.
@11:34, you somehow managed to sum up the worst part of classics (and FV) in one sentence. The best part is the immediate self-righteous boomer-splaining follow up. Classic classics response. Boomer fragility indeed. I guess someone is taking a break from researching his seminar on Byron's steamer trunk while his younger colleagues lose their weekends prepping for their weekly brunt of student contact hours.
2:23, you're referring to me, 12:14? Despite my writing "nor am I a boomer"?!? If so, then I can only conclude that you are a literary theorist, since who else would have the arrogance to think that (s)he can just dismiss what a text is explicitly saying in order to come up with a different reading of it?
P.S. I am a job-seeker, like most of the rest of us on this forum.
As someone who *does* use the terms Fake News and MCGA, I second the concerns about Genteel Racism. I would add ‘Classicism' and 'Presentism' to the list. So, let's study ANY 20th century writer's reception of antiquity (presentism), but start narrowing the canon and excluding late antiquity (Classicism), not to mention Christians writing in Greek and Latin, such as the great Africans Tertullian and Augustine (racism). But most Classicists would never talk to a North African outside of a visit to a Moroccan restaurant, so why bother with Tertullian, either? And why bother with the coal country folk? They don't take Latin in school, so they will never experience the joys of memorising English translations of Vergil. When some such people DO get excited about the Classics, we tell them to stop being racist and realize the Greek Miracle is a racist fable, the Romans were terrible to those they conquered. And somehow believing this is seen as consistent with continuing to go over the same goddamn canon. "Turn it over and over, for all is therein." Anti-racists teaching Cultural Studies for white folks.....rant over.
3:47pm: "So, let's study ANY 20th century writer's reception of antiquity (presentism), but start narrowing the canon and excluding late antiquity (Classicism), not to mention Christians writing in Greek and Latin, such as the great Africans Tertullian and Augustine (racism)"
I for one am tired of people trying to convince me that late antiquity or the Dark Ages that follow are actually interesting. When I was a young and open-minded lad I tried to see the appeal but I just ended up getting tired of seeing images of angry adult Jesus, freakish baby Jesus, and dead-eyed Mary. The same goes for the literature. If I never read any Augustine or Tertullian again it will be too soon. Hopefully once Peter Brown dies the attempts to rehabilitate these periods with their ugly art and dogma will die with him.
So did someone fund Eidolon as a way of destroying whatever is left of Classics? Seriously, that site can be summed up as, Classics should engage in self-loathing and apologize for its very existence.
^I'm not a huge fan of what comes out of Eidolon (it just doesn't strike me as particularly innovative), but I am also not against it. Different people have different interests, and I don't think that what they're doing is "destroying" Classics. In fact it can even be said that they are encouraging "whatever is left of Classics" to puts its own values into high relief as a way to push against these new trends...
Yes, Eidolon and places like it are asking Classicists to engage in self-loathing and apologize for their very existence. And the people who run it and write for it are at the VERY top of the ladder, mostly, in both cultural capital and actual capital. But self-loathing elites asking those down the ladder to self-flagellate for their sins is just one instance of a larger cultural trend. And maybe it is good that the contradictions can be brought out and 'whatever is left of Classics' can be forced to 'put its own values into high relief' so that the field (as a safe space for people who write fake or semi-fake dissertations on canonical lit that they themselves would say is arbitrarily selected) can be put to the torch. Lenin called this 'heightening the contradictions.'
Classics in American will die - both demographics (number of people taking Latin/Greek in HS and college) and ideology) are against it. We need repeal and replace. The replacement will be either language depts. or (if we are lucky) depts. of Mediterranean Studies vel sim. Let's keep heightening the contradictions. Demographics will do the rest, but the more fuel on the fire the better.
Reminder: Classics is Area Studies for white folks. At its core, it focuses on a particular subsection of literature and art that (nice) White People Like. Nice White People don't like Christian dogma (I don't either), so we don't study it. It is an aesthetic and emphatically NOT a historical discipline.
Let's imagine there were departments of Chinese and Japanese that focused on classical poetry and prose (and art) from a specific period, and sometimes their interrelationships. To even take classes that count towards the major, you have to have studied classical Chinese (and perhaps even Japanese) in high school.
The faculty wonder why the dept. is marginalized, students of non-Chinese and non-Japanese backgrounds don't tend to take the classes, and the admin wonders how we can justify having 10+ professors doing this stuff in a vacuum, as if it is in an independent 'field' with a 'methodology.'
This kind of thing can be sustained - and protected - in premodernity and now in chauvinistic ethnostates, but good luck keeping it going in today's America if your justifications are 'it's so pretty!' or 'if we study Greek and Romans we learn how bad they were and how bad many White People who read them became.'
I especially value Eidolon's thoughtful indicator of how long it will take to read their articles. I prefer to know whether I can finish reading how many sophomoric references to orgasm someone can shove in one "article" before draining my pumpkin mango gluten-free peachified non-GMO-ified sustainable beverage.
Truly nothing like privileged folks of any color creed or ethnicity lecturing the rest of us on privilege and how we should indeed all hate ourselves and feel edgy about the act of self-loathing.
10:09, mango drinks are cultural appropriation. How dare you!
One good thing Eidolon could do is to feature more 'stories from the trenches' - unfunded or poorly funded grad students, adjuncts, VAP's (preferably one or two-year rather than three). I do think there is a strand of Eidolon that actually cares about the real problems, so may it prevail.
At first I thought Eidolon was a satire. Then I realized from reading more articles that the staff/writers are so utterly humorless that satire is probably impossible for them.
When he got near her with much ado,(for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her; but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he dropped his seed on the leg of the goddess (Ed. note: “to drop seed on” seems like way too casual of a description for this kind of sexual misconduct). In disgust, she wiped off the seed with wool and threw it on the ground; and as she fled and the seed fell on the ground, Erichthonius was produced.
I'm a classicist who specializes in the Graeco-Roman tradition. Most of my case studies comes from Classics because that is what I know best, but what ultimately drives me are larger historical questions that historians of other periods are interested in and address in their own subfields. I've never considered myself as "just" a classics person with only classics colleagues and readerships. As a result I have never felt threatened by the diminishing size of Classics as a discipline because I have never privileged the field as such or defined my professional life by it.
Historians and philosophers (and maybe even art historians) who specialize in classical material shouldn't worry. When Classics is Repealed and Replaced, you will be able to get jobs in real departments (if you don't already have those jobs).
"Hopefully once Peter Brown dies the attempts to rehabilitate these periods with their ugly art and dogma will die with him." @1:31... and most of the following attacking Eidolon and whatever else... You are the reason why Classics *could* die. Your narrow mindedness and your caustic, racist, bigoted insecurity are going to take the ship down.
Sorry Eidolators, a good many of us, liberal and conservative alike, can see straight through your shit: I'm angry that I didn't get a job-- the fact that I'm a woman or minority is incontrovertible evidence that I didn't get a job due to Evil Cishet White Men! Justice must be done! Give me a job, or failing that, a sinecure writing hate-filled "articles"!
Keep telling yourself that. Or maybe pass the buck to POC like someone did earlier on FV. Why don't THEY tell us why they are not going to grad school and entering the market, lol.
Obviously can't go into details, but we're about to extend an offer to someone who happens to be a POC. But, yeah, after an up close look at the market, I can say we've got a huge problem as a discipline. Diversity committees have been a long time coming and I hope they have some teeth to them, not only because it's best for the discipline, but also because it's really the only ethical path forward whether we survive or not.
A questions for people who have served on SCs: Would you hire a top-notch POC candidate whose expertise is just a so-so fit for the position, or the non-POC candidate with a similar CV but whose research interests fit better?
@4:09, 4:04 here. I think you've hit upon the exact type of questions diversity committees should be asking. Our candidate fit perfectly so we got lucky, but honestly the POC angle was just icing on the cake.
The fit issue is what the SCS and AIA should be tackling. As someone brought up earlier on FV, the fuzziness of fit can explicitly or implicitly harbor disciplinary bias. In my experience, POC often conduct research on the fringes - surprise! - but even the most well-intentioned classicists become rigidly focused on what they believe a classics program needs or should be. It's a viscous cycle - our current makeup cannot see the broad picture so we usually don't bring in the people who could actually broaden it! And, yes, this is the best case scenario - there are obviously some people who are quite comfy with the status quo as clearly conveyed on FV.
It's like everything in life - we overvalue and cherish what we know and think we vitally need. In the end, we usually call it fit, but but it's clear that there's nothing truly objective about it other than it following a century of tradition. You combine it with a tight market where advisors are keenly aware of what will get you a job, and POCs are effectively locked out unless they march lock step with a tradition that is overwhelmingly a privileged white person's realm. Have you seen classicists when they're combined with a mega language department? They have little idea how to interact with even that level of diversity and invariably withdraw into their own little sub-world until the lines get phased out.
Yeah, this is my first year on a SC, but WTF were SCs for the last couple decades thinking and doing? It can't surely just be disciplinary "fit blinders" can it? WTF. Please explain old timers. WTF were you doing for the past twenty years?
"Have you seen classicists when they're combined with a mega language department? They have little idea how to interact with even that level of diversity and invariably withdraw into their own little sub-world until the lines get phased out."
I spent a year in one such department, at a large but rather average state university. There were three of us from Classics, the rest were Spanish, German, French, Italian and Russian scholars. The different sub-fields were all withdrawn from one another -- it's not like Classicists were hiding from the others, while the German and Italian scholars together were making amazing breakthroughs on early humanism, or some such thing. And there was very little scholarship being done by anyone, so it's not like there was great intellectual cross-pollination going on in which the Latin/Greek people refused to participate. I suspect that this is more the rule than the exception, since if a school decides to lump its languages together it probably doesn't care much about scholarship, even if it pays lip service to it.
Yep, classics has to decide and can't have it both ways - i.e. overwhelmingly favor the study of Greek and Latin with a narrow canon in the grand scheme of things yet say its future shouldn't be tied with moribund language departments that will overwhelmingly transition to non-research lecturer positions. But who are we kidding? We have not and will not decide or change so we've lost the initiative and the decision has already been made for us by admins.
How can I, as a POC, contribute publicly to the conversation about SC practices regarding this sensitive issue without fear of being branded as a loud-mouthed opinionated minority, or of being retaliated against by so called "well-intentioned" but rigidly focused" classicists? Does it strike anyone else as a bit awkward/surprising that the two people organizing next year's SCS social justice panel on "who owns classics" did not invite a POC co-organizer? (I applaud their efforts nonetheless)
5:01 again. Just to elaborate: what I mean is that as a POC, something just feels weird imagining a panel and quite possibly a room full of mainly non-POC scholars discussing diversity issues in the field / the POC classicist experience...
Well, if you as a POC decide to share your views on what's it's like as a POC in classics I guarantee you that you would not be affected nearly as adversely as I would if I came out as a conservative. (NOT a Trump supporter! And note that I did not write "Republican," as I can no longer consider myself one.) I do not mean to make light of your situation in any way, just to remind people that our field displays more than one form of narrow-mindedness and intolerance, one that ultimately will be self-destructive, as we can already see from the way that politicians from (what used to be) my own party are turning on academia (i.e., on the humanities) and planning long-term harm.
As for POC's in the field, if any one of you who is not in a secure position stands up there could be negative consequences, much as I would like to think there would not be, but if most or all of you hashed out a "position paper" of sorts that might work better. Safety in numbers. (With the numbers being such as they are.) I can tell you that I would be far more likely to read that carefully and through to the end than another screed by a fellow white person on Eidolon.
Holy fucking shit. Someone just really claimed that being conservative in classics is harder than being a POC? Really? As the whitest malest most protestant person alive, I deeply and humbly apologize to everyone who has suffered so long in classics against the structural gender and race bias to still have to listen to such total horseshit.
I am sorry for your suffering, Herr Doctor Classics Conservative, but the lack of empathy and perspective that allows you to say such a thing is deeply similar to that which makes so many 'nice' white people feel like it is ok to support Trump.
5:01 again--i regularly hear similar comments as 5:45 from others colleagues in this field so am literally not shocked or surprised. some people just don't get it. maybe my lack of surprise is quite telling about the general atmosphere of classics
"I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back on that campus. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes; and then I saw this campus, these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard. I asked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there with their absurd classical texts in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word ‘tenure’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I’ve never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion."
5:53, I most certainly did not claim, and would never claim, that "being conservative in classics is harder than being a POC." But if you truly think that an open conservative has an easier chance at getting a job than a POC then your cluelessness is a symptom of a major problem in our field, just as you claim my statement was.
Perhaps I should have clarified that I only was referring to the job market, which seemed to me to be obvious from the context, but I guess it was not. So, to be clear, I am not saying that day in, day out existence is tougher, but that getting hired most definitely would be. Seriously, can you say with a straight face that most search committees would rather hire a conservative colleague than an African-American one into a tenure-track position? Since only someone who is deeply clueless would ever claim that, there is indeed a DIFFERENT problem in our field that also needs addressing. And that's all I'm trying to say. Please do take that to heart, since judging from your response you are apparently part of the problem.
And I'll further note that you accused me of a "lack of empathy," but if you read what I wrote without getting so emotional you will see that I not only indicated support for POC's, but even made a constructive suggestion on how they can advocate for themselves.
The reason that nobody at universities gives a damn about what conservatives have to say is because conservatism writ large in the US is associated with the GOP, which is openly hostile to education in broad terms. Whether all conservatives consider themselves Republicans or not is neither here nor there, because conservatism (or what passes for it) in electoral politics, government, and media has been weaponized to regularly target higher education. For most academics (aside from people in business schools or people in STEM who think they're John Galt or something) the idea that one can square being a conservative and also somebody who pursues a career in academia is ludicrous. This is because being both involves embracing an ideology that has been twisted in such a way that the people who actually wield power and claim said ideology would be glad if you didn't have a job. These people think that what you teach isn't "useful," they hate education in general, or they believe that universities are the result of a Marxist plot to indoctrinate the youth or something.
Also, to the conservative/POC comparison...just stop. The idea that being a conservative in academia is analogous to being a POC is utter horseshit. It's almost as insipid as all these lackwits running around screeching about how it's really white men who are oppressed in America when they've controlled this country and its wealth for centuries and continue to do so.
Uhm, you there posting at 8:04, can I then infer from your passionate response that if you were on a search committee and had a choice you would rather hire a conservative than a POC? Or, for that matter, if you had to choose between a white male Protestant conservative and a white male Protestant liberal, you would have no trouble treating the two equally? Because, I have to say, I am not really getting that vibe off you.
So what? It's also the discipline that produced George Thomson (and, I suspect, dozens of other leftists that don't get much press). Pick an academic discipline, you will find sinners in it. Saints too. And a whole lot of people who are neither. If we want more POC and more working-class students in the field, we need to find ways to financially support them from beginning to end. You could even begin by putting your money where your mouth is: https://thesportula.wordpress.com/.
We want fewer grad students in our field. But more POC and working-class in undergraduate Classics programs would be good. I doubt it will ever happen, just as I doubt there will be a ton of French majors coming from schools that don't offer French.
This is stupid, I know many conservatives in Classics who are doing just fine, have tenure-track and tenured jobs, post-docs, VAPs, etc. Your lack of success on the job market is not because of your politics, but because of all of the other arbitrary things that go into this process. Essentially blaming POCs for making it difficult for you to get a job (SCs are choosing them over you?) doesn't help the field, it doesn't help them, it doesn't help you, it doesn't help anything. They're not the reason you didn't get a job.
PLEASE READ. the person is a closeted conservative. The person is not attributing his or her ostensible lack of success on the market to conservatism, but rather assumes (rightly in my view) that if his or her political views were known within the discipline, he or she would be less competitive on the market.
I'm unsure why somebody on the job market would make their politics known one way or the other, to be honest, unless a particular slant is inherently built into whatever approach you have adopted for your given subfield or you have a presence outside academia where you are open about your politics. If you're a run-of-the mill Classicist who studies Vergil or whomever it shouldn't be obvious what your politics are from your scholarship or your overall dossier. Should some oblivious SC member cross the line and ask you about your politics when you're on a campus visit then you should try your best to dodge the question or just say that you're apolitical.
Seriously, it's not that hard. I'm far to the left of the dull neoliberalism that many in the US construe as leftism and I knew better than to make that obvious when talking to people who had the power to give me a job.
In my experience, the average classics SC is not equipped to short-list an "Elon Musk of classics" without obvious markers such as a particularly effusive letter from a well-known (read: traditional) scholar or other hallmarks of our discipline that convey fortuitous connections as much as any inherent abilities.
The idea that merely revealing yourself to be a respectable conservative (as opposed to a wacko conservative who believes crazy things like that the dinosaurs lived among humans or that women were put on earth to make you sandwiches etc.) would hurt you as much as being a POC is not only crazy, bit it also ignores the huge fractures on the left. There are massive subgroups on the left that absolutely hate each other's assumptions and methods, and blame them for the Mess We're In Now. Doesn't hurt anyone's career.
Good news for Closeted Conservative and those hand-wringing about the "fake news" turn in the field: conservative state legislatures want you to help Make Academia Great Again https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/us/arizona-state-conservatives.html
Not that this will help any conservatives in Classics. Those people are neoconservative Straussian mccain flakes, and you've got to be part of the club to get a job in these new schools (read: you need to have a PhD in Political Theory from BC, Notre Dame, or Baylor, or in Economics from George Mason).
I don't see any necessary connection between being politically right-wing and thinking that the field has taken a 'fake news' turn. The fake news turn has been made in the field, and people with an interest in preserving the high-end Classics status quo (most of whom are liberal, but that's only because most academics are liberal) will defend it.
You could also be a right-winger and understand that the work done by Thomson and Timpanaro was not fake news, or be a Marxist and agree that Hugh Lloyd-Jones - whatever else he was - was no purveyor of fake news.
The 'fake news' turn has nothing to do with liberal or leftist politics. It rather has to do with declining knowledge of history and languages, declining standards in education generally, and the over-study of certain favored areas (poetry and belletristic prose from a couple of century-long 'Golden Ages').
Definitely in the decline in the Dark Ages, when people stared at dead-eyed portraits of Mary and composed rhyming verse and believed in fake news dogma rather than doing something important and True like Propertian metapoetics for some important purpose like getting tenure at Kansas State.
One common theme I hear from our detractors is that we here at Eidolon hate Classics, are filled with self-loathing, and are trying to destroy the discipline with our overwrought apologia. I’ve always felt that if your understanding of what it means to “love Classics” is so shallow and confined that it must exclude any critique or desire to make the discipline better, then you don’t really love Classics. You love an idealized fiction of the classical world that reflects nothing more than your own biases and insecurities. I feel sad for those people.
Myopic grammarians pretending that anyone cares what they have to say about Homer and people twisting the Classics into self-indulgent allegories for the id-pol of the day or beating themselves up over how their favorites from the canon aren't politically correct enough? sounds about right
11:27 AM "Definitely in the decline in the Dark Ages, when people stared at dead-eyed portraits of Mary and composed rhyming verse and believed in fake news dogma rather than doing something important and True like Propertian metapoetics for some important purpose like getting tenure at Kansas State."
I didn't think that anyone could up with anything as mind-numbing as looking at ugly Byzantine art or reading frothing-at-the mouth screeds by Chrysostom but you've managed to do it.
It is really healthy for the field that we are getting these things out on the table. We tend to smile and nod at friendly Byzantine art historians, but it is good to know that we define ourselves against this stuff if we do. If the Classics are going to survive, we have to be unafraid to identify ourselves by inclusion as well as exclusion.
@5:45 @7:57 @9:53 NB no one answered your question. Instead we pretend you said “political persuasion equals race or ethnicity” which...did not happen.
Q for all: Do you believe implicit bias exists? Could it work in more than one direction?
Could we (gasp?) broach related topics in a Classics course? Several comments here suggest we cannot, that we prefer to lazily reduce dialogue into US Weekly politics as quickly as possible. (“He said race is silly!”)
On a completely unrelated note, can we get some updates on those that have already accepted jobs for a while now? Lots of listings designated as filled without names named...
Oh man, I think Eidolon just excommunicated some of us. Funny how those of us who are adjuncting or VAP-ing the field just don't love Classics as those who took themselves out of the race for greater fame and fortune.
Let's imagine there were departments of Chinese and Japanese that focused on classical poetry and prose (and art) from a specific period, and sometimes their interrelationships. To even take classes that count towards the major, you have to have studied classical Chinese (and perhaps even Japanese) in high school.
The faculty wonder why the dept. is marginalized, students of non-Chinese and non-Japanese backgrounds don't tend to take the classes, and the admin wonders how we can justify having 10+ professors doing this stuff in a vacuum, as if it is in an independent 'field' with a 'methodology.'
This kind of thing can be sustained - and protected - in premodernity and now in chauvinistic ethnostates, but good luck keeping it going in today's America if your justifications are 'it's so pretty!' or 'if we study Greek and Romans we learn how bad they were and how bad many White People who read them became.'
One reply is that the classical Japanese and Chinese languages bear no relation to English, whereas Latin does. But that is a pretty weak defense of an entire *dept.'s* existence.
you can always make the claim, questionable though it is, that understanding the classical foundations of chinese and japanese literature may help clarify or make sense of enduring social norms and cultural conventions in modern day china or japan. Yes, all claims about cultural continuity are farfetched, but at least these fields have putative modern counterparts that the Greek and Romans manifestly don't, or at least not in the same way.
What about a dept. of MidEast religions and civilizations? Say, Judaism, early Christianity, and Islam? People could read frothing-at-the-mouth texts of various flavors and look at bad art. Plus there is something modern to understand.
^agreed! same logic at work with studying ancient religions with some purported continuity into modernity.. i mean... do you see ancient Greek/Roman religion scholars getting jobs at divinity schools or religious studies departments? Nope. But ancient judaism and even buddhism/hinduism? Of course
One thing that financially helps those fields is that you have wealthy donors who give money to academic departments for politically motivated reason to study certain ancient topics (e.g., Dharma Civilization Foundation giving 3+ million to USC for a chair in Hindu studies)
I for one say that we embrace the ascendancy of Chinese Classics. As the late, great Gore Vidal once opined, since "the West" can't get its act together, soon we'll all be farmers or mere entertainment for more than one billion grimly efficient Asiatics anyway.
Any information on FSU Roman archaeology? Wiki says "offer extended". Any idea if one person has been offered more than one position and is playing hard-ball to get better conditions or something to that end?
Re: the latest "e(i)ditorial" as mentioned by 2/26 2:13 pm and 2/27 9:07 pm:--this is a repeating theme in e(i)ditorials that speaks to a fundamentally defensive outlook. Essentially, the message has been "some people are criticizing Eidolon, and that criticism is SINISTER for the following reasons," usually something about bias, essentialism, protectionist attitudes toward the Classics etc. Not only is it an ugly impulse to try to forestall critique by positioning all critique as SINISTER, but it seems basically insecure. There are a lot of things I like about Eidolon, but if it's going to succeed it needs to get over this defensive crouch. Guess what guys: not everyone in the Twitterverse is going to like your content. That doesn't mean their motives are SINISTER. You can't please everyone, so do what you want, publish what you like, and stop trying to browbeat everyone into liking you. If you stand by your content and think it has value, who cares what the Twitter trolls think?
On the whole I think that Eidolon is a good thing. I think that the defensiveness is natural given some of the topics that they tackle, and while all criticism of Eidolon should not be ascribed to the sinister motives to which 12:48 refers, I think that it is true nonetheless that there are more than a few people out there whose criticism *does* have its origins in "sinister" things. Also, you have to account for the people who are coming from a place of bad place from the outset who will pretend that their criticism isn't rooted in any of the sinister attitudes one encounters in Classics when it actually is.
The Classics Wiki job offer counter suggests that three people have been each offered three jobs, anyone know of how true this is? Also, have they accepted one and then declined the others?
The condescension shown ("I feel sad for those people" - cf. the Trumpian exclamation 'SAD!') by someone so privileged towards those of us who are in the trenches is really remarkable. This may be Eidolon's 'deplorables' moment.
I saw on Facebook a SC member post the link for the position they're trying to fill. I applied for said position. In the comments on their FB post, one of their friends and research collaborators (public knowledge) said something to the effect of "Ooooh, I should really apply for that!" and the SC member liked that comment.
Would this constitute something worth reporting to the HR department of that university? I mean, it seems like they could have made this position for this specific person (it is a very specific job). In my paranoia, I took screenshots just in case...
Even if your paranoia is right, all that the 'like' means (plausibly) is: "I am glad someone is applying!" The university wants people to encourage applications. So you really think sending your screenshots to an HR dept.? People have run searches and hired their mistresses and NOTHING has happened. Leave academia.
Following the example of our comrades at Eidolon, I look forward to dismissing all peer review comments as having sinister motives. Take that, Reviewer #2!
Who does that Mary Beard think she is? She's ugly and a woman, and she thinks that she is entitled to ideas and opinions? In my day such things weren't tolerated! Make Classics Great Again! Eidolon is fake news!
Whoa, I didn't realize that condoning sexual exploitation because 'it's hard to keep up [White] civilized standards in [Haiti]' was an opinion or idea that any of us was entitled to. Even the hobbits and deplorables. But maybe I missed that memo while teaching my 4-4 load....
May Beard is old, and old people grew up in a time when it was OK to say a lot of things that aren't ok to say that. If we give her a pass, it should be on those grounds, not because she is a woman.
Beard has since replied to those who called out the above statement. Her response, I think, was nuanced and shows that she isn't some raging colonialist tut-tutting the behavior of savages or something.
If I were writing the script for a 40-minute presentation, I'd aim for 4,000 words, maybe 4,300, but of course I'd have a bunch of pretty pictures. Leaves me space to describe an illustration or two, and to throw in some of those off-the-cuff jokes that I've written into the margins...
I usually figure about 2 minutes per double-spaced page (depends on how much you ad lib, your speaking speed, etc.), so for me a 40 minute presentation is about 20 pages.
@12:48: Eidolon should feel defensive and insecure. Much of its content—including the more ‘serious’ pieces—is a mess. Look at the recent article on Antigone. The author begins by arguing that Antigone was a “religious zealot” comparable to Kim Davis and Ray Moore. The author decries this behavior. Who will protect us from the Antigones, the Kim Davises, and the Roy Moores of the world? Well, the government (=Creon?) of course! "It is up to the government to be more just than its citizens when necessary, even at the expense of stands of conscience.” Not all stands of conscience of course—only those that the author disagrees with. "If public opinion is slow to act, public opinion is wrong and should lose the right to decide.” Instead, a paternalistic and authoritarian government should decide—a government, clearly, that will share the views and priorities of the author. Lucky we have such a progressive SCOTUS and POTUS these days! Lucky we can rely on the government to take decisions out of the hands of the people and impose a juster, better world according to the preferences and predilections of the author. “The government” here is clearly a proxy for the author himself, who would like to impose his idea of what is “just” and, in defiance of current observable reality, assumes that the benevolent authority of “government” shares, and will always share, his own views. In other words, the author has failed to learn anything from reading the Antigone—if ever there was an incarnation of Trump in a Classical text, it’s Creon.
I really appreciate a lot of what Eidolon is trying to do by opening up the conversation and making classics speak to the current culture. They're breaking down barriers and that is admirable. I also applaud their promotion of "taboo" subjects. But in their critique of classics, they've called into question the whole enterprise, as others have pointed out. What's the point of studying classics? Donna's most recent editorial states that Eidolon critiques what it loves. But why love classics in the first place? When does the critique become so strong that it eclipses any purported benefit? I was heartened to see Donna's editorial appeal to "joy" and "hope"--terms I do not often see in Eidolon pieces. But joy in what? Hope in what? I, for one, would welcome an editorial piece that speaks to the beauty and truth of the Greco-Roman world and its legacy. But, I suppose, that would make me a white supremacist.
Each of the three kinds of history will only flourish in one ground and climate: otherwise it grows to a noxious weed. If the man who will produce something great, have need of the past, he makes himself its master by means of monumental history: the man who can rest content with the traditional and venerable, uses the past as an "antiquarian historian": and only he whose heart is oppressed by an instant need, and who will cast the burden off at any price, feels the want of "critical history," the history that judges and condemns. There is much harm wrought by wrong and thoughtless planting: the critic without the need, the antiquary without piety, the knower of the great deed who cannot be the doer of it, are plants that have grown to weeds, they are torn from their native soil and therefore degenerate.
Every past is worth condemning: this is the rule in mortal affairs, which always contain a large measure of human power and human weakness. It is not justice that sits in judgment here; nor mercy that proclaims the verdict; but only life, the dim, driving force that insatiably desires—itself. Its sentence is always unmerciful, always unjust, as it never flows from a pure fountain of knowledge: though it would generally turn out the same, if Justice herself delivered it. "For everything that is born is worthy of being destroyed: better were it then that nothing should be born." It requires great strength to be able to live and forget how far life and injustice are one. Luther himself once said that the world only arose by an oversight of God; if he had ever dreamed of heavy ordnance, he would never have created it. The same life that needs forgetfulness, needs sometimes its destruction; for should the injustice of some- thing ever become obvious—a monopoly, a caste, a dynasty for example—the thing deserves to fall. Its past is critically examined, the knife put to its roots, and all the "pieties" are grimly trodden under foot. The process is always dangerous, even for life; and the men or the times that serve life in this way, by judging and annihilating the past, are always dangerous to themselves and others.
I propose a FV Nietzsche reading group. After all, a Basel SC saw fit to give him a TT Hellenist job at a very young age, as a freshly minted ABD (it is said that he even turned down a Heidelberg SOF opportunity to reduce time to tenure). He must have had an amazing SCS interview and campus visit.
I see that DZ has also recently complained on Facebook about the FV commentary, which has clearly proven that this community is filled with closeted white supremacists. Kidding aside, I am actually pretty concerned about this tendency of the left to periodically denounce various of its own members as "problematic" (or as one above poster above put it "SINISTER") and excommunicate them for expressing the slightest wrongthink.
Recent Eidolon editorial staff comments just prove they really are completely intolerant of anything but the orthodoxy they preach. It's the fascism of the left, but fascism all the same. It's also all incredibly pompous and self-important.
In fact, it is too much to ask everyone to shut down a productively critical discussion of Eidolon's value to the field just so we can get back to talking about that job you're after.
Speaking of Egypt, Zahi Hawass seems to be trying to stage a comeback. Maybe some people can get a job as Western PhD Who Gets Yelled at by Zahi Hawass.
As someone who uses the phrase 'fake news' and is frustrated by Eidolon in many ways, I would say that Eidolon should grow a thicker skin, ignore the haters if necessary, and do its thing, going from strength to strength, as they see fit. Sincere advice from a 'deplorable.'
In fact, Plutarch has a little essay about how you can even benefit from your enemies. Just a bit of 'beauty and truth' from the Graeco-Roman legacy, to borrow a phrase from the poignant post above. Just how we reconcile what we perceive of 'beauty and truth' in this tradition with our current values and with the expectations of modern HS education and the modern research university is up for debate, but if we don't see 'beauty and truth,' why bother? I don't know how Horace compares to the greatest classical Japanese poets (nor will I ever, since I don't have the time to learn classical Japanese!), and my love for Horace doesn't - explicitly or even implicitly - put Japanese poetry down. But Japanese poetry is not part of my tradition. Is it white supremacist to say that?
There is a disturbing parallelism between Trump and Eidolon: both are really anxious about what other think, and quick to react with hostility to annoyance or strong criticism. The E(i)ditorial could be paraphrased as: "Our enemies say we don't love the Classics. But we are truly the ones who love the Classics. Sad!" I disagree with a lot of what Eidolon has done, but have also learned from it. Perhaps all of us who criticize Eidolon could list one thing we like about Eidolon, and Eidolon could do us the courtesy of acknowledging that some of our criticism have force, or at least are not SINISTER.
7:27 here. Just to practice what I preach, I appreciate Eidolon's bringing high school teaching, and high school teachers (Ph.D'd or un-Ph.D.'d) into the conversation. That is worthwhile work (most certainly not FAKE NEWS) and many of the people who do it are brilliant, committed Classicists who half of the idiots in academia wouldn't give the time of day.
Okay, I'll jump in: one of the things I really liked about early Eidolon pieces was their concern for privilege within the field (especially at the annual meeting, e.g.). I think a lot of us here in the land of eternal VAP-hood feel invisible within the profession, and Eidolon seemed to want to bring us into the light. Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but that seems missing from the recent pieces and especially from the angry, defensive commentary about how SINISTER the criticism is. A lot of Eidolon's contributors are extremely privileged, whether within the field or outside of it. I was particularly struck by a snarky comment on the above-referenced facebook thread from a full professor (who must, I suppose, remain nameless) that we job-seekers should be working on articles to get jobs, rather than commenting on FV with critique of Eidolon. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems that all I do is work on articles and teach, except of course when I'm checking FV, and I really resent this pompous remark's implication--so common in the field--that we would all have jobs if only we were more productive, hard-working, dedicated etc. I know few people more productive, hard-working, and dedicated than my fellow sufferers on the contingent track. The comfortable obliviousness to his/her own privilege by this senior scholar was quite shocking and depressing to me.
I generally like Eidolon's commentary on sex/gender issues in the ancient world. I liked their Harry Potter series last summer. What I object to is the sometimes-hectoring tone of their articles, which tend to have a lot of "musts" in them. Not everything in the field MUST be about race, sex, whiteness, queerness, privilege, slavery or whatnot. Some people in Classics want to study Greek particles or pot sherds, and that's okay too.
It bothers me a little bit that Eidolon so often takes to task a relatively small group of people who happen to love the literature of the Greco-Roman past, when some even smaller sub-set of that group usually inadvertently -- though, granted, not always -- says something that might be construed as not 100% as socially conscious as it should/could be.
Meanwhile -- and I feel slightly bad blaming her for this -- but her billionaire brother's website is the single most egregious purveyor of racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, you name it, vile fake news garbage that, in the span of a single heartbeat, purveys more white supremacist hate than a thousand classicists at a thousand typewriters could in a lifetime.
Does anybody know if the passage about beams in your eye/motes in your neighbors has been translated into Greek or Latin?
Eidolon's editors basically think if you decide to take Latin and you're not obsessed from day 1 about the plight of Roman slaves, you're an insensitive, wicked, loutish boor.
At best, Eidolon is a flash in the pan. They engage in too much self parody to sustain it for too long.
Yes, by all means, let's just embrace myopia and stick to ruminating on Greek particles and fragments while ignoring the discipline's structural and systemic problems. Then on the rare occasion when you manage to pull yourself away from Denniston or Jacoby (and pull your head out of your ass), wonder in amazement why people think what we do is irrelevant. Woe betide anyone like the folks at Eidolon tackling topics and issues that need to be addressed.
4,546 comments:
«Oldest ‹Older 1801 – 2000 of 4546 Newer› Newest»@7:59. you sound incredibly bitter/jealous and your accusations are unwarranted. How can you judge this candidate's abilities -- much less speculate about some hypothetical person at Columbia calling some hypothetical other person at GT -- without having read any of their work or spoken to them about their skills and interests? And anyway, it's a one year VAP, not a TT job, so a strong candidate with a lighter CV would not strike me apriori as a suspicious hire...
@ I still don't understand your logic. This is a one year VAP. I don't expect much teaching or publications under his belt. It would be another story entirely if we were discussing a TT position. To me it seems a logical progression to go from ABD to a VAP / post-doc.... what ELSE are ABDs supposed to get if not VAPs????
@ I really do think you're projecting your insecurities onto this candidate. This is understandable given how desperate we all are; but speculations are just that....
Comment number 1800 is pretty rich too because of its overt claim that whomever gets hired at three specific institutions will necessarily suck (unlike the author of the post, perhaps, whose natural brilliance and awesomeness is precisely what caused these schools not to hire him/her instead?).
Servius, why haven't you stepped in here?
Is there a way to contact Servius "off list"? (classicswiki@gmail.com?)
Let's not forget that this whole thing about Georgetown was the result of a TYPO. Again-a TYPO.
I got an interview request for my current VAP job 2 days after the deadline and the job offer exactly 1 month after the initial deadline. I had no inside track on the job at all, just a good fit and good luck. Some schools, particularly private schools, just move quickly. Not everything is an elaborate conspiracy.
Servius here-- we've cleaned up the Georgetown discussion.
@9.25: we can be reached off-list at archwhat @ gmail.com (please know, though, that it is faster to get our attention through FV).
I think that some of the takeaways from the now-deleted comments are worth considering. Namely, that many of us here fail to comprehend how certain folks get certain jobs. I'm not naming names or narrowing-on on any particular hire, but many will cry foul when an ABD candidate with a "light CV" (as it was phrased) gets hired over what surely was a massive amount of fellow candidates whose credentials would have been much more developed.
Many of us struggle to make sense of this process and that's what this forum should be about. Let's have the conversation that OP wanted to start but let's not narrow in on a specific person, who, might I add, is a fellow junior scholar of us all.
The question that I interpret as being at the root of it all is rather simple: How can one whose CV is under-developed and whose PhD is yet to be granted 'win out' over dozens of more-developed scholars ? ...This is a fair question and does not seek to target anyone specific, but it is a question worth exploring further.
...It's because of a lack of understanding that is fanning the flames of a certain job that's been discussed heavily here. So, rather than simply deleting negative comments, let's follow that up with an actual discussion of the question that sits at the heart of the rumors and speculation and attempt to remedy it.
First, these feelings are not unique to any job or any job cycle; certainly this is a recurring issue and won't stop being one for future years. So let's not take my post here as a continuation of the assault on our peer, but rather as an attempt to flesh out the underlying issues and try to understand things better.
So...the issue at hand is simple:
***Folks with PhD and 3-4 years of teaching experience, maybe a PostDoc too, and numerous publications and conference presentations who also have a strong pedigree are not getting interviews/campus invites/job offers this year.***
Add to this that (inevitably) some ABDs will land some great jobs. Consequently, more-seasoned folks will be angry at this--and understandably.
I think that many people who do not get jobs will, upon seeing who did get a job, search that person out online to see what is missing from their own CV; to see where they can improve for next year. This is not a problem, and in fact is very healthy, in cases where the individual who received the job is unambiguously a superior candidate. In this case, one can compare/contrast CVs to evaluate one's weaknesses.
But, when the 'winner' of the job has less, and in some cases FAR less than you do, it triggers anger and resentment and it makes a person's mind go wild with ideas of what "must have happened to explain this injustice."
My opinion on this issue is that, yes, there always will be fixed searches and often an inferior candidate will get hired, and that is unfair. But, life is unfair. While we ought to strive for equality and fairness (and we should always), we have to also be realistic and understand that some people will just win out though they may not deserve it.
Second, luck is a HUUUGE factor in all of this. Every single SC is looking for something different, as is every individual member of a SC, and this can vary year-by-year, at the same school with the same SC even. One can never know what attribute on a CV either will attract or turn-off a SC member.
...I truly hope that this post can help to get the dysfunctional conversation being had off to a better direction, and that it, too, won't find itself deleted, but let's try to address the underlying concerns of 'conspiracy theorists' rather than just shooting them down as they pop up. In short, let's not just sweep under the rug the problems here but attempt to remedy it by talking about it.
Thanks, Servius. I'm the one who asked for contact information. I just sent you a PM.
Many SCs view their VAP positions as a stepping-stone towards a t-t job elsewhere (think of it like a helot post-doc). That is, while they of course need certain courses covered during a fellow faculty member's leave (the most common scenario in which VAPs are hired), they also want to invest in the development of a future member of the field. This development takes the form of allowing the person to get some real teaching under their belt, while also mentoring him/her about how to craft a stronger research profile, etc. Accordingly, many SCs are much more likely to hire someone young with "promise" (and a light CV) than someone who has been bouncing around for a few years already (and has more teaching experience, and arguably would do a better job qua VAP) but seems, in their view, (therefore) less likely to land a t-t job straight out of the VAP position (a scenario that makes the VAP position look good: it raises the individual department's profile a little, and makes the position more attractive to the best candidates in subsequent years).
It seems like a lot of people on here ignore the fact that SCs are mostly hiring based on promise. Not what your CV looks like now, but what it will look like in ten years. When someone one year out is competing against someone five years out, the SCs do not perceive their CVs to be on equal footing. They imagine what the recent PhD's CV will look like in five years and judge on that basis. Unfortunately, the longer you are on the market, the less promise you are perceived to have. That's the reality, no inside wheeling and dealing necessary.
Does anyone know if U of Toronto has already extended an offer to someone for the ancient history postdoc? I interviewed with them a while ago and haven't heard since, so I'm assuming that's what happened...
@11:47: yes.
@11:20, While I agree that many SCs view their positions as a stepping-stone towards a TT job elsewhere, in the SCs I have served on (admittedly at a SLAC) I have never heard the idea that we should target someone according to how we think that person would do on the market post-VAP. We always looked for the person with 1) the best teaching record (experience with the specific courses we would need and recommendations/evaluations), then 2) some "special sauce" (able to offer something that will attract more majors/people in our classes), and finally 3) interesting research. One of the things I might note is that you would be shocked how many people on the market have letters of recommendation that do a VERY poor job of discussing a candidate's teaching; in this way, I can easily see an ABD (who might have a great letter from their DGS or from a professor for whom they've TA'ed) have a better reference than someone currently in a VAP, where candidates have difficulty getting their teaching observed in a thorough way (not just "I sat in one class") in time for the market.
Listen to 12:00, folks. This happened to me. My advisors, otherwise supportive to the point of doting, just didn't realize that none of them had even mentioned my teaching, for years, quite probably leaving people reading my recs with the impression that I was only interested in research and/or a crappy teacher. And I'm not ivy, so I was never really in the running for the hot shot jobs they thought I should get in the first place. I'm pretty sure this oversight really made a difference on my career or lack thereof.
Is it jeer-worthy if the Clemson SC said they'd be in contact in the new year following a skype interview in December and then proceeded to send out invites two days later? ...and have still yet to be in contact since December even though the job has been offered and accepted?
I don't think anyone who matters cares about jeers.
Do we even know if senior faculty, as they do with this thread, even bother to check the jobs wiki?
But if you find it cathartic then go ahead...
Anyone a finalist for the Stanford humanities postdoc?
To Feb 21 6:19pm who said "So far, no ABDs on the TT market." --
Check the Stanford Classics/Center for Race and Ethnicity TT job talks. Looks ABD to me.
3:23, their point, obviously, was that no one with a t-t job offer so far is ABD, per the wiki, not that no ABDs have had interviews or campus visits. Perhaps that will change with the Stanford job you mention, or others yet to be finalized.
There are also ABD finalists for Princeton history job.
3:40: Thanks for getting in touch with 6:19 and clarifying what they "obviously" meant, despite what they actually said! Keen of you to volunteer your time like that, merely for the sake of public record.
So far, not TT jobs offered to and accepted by ABDs....
Probably because they are afraid of the shitstorm that would rain on them here if they outed themselves.
Totes, it's like a rabid mob...how much longer before the zombie classicists and locusts start coming out?
@8:41,
Many ABDs will not get anything at all. With the current job market being as much of a buyer's market as it is there really isn't a reason for a school to take the risk on offering the job to an ABD.
In fact, my advisor stresses that VAPs are far less likely to go to ABDs that TT-jobs to ABDs. Reason being, a dept that has a posting for a VAP *needs* to get that slot filled, especially at smaller institutions. A T-T line, if it fails, will not cause as much collateral damage to the dept for the upcoming year. So, since any ABD carries the risk for a SC that if they select Mr.ABD only to have him not get his degree in time, they are really screwed. On the reverse, if an ABD offered a T-T job fails to get his degree, the SC in question can still have time to put forward an ad for a VAP(if needed).
Most consider the ABD year as a 'trial run.' An opportunity to get general impressions of the job market and maybe land an interview or two.
11:38 p.m. wrote:
"A dept that has a posting for a VAP *needs* to get that slot filled, especially at smaller institutions. A T-T line, if it fails, will not cause as much collateral damage to the dept for the upcoming year. So, since any ABD carries the risk for a SC that if they select Mr.ABD only to have him not get his degree in time, they are really screwed.So, since any ABD carries the risk for a SC that if they select Mr.ABD only to have him not get his degree in time, they are really screwed. On the reverse, if an ABD offered a T-T job fails to get his degree, the SC in question can still have time to put forward an ad for a VAP(if needed)."
Uh -- how you figure? This seems precisely backwards to me.
An ABD hired for a T-T, who says s/he'll be finished in August and then isn't, is a disaster for a department. If the administration signs off on the hire "contingent on degree in hand by start of academic year" and then the candidate doesn't finish, either the contract is cancelled and the dept. is left with no-one to teach those courses at all (August is way, way too late to get a VAP lined up) or, more likely, the position is redefined as a one-year lecturer. In either case, the dept. then has to go through the whole process of reapplying for a t-t line to do a search the next year . . . and depending on who else is asking for t-t lines, a second search may not be approved--and the dept. may simply lose the position. Hiring an ABD for a t-t line is taking a very big risk indeed; everyhing rides on that person finsihing in time.
Here at my SLAC, at least, the Administration doesn't require that the PhD be finished by August for a VAP; If that person wants to come teach for us for a year and doesn't manage to finish his/her dissertation beforehand, well, that doesn't harm US in any way at all. It may be a bad career move for the candidate, but from the point of view of the Administration, for a VAP it really doesn't matter if the diss. is finished before the year starts or not. So an SC here wouldn't hesitate to offer a one-year VAP to an ABD if that person seemed like the best fit, but would be very reluctant indeed to offer a T-T to an ABD.
Some perspectives from an old timer here, which I hope will be helpful. In my institution, if an ABD is hired for a tt job and they don't finish, they don't lose their tt job, but it is downgraded to a lectureship (with salary adjusted to reflect the lower rank) and, when they finish, they become Assistant Profs. Their clock though is ticking. Which means they will probably not have time to do enough to get tenure. Our univ. has recently implemented a limit of three years to finish. If they don't, then they lose their job. Apparently this has been enough of a problem (not in Classics) that the Deans decided to create a policy.
Our medium-sized classics dept has hired ABDs for VAP positions who had no problem finishing. We have also hired an ABD who never finished after quite a few years with us. In my experience, that's not the norm. We have also hired people who had been out for a few years and fresh PhDs with a strong teaching record. And we have also rejected candidates of all three kinds because they seemed not to be a good fit for our dept and institution. We have had only one disastrous VAP hire in the last 10 years, and we would never had suspected it at the time of the hire. That person was a PhD from an elite univ with a few years of teaching experience under their belt. I agree with the previous post that even in VAPs, we look for good teaching, interesting research, and collegiality. Ideally, we look for people who we think have a future in the field, hoping our position will help them get a tt job down the line. But the primary criterion is their ability to teach our courses well and hit the ground running.
One thing I have learned serving on SCs is that the candidate may do everything right, but still lose against someone else. SCs have the complete picture of the field. It is very illuminating to read the files one after the other, because elements emerge that make it clear to you which candidate is a potential fit and which one isn't. In tt searches, I look at the CV first for publications and topic of diss. Then I read the cover letter, where I get a sense of the candidate and their own sense of who they are relative to their research and teaching. Then I read the rec letters. Each time, I look for excellence in research, teaching, and service. If a candidate looks like they favor one over the other, then they are not going to be a good fit for us. We need strong research record for tenure, but also we need to keep enrollments up. During the interviews, candidates may answer an interview question well, but they might be eclipsed by a candidate who will give an original, unique, surprising answer that sets them apart. Or there are candidates who appear equally good, but one has a particular interest or skill who will help us with x course or y program. Or they will help us branch out in areas that are exciting and new for us. Sometimes the candidate will look good on paper, but is unable to speak intelligently about their work. This is much more common that you might think. It is only in the juxtaposition of the candidates that these differences can be perceived. If you could be in the room where we interview, you would see for yourselves how candidates shoot themselves in the foot. The most common errors: people ramble in answering questions or don't answer the questions (it is actually astonishing how many people do not even listen to the question); they don't explain their research well; or show that they know very little or nothing about the institution and give the impression they don't really care about the job. Every time the candidates seem completely unaware of the fact that they are doing these things.
I sincerely hope this information is helpful to my young colleagues.
^very helpful indeed! Thank you. Your description of the process that goes into evaluating applications makes perfect sense to me.
I am one of those candidates who often trip up during interviews because of nerves.
How to improve one's interview skills probably differs case-by-case, but do you get the general sense that candidates simply lack of sufficient interview practice? Do you think slowing down one's thought process during the interview might have helped some of these candidates?
@7:56
Does your department do mock interviews, or could you arrange one if they do not?
Do you prepare for the standard questions in a way that is also genuine and reflects both you as a person and the needs of the department (aka not memorizing canned answers, but thinking about how you would propose courses, help build programs, etc. as outlined in Joy's The Classics Job Market: An Affable Guide, for example)?
Do you go into interviews cold, or do you try to warm up before with a friend or mentor?
These are just suggestions. But if you know that you trip up during interviews, practice (and varieties of kinds of practice and preparation) are important. I concur with @7:16 that I see more candidates shoot themselves in the foot at an interview than I would have expected when I was first on the market.
On the flipside, analyze the SC members beyond their specialties and scholarship. Watch out for the grizzled ones that don't give a shit, have random agendas, ask inappropriate questions b/c they could in the 70s, etc. They are easy to spot; they will speak way to much and dominate the proceedings. Huge red flag for both the interview and the dynamics of the department. For the untenured on the committee, it's usually amateur hour so you need to watch out for them as well. They might feel threatened about the new shiny thing in front of them or otherwise want to make an impression to the rest o the committee that they belong in the room. I've seen these sits go bad real fast. Generally, mid-career folks (though not the one's stuck at Associate at the age of 60) are the best.
Lol, the truth ^
It's too late to help me this year, but this describes every interview I had in Boston this year.
@10:51, ageist much? "because they could in the 70s" -- anyone now old enough to be still employed but also be on hiring committees and be "grizzled" will have been too young even in 1979 to have been able to display the kind of conduct you claim used to happen. Nor am I going to ask how you know what happened in job interviews some 40 years ago given you identify with the "young" among us. Famae volent indeed.
Time to move on, old man. You're making no temporal sense. You've not made the world better and it's clear now that your generation has made it worse. Listen to someone from your generation...
And these children that you spit on. As they try to change their worlds. Are immune to your consultations. They're quite aware of what they're going through.
@7:56, practice simulations are certainly your best friend, but you need someone who is familiar with them and is willing to invest the significant time and energy.
In terms of nerves, this exchange from Band of Brothers always helps me:
Capt. Ronald Speirs: You know why you hid in that ditch, Blithe?
Pvt. Albert Blithe: [quietly] I was scared.
Capt. Ronald Speirs: We're all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there's still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you're already dead. And the sooner you accept that, the sooner you'll be able to function as a soldier's supposed to function. Without mercy, without compassion, without remorse. All war depends upon it.
As heretical as it sounds, I think the placement process we generally have in place is rubbish. The stakes are so high, which already conspire to complicate the process. Then we place candidates in a fairly artificial situation, a beauty pageant where they heavily invest in skills that translate poorly to what actually matters for the long term well being of both the individual and program. And like prep for professional programs, it favors those who are often not the best fit but lucked into having the resources, including advisors who give a fuck. I know, all's fair as snidely outlined by some Cincinnati friends, but does this produce the healthiest discipline in the long run? I say no.
Seriously, @12:01. When neo-libs are the good guys, you know you're up shit creek.
Seriously, people, did Cincy kill your puppy? Why are we still talking about this program, positively or negatively? Who cares?
Different strokes, as you said.
Barely literate unwashed plebs from Cincinnati took away jobs from those deserving, well-heeled, intellectual heavyweights from departments at assorted Ivies and par-Ivies. What an outrage! Apparently it is all due to the machinations of the faculty there, led by a former ASCSA director who has managed to become the dreaded Éminence Grise of all Classicsdom.
Search committees tremble at the sight of one of his letters of recommendation in an applicant's dossier. SC members who know him personally and perhaps owe him favors lay awake at night, soaked in cold sweat, waiting for a behind-the-scenes email or phone call from him on behalf of one of a Cincinnati student. They know that once he reaches out, they won't be able to cast their vote to hire Sterling Blueblood III from Haaarvard or Chaddington Silverspoon IV from Princeton.
How it wrenches their elitist hearts! O tempora, o mores! Where is their brave Tully to cast down this beastly Catiline of the Midwest!
Still waiting to hear back from BU VAP and UToronto postdoc: any updates on your end?
This place is so random...
SI ISAIA AIT
Some people just need to get back on their meds.
UToronto postdoc made an offer a while ago.
^bah ... too cold there anyway!
@10:37, I for one love the vacillating displays of boomer fragility and self-righteous man/white/classics-splaining with occasional doses of justified millennial angst. Isn't this what 'Murica is all about these days?
11:34, I'm not one of the above posters (nor am I a boomer or millennial, for that matter), so this is an interjection rather than a response: only someone truly self-righteous could write a sentence like yours. So this is the pot calling the kettle black & a case of projection & failure to look in the mirror, & cetera.
@11:34. Indeed. Many decades ago a mentor told me that the academic mind is made up of alternating delusions of grandeur and persecution. I guess he's still right.
Reminder: Classics is for the most part a swamp of arbitrariness. There are too few jobs, and there is usually no good reason why someone (rather than the other 50/100/200+ qualified people) should have gotten them. If you got one, thank your lucky stars, your pedigree, and your supporters. If most of us were rational actors, we'd be actively looking for other things to do with our time and our lives.
"Fair is the prize, and the hope is great." In our case, the prize isn't so fair (tenure at some mediocre school in a moribund field, dealing with constant Fake News of various kinds), so why is the hope so great?
Let's get real, enjoy whatever we do in Classics, and try to get out before we sink with the ship.
@11:34, you somehow managed to sum up the worst part of classics (and FV) in one sentence. The best part is the immediate self-righteous boomer-splaining follow up. Classic classics response. Boomer fragility indeed. I guess someone is taking a break from researching his seminar on Byron's steamer trunk while his younger colleagues lose their weekends prepping for their weekly brunt of student contact hours.
2:23, you're referring to me, 12:14? Despite my writing "nor am I a boomer"?!? If so, then I can only conclude that you are a literary theorist, since who else would have the arrogance to think that (s)he can just dismiss what a text is explicitly saying in order to come up with a different reading of it?
P.S. I am a job-seeker, like most of the rest of us on this forum.
As someone who *does* use the terms Fake News and MCGA, I second the concerns about Genteel Racism. I would add ‘Classicism' and 'Presentism' to the list. So, let's study ANY 20th century writer's reception of antiquity (presentism), but start narrowing the canon and excluding late antiquity (Classicism), not to mention Christians writing in Greek and Latin, such as the great Africans Tertullian and Augustine (racism). But most Classicists would never talk to a North African outside of a visit to a Moroccan restaurant, so why bother with Tertullian, either? And why bother with the coal country folk? They don't take Latin in school, so they will never experience the joys of memorising English translations of Vergil. When some such people DO get excited about the Classics, we tell them to stop being racist and realize the Greek Miracle is a racist fable, the Romans were terrible to those they conquered. And somehow believing this is seen as consistent with continuing to go over the same goddamn canon. "Turn it over and over, for all is therein." Anti-racists teaching Cultural Studies for white folks.....rant over.
Honestly, guys, sometimes reading this after sex is better than a cigarette. My deepest thanks to everyone for weighing in.
You should try it after sex with another person! It's even better.
3:47pm: "So, let's study ANY 20th century writer's reception of antiquity (presentism), but start narrowing the canon and excluding late antiquity (Classicism), not to mention Christians writing in Greek and Latin, such as the great Africans Tertullian and Augustine (racism)"
I for one am tired of people trying to convince me that late antiquity or the Dark Ages that follow are actually interesting. When I was a young and open-minded lad I tried to see the appeal but I just ended up getting tired of seeing images of angry adult Jesus, freakish baby Jesus, and dead-eyed Mary. The same goes for the literature. If I never read any Augustine or Tertullian again it will be too soon. Hopefully once Peter Brown dies the attempts to rehabilitate these periods with their ugly art and dogma will die with him.
So did someone fund Eidolon as a way of destroying whatever is left of Classics? Seriously, that site can be summed up as, Classics should engage in self-loathing and apologize for its very existence.
^I'm not a huge fan of what comes out of Eidolon (it just doesn't strike me as particularly innovative), but I am also not against it. Different people have different interests, and I don't think that what they're doing is "destroying" Classics. In fact it can even be said that they are encouraging "whatever is left of Classics" to puts its own values into high relief as a way to push against these new trends...
Yes, Eidolon and places like it are asking Classicists to engage in self-loathing and apologize for their very existence. And the people who run it and write for it are at the VERY top of the ladder, mostly, in both cultural capital and actual capital. But self-loathing elites asking those down the ladder to self-flagellate for their sins is just one instance of a larger cultural trend. And maybe it is good that the contradictions can be brought out and 'whatever is left of Classics' can be forced to 'put its own values into high relief' so that the field (as a safe space for people who write fake or semi-fake dissertations on canonical lit that they themselves would say is arbitrarily selected) can be put to the torch. Lenin called this 'heightening the contradictions.'
Classics in American will die - both demographics (number of people taking Latin/Greek in HS and college) and ideology) are against it. We need repeal and replace. The replacement will be either language depts. or (if we are lucky) depts. of Mediterranean Studies vel sim. Let's keep heightening the contradictions. Demographics will do the rest, but the more fuel on the fire the better.
Reminder: Classics is Area Studies for white folks. At its core, it focuses on a particular subsection of literature and art that (nice) White People Like. Nice White People don't like Christian dogma (I don't either), so we don't study it. It is an aesthetic and emphatically NOT a historical discipline.
Let's imagine there were departments of Chinese and Japanese that focused on classical poetry and prose (and art) from a specific period, and sometimes their interrelationships. To even take classes that count towards the major, you have to have studied classical Chinese (and perhaps even Japanese) in high school.
The faculty wonder why the dept. is marginalized, students of non-Chinese and non-Japanese backgrounds don't tend to take the classes, and the admin wonders how we can justify having 10+ professors doing this stuff in a vacuum, as if it is in an independent 'field' with a 'methodology.'
This kind of thing can be sustained - and protected - in premodernity and now in chauvinistic ethnostates, but good luck keeping it going in today's America if your justifications are 'it's so pretty!' or 'if we study Greek and Romans we learn how bad they were and how bad many White People who read them became.'
I especially value Eidolon's thoughtful indicator of how long it will take to read their articles. I prefer to know whether I can finish reading how many sophomoric references to orgasm someone can shove in one "article" before draining my pumpkin mango gluten-free peachified non-GMO-ified sustainable beverage.
Truly nothing like privileged folks of any color creed or ethnicity lecturing the rest of us on privilege and how we should indeed all hate ourselves and feel edgy about the act of self-loathing.
10:09, mango drinks are cultural appropriation. How dare you!
One good thing Eidolon could do is to feature more 'stories from the trenches' - unfunded or poorly funded grad students, adjuncts, VAP's (preferably one or two-year rather than three). I do think there is a strand of Eidolon that actually cares about the real problems, so may it prevail.
At first I thought Eidolon was a satire. Then I realized from reading more articles that the staff/writers are so utterly humorless that satire is probably impossible for them.
When he got near her with much ado,(for he was lame), he attempted to embrace her; but she, being a chaste virgin, would not submit to him, and he dropped his seed on the leg of the goddess (Ed. note: “to drop seed on” seems like way too casual of a description for this kind of sexual misconduct). In disgust, she wiped off the seed with wool and threw it on the ground; and as she fled and the seed fell on the ground, Erichthonius was produced.
I'm a classicist who specializes in the Graeco-Roman tradition. Most of my case studies comes from Classics because that is what I know best, but what ultimately drives me are larger historical questions that historians of other periods are interested in and address in their own subfields. I've never considered myself as "just" a classics person with only classics colleagues and readerships. As a result I have never felt threatened by the diminishing size of Classics as a discipline because I have never privileged the field as such or defined my professional life by it.
Historians and philosophers (and maybe even art historians) who specialize in classical material shouldn't worry. When Classics is Repealed and Replaced, you will be able to get jobs in real departments (if you don't already have those jobs).
"Hopefully once Peter Brown dies the attempts to rehabilitate these periods with their ugly art and dogma will die with him." @1:31... and most of the following attacking Eidolon and whatever else... You are the reason why Classics *could* die. Your narrow mindedness and your caustic, racist, bigoted insecurity are going to take the ship down.
Eidolon usefully makes the point that Classics is a racist, harmful field. REPEAL AND REPLACE!
Sorry Eidolators, a good many of us, liberal and conservative alike, can see straight through your shit: I'm angry that I didn't get a job-- the fact that I'm a woman or minority is incontrovertible evidence that I didn't get a job due to Evil Cishet White Men! Justice must be done! Give me a job, or failing that, a sinecure writing hate-filled "articles"!
I'd be curious to know how many of these "repeal and replace" comments are coming from the same IP address.
@2.45-- I, for one, hope they are all coming from a single person.
Moscow!
Not to be pedantic (although this is FV), but I think the troll farm that we know about is actually in St. Petersburg. Not all Russians!
but on a serious note, were there ANY successful candidates this year that are also POC ??
*crickets*
Maybe there weren't any POC job candidates this year?....
Keep telling yourself that. Or maybe pass the buck to POC like someone did earlier on FV. Why don't THEY tell us why they are not going to grad school and entering the market, lol.
Obviously can't go into details, but we're about to extend an offer to someone who happens to be a POC. But, yeah, after an up close look at the market, I can say we've got a huge problem as a discipline. Diversity committees have been a long time coming and I hope they have some teeth to them, not only because it's best for the discipline, but also because it's really the only ethical path forward whether we survive or not.
A questions for people who have served on SCs: Would you hire a top-notch POC candidate whose expertise is just a so-so fit for the position, or the non-POC candidate with a similar CV but whose research interests fit better?
@4:09, 4:04 here. I think you've hit upon the exact type of questions diversity committees should be asking. Our candidate fit perfectly so we got lucky, but honestly the POC angle was just icing on the cake.
The fit issue is what the SCS and AIA should be tackling. As someone brought up earlier on FV, the fuzziness of fit can explicitly or implicitly harbor disciplinary bias. In my experience, POC often conduct research on the fringes - surprise! - but even the most well-intentioned classicists become rigidly focused on what they believe a classics program needs or should be. It's a viscous cycle - our current makeup cannot see the broad picture so we usually don't bring in the people who could actually broaden it! And, yes, this is the best case scenario - there are obviously some people who are quite comfy with the status quo as clearly conveyed on FV.
Harvard SOF, rumor has it.
It's like everything in life - we overvalue and cherish what we know and think we vitally need. In the end, we usually call it fit, but but it's clear that there's nothing truly objective about it other than it following a century of tradition. You combine it with a tight market where advisors are keenly aware of what will get you a job, and POCs are effectively locked out unless they march lock step with a tradition that is overwhelmingly a privileged white person's realm. Have you seen classicists when they're combined with a mega language department? They have little idea how to interact with even that level of diversity and invariably withdraw into their own little sub-world until the lines get phased out.
"Harvard SOF, rumor has it."
?
Yeah, this is my first year on a SC, but WTF were SCs for the last couple decades thinking and doing? It can't surely just be disciplinary "fit blinders" can it? WTF. Please explain old timers. WTF were you doing for the past twenty years?
"Have you seen classicists when they're combined with a mega language department? They have little idea how to interact with even that level of diversity and invariably withdraw into their own little sub-world until the lines get phased out."
I spent a year in one such department, at a large but rather average state university. There were three of us from Classics, the rest were Spanish, German, French, Italian and Russian scholars. The different sub-fields were all withdrawn from one another -- it's not like Classicists were hiding from the others, while the German and Italian scholars together were making amazing breakthroughs on early humanism, or some such thing. And there was very little scholarship being done by anyone, so it's not like there was great intellectual cross-pollination going on in which the Latin/Greek people refused to participate. I suspect that this is more the rule than the exception, since if a school decides to lump its languages together it probably doesn't care much about scholarship, even if it pays lip service to it.
Yep, classics has to decide and can't have it both ways - i.e. overwhelmingly favor the study of Greek and Latin with a narrow canon in the grand scheme of things yet say its future shouldn't be tied with moribund language departments that will overwhelmingly transition to non-research lecturer positions. But who are we kidding? We have not and will not decide or change so we've lost the initiative and the decision has already been made for us by admins.
How can I, as a POC, contribute publicly to the conversation about SC practices regarding this sensitive issue without fear of being branded as a loud-mouthed opinionated minority, or of being retaliated against by so called "well-intentioned" but rigidly focused" classicists?
Does it strike anyone else as a bit awkward/surprising that the two people organizing next year's SCS social justice panel on "who owns classics" did not invite a POC co-organizer? (I applaud their efforts nonetheless)
Totally awkward yet totally not surprising. I applaud your efforts in advance, sir/madam.
Speaks volumes that the most candid discussions I've ever seen in Classics are taking place in an anonymous forum. Just saying.
5:01 again. Just to elaborate: what I mean is that as a POC, something just feels weird imagining a panel and quite possibly a room full of mainly non-POC scholars discussing diversity issues in the field / the POC classicist experience...
Well, if you as a POC decide to share your views on what's it's like as a POC in classics I guarantee you that you would not be affected nearly as adversely as I would if I came out as a conservative. (NOT a Trump supporter! And note that I did not write "Republican," as I can no longer consider myself one.) I do not mean to make light of your situation in any way, just to remind people that our field displays more than one form of narrow-mindedness and intolerance, one that ultimately will be self-destructive, as we can already see from the way that politicians from (what used to be) my own party are turning on academia (i.e., on the humanities) and planning long-term harm.
As for POC's in the field, if any one of you who is not in a secure position stands up there could be negative consequences, much as I would like to think there would not be, but if most or all of you hashed out a "position paper" of sorts that might work better. Safety in numbers. (With the numbers being such as they are.) I can tell you that I would be far more likely to read that carefully and through to the end than another screed by a fellow white person on Eidolon.
Holy fucking shit. Someone just really claimed that being conservative in classics is harder than being a POC? Really? As the whitest malest most protestant person alive, I deeply and humbly apologize to everyone who has suffered so long in classics against the structural gender and race bias to still have to listen to such total horseshit.
I am sorry for your suffering, Herr Doctor Classics Conservative, but the lack of empathy and perspective that allows you to say such a thing is deeply similar to that which makes so many 'nice' white people feel like it is ok to support Trump.
5:01 again--i regularly hear similar comments as 5:45 from others colleagues in this field so am literally not shocked or surprised. some people just don't get it. maybe my lack of surprise is quite telling about the general atmosphere of classics
"I went to work the next day, turning, so to speak, my back on that campus. In that way only it seemed to me I could keep my hold on the redeeming facts of life. Still, one must look about sometimes; and then I saw this campus, these men strolling aimlessly about in the sunshine of the yard. I asked myself sometimes what it all meant. They wandered here and there with their absurd classical texts in their hands, like a lot of faithless pilgrims bewitched inside a rotten fence. The word ‘tenure’ rang in the air, was whispered, was sighed. You would think they were praying to it. A taint of imbecile rapacity blew through it all, like a whiff from some corpse. By Jove! I’ve never seen anything so unreal in my life. And outside, the silent wilderness surrounding this cleared speck on the earth struck me as something great and invincible, like evil or truth, waiting patiently for the passing away of this fantastic invasion."
https://giphy.com/explore/cute-puppy
https://media.giphy.com/media/bmrxNoGqGNMAM/giphy.gif
10 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvppaufeD3Q
5:53, I most certainly did not claim, and would never claim, that "being conservative in classics is harder than being a POC." But if you truly think that an open conservative has an easier chance at getting a job than a POC then your cluelessness is a symptom of a major problem in our field, just as you claim my statement was.
Perhaps I should have clarified that I only was referring to the job market, which seemed to me to be obvious from the context, but I guess it was not. So, to be clear, I am not saying that day in, day out existence is tougher, but that getting hired most definitely would be. Seriously, can you say with a straight face that most search committees would rather hire a conservative colleague than an African-American one into a tenure-track position? Since only someone who is deeply clueless would ever claim that, there is indeed a DIFFERENT problem in our field that also needs addressing. And that's all I'm trying to say. Please do take that to heart, since judging from your response you are apparently part of the problem.
And I'll further note that you accused me of a "lack of empathy," but if you read what I wrote without getting so emotional you will see that I not only indicated support for POC's, but even made a constructive suggestion on how they can advocate for themselves.
Lastly, I reject your apology on my behalf.
The reason that nobody at universities gives a damn about what conservatives have to say is because conservatism writ large in the US is associated with the GOP, which is openly hostile to education in broad terms. Whether all conservatives consider themselves Republicans or not is neither here nor there, because conservatism (or what passes for it) in electoral politics, government, and media has been weaponized to regularly target higher education. For most academics (aside from people in business schools or people in STEM who think they're John Galt or something) the idea that one can square being a conservative and also somebody who pursues a career in academia is ludicrous. This is because being both involves embracing an ideology that has been twisted in such a way that the people who actually wield power and claim said ideology would be glad if you didn't have a job. These people think that what you teach isn't "useful," they hate education in general, or they believe that universities are the result of a Marxist plot to indoctrinate the youth or something.
Also, to the conservative/POC comparison...just stop. The idea that being a conservative in academia is analogous to being a POC is utter horseshit. It's almost as insipid as all these lackwits running around screeching about how it's really white men who are oppressed in America when they've controlled this country and its wealth for centuries and continue to do so.
Uhm, you there posting at 8:04, can I then infer from your passionate response that if you were on a search committee and had a choice you would rather hire a conservative than a POC? Or, for that matter, if you had to choose between a white male Protestant conservative and a white male Protestant liberal, you would have no trouble treating the two equally? Because, I have to say, I am not really getting that vibe off you.
8:04 is the loan exception, trying to break the stranglehold that Trump-supporters and other fascists have on Classics.
This is the discipline that produced Boris Johnson and Enoch Powell, folks.
I thought it was Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale?
So what? It's also the discipline that produced George Thomson (and, I suspect, dozens of other leftists that don't get much press). Pick an academic discipline, you will find sinners in it. Saints too. And a whole lot of people who are neither. If we want more POC and more working-class students in the field, we need to find ways to financially support them from beginning to end. You could even begin by putting your money where your mouth is: https://thesportula.wordpress.com/.
We want fewer grad students in our field. But more POC and working-class in undergraduate Classics programs would be good. I doubt it will ever happen, just as I doubt there will be a ton of French majors coming from schools that don't offer French.
This is stupid, I know many conservatives in Classics who are doing just fine, have tenure-track and tenured jobs, post-docs, VAPs, etc. Your lack of success on the job market is not because of your politics, but because of all of the other arbitrary things that go into this process. Essentially blaming POCs for making it difficult for you to get a job (SCs are choosing them over you?) doesn't help the field, it doesn't help them, it doesn't help you, it doesn't help anything. They're not the reason you didn't get a job.
PLEASE READ. the person is a closeted conservative. The person is not attributing his or her ostensible lack of success on the market to conservatism, but rather assumes (rightly in my view) that if his or her political views were known within the discipline, he or she would be less competitive on the market.
I'm unsure why somebody on the job market would make their politics known one way or the other, to be honest, unless a particular slant is inherently built into whatever approach you have adopted for your given subfield or you have a presence outside academia where you are open about your politics. If you're a run-of-the mill Classicist who studies Vergil or whomever it shouldn't be obvious what your politics are from your scholarship or your overall dossier. Should some oblivious SC member cross the line and ask you about your politics when you're on a campus visit then you should try your best to dodge the question or just say that you're apolitical.
Seriously, it's not that hard. I'm far to the left of the dull neoliberalism that many in the US construe as leftism and I knew better than to make that obvious when talking to people who had the power to give me a job.
In my experience, the average classics SC is not equipped to short-list an "Elon Musk of classics" without obvious markers such as a particularly effusive letter from a well-known (read: traditional) scholar or other hallmarks of our discipline that convey fortuitous connections as much as any inherent abilities.
The idea that merely revealing yourself to be a respectable conservative (as opposed to a wacko conservative who believes crazy things like that the dinosaurs lived among humans or that women were put on earth to make you sandwiches etc.) would hurt you as much as being a POC is not only crazy, bit it also ignores the huge fractures on the left. There are massive subgroups on the left that absolutely hate each other's assumptions and methods, and blame them for the Mess We're In Now. Doesn't hurt anyone's career.
Good news for Closeted Conservative and those hand-wringing about the "fake news" turn in the field: conservative state legislatures want you to help Make Academia Great Again
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/26/us/arizona-state-conservatives.html
Not that this will help any conservatives in Classics. Those people are neoconservative Straussian mccain flakes, and you've got to be part of the club to get a job in these new schools (read: you need to have a PhD in Political Theory from BC, Notre Dame, or Baylor, or in Economics from George Mason).
I don't see any necessary connection between being politically right-wing and thinking that the field has taken a 'fake news' turn. The fake news turn has been made in the field, and people with an interest in preserving the high-end Classics status quo (most of whom are liberal, but that's only because most academics are liberal) will defend it.
You could also be a right-winger and understand that the work done by Thomson and Timpanaro was not fake news, or be a Marxist and agree that Hugh Lloyd-Jones - whatever else he was - was no purveyor of fake news.
The 'fake news' turn has nothing to do with liberal or leftist politics. It rather has to do with declining knowledge of history and languages, declining standards in education generally, and the over-study of certain favored areas (poetry and belletristic prose from a couple of century-long 'Golden Ages').
in other words: the decline the field's been in since 300 CE...
Definitely in the decline in the Dark Ages, when people stared at dead-eyed portraits of Mary and composed rhyming verse and believed in fake news dogma rather than doing something important and True like Propertian metapoetics for some important purpose like getting tenure at Kansas State.
300 CE is late antiquity, right?
I think I just found a FV-ian intertext:
One common theme I hear from our detractors is that we here at Eidolon hate Classics, are filled with self-loathing, and are trying to destroy the discipline with our overwrought apologia. I’ve always felt that if your understanding of what it means to “love Classics” is so shallow and confined that it must exclude any critique or desire to make the discipline better, then you don’t really love Classics. You love an idealized fiction of the classical world that reflects nothing more than your own biases and insecurities. I feel sad for those people.
Myopic grammarians pretending that anyone cares what they have to say about Homer and people twisting the Classics into self-indulgent allegories for the id-pol of the day or beating themselves up over how their favorites from the canon aren't politically correct enough? sounds about right
11:27 AM "Definitely in the decline in the Dark Ages, when people stared at dead-eyed portraits of Mary and composed rhyming verse and believed in fake news dogma rather than doing something important and True like Propertian metapoetics for some important purpose like getting tenure at Kansas State."
I didn't think that anyone could up with anything as mind-numbing as looking at ugly Byzantine art or reading frothing-at-the mouth screeds by Chrysostom but you've managed to do it.
It is really healthy for the field that we are getting these things out on the table. We tend to smile and nod at friendly Byzantine art historians, but it is good to know that we define ourselves against this stuff if we do. If the Classics are going to survive, we have to be unafraid to identify ourselves by inclusion as well as exclusion.
@5:45 @7:57 @9:53 NB no one answered your question. Instead we pretend you said “political persuasion equals race or ethnicity” which...did not happen.
Q for all: Do you believe implicit bias exists? Could it work in more than one direction?
Could we (gasp?) broach related topics in a Classics course? Several comments here suggest we cannot, that we prefer to lazily reduce dialogue into US Weekly politics as quickly as possible. (“He said race is silly!”)
On a completely unrelated note, can we get some updates on those that have already accepted jobs for a while now? Lots of listings designated as filled without names named...
@6:59 does it matter who in particular gets which jobs?... Anyway, you'll find out eventually...
You know who got all the jobs? People from Cincinnati. Also women and POC. Apparently they are just eating everyone's lunch left and right.
https://www.thecut.com/2017/01/psychologys-racism-measuring-tool-isnt-up-to-the-job.html
https://www.chronicle.com/article/Can-We-Really-Measure-Implicit/238807?cid=trend_au&elq=e5087a35a63d4ac39afd15fd91811bb9&elqCampaignId=4841&elqTrackId=df5fc3c880534d35b1e70cec51d4802b&elqaid=12020&elqat=1
Classicists list: a specially-designed kind of purgatory wherein hundreds of people with PhDs are never able to learn not to hit "reply all."
^you got the email about the invisible prick too?
Oh man, I think Eidolon just excommunicated some of us. Funny how those of us who are adjuncting or VAP-ing the field just don't love Classics as those who took themselves out of the race for greater fame and fortune.
7:01, yup, pretty sure we all got that email.
Does anyone have a good reply to this?
Let's imagine there were departments of Chinese and Japanese that focused on classical poetry and prose (and art) from a specific period, and sometimes their interrelationships. To even take classes that count towards the major, you have to have studied classical Chinese (and perhaps even Japanese) in high school.
The faculty wonder why the dept. is marginalized, students of non-Chinese and non-Japanese backgrounds don't tend to take the classes, and the admin wonders how we can justify having 10+ professors doing this stuff in a vacuum, as if it is in an independent 'field' with a 'methodology.'
This kind of thing can be sustained - and protected - in premodernity and now in chauvinistic ethnostates, but good luck keeping it going in today's America if your justifications are 'it's so pretty!' or 'if we study Greek and Romans we learn how bad they were and how bad many White People who read them became.'
One reply is that the classical Japanese and Chinese languages bear no relation to English, whereas Latin does. But that is a pretty weak defense of an entire *dept.'s* existence.
you can always make the claim, questionable though it is, that understanding the classical foundations of chinese and japanese literature may help clarify or make sense of enduring social norms and cultural conventions in modern day china or japan. Yes, all claims about cultural continuity are farfetched, but at least these fields have putative modern counterparts that the Greek and Romans manifestly don't, or at least not in the same way.
so in that way a dept. of classical chinese and japanese would actually be more defensible than a dept. of latin and greek?
Absolutely. I think that working on anything associated with "China" is helpful these days
China is eating our lunch!
What about a dept. of MidEast religions and civilizations? Say, Judaism, early Christianity, and Islam? People could read frothing-at-the-mouth texts of various flavors and look at bad art. Plus there is something modern to understand.
^agreed! same logic at work with studying ancient religions with some purported continuity into modernity.. i mean... do you see ancient Greek/Roman religion scholars getting jobs at divinity schools or religious studies departments? Nope. But ancient judaism and even buddhism/hinduism? Of course
^*ancient buddhism/hinduism
One thing that financially helps those fields is that you have wealthy donors who give money to academic departments for politically motivated reason to study certain ancient topics (e.g., Dharma Civilization Foundation giving 3+ million to USC for a chair in Hindu studies)
I for one say that we embrace the ascendancy of Chinese Classics. As the late, great Gore Vidal once opined, since "the West" can't get its act together, soon we'll all be farmers or mere entertainment for more than one billion grimly efficient Asiatics anyway.
Any information on FSU Roman archaeology? Wiki says "offer extended". Any idea if one person has been offered more than one position and is playing hard-ball to get better conditions or something to that end?
Re: the latest "e(i)ditorial" as mentioned by 2/26 2:13 pm and 2/27 9:07 pm:--this is a repeating theme in e(i)ditorials that speaks to a fundamentally defensive outlook. Essentially, the message has been "some people are criticizing Eidolon, and that criticism is SINISTER for the following reasons," usually something about bias, essentialism, protectionist attitudes toward the Classics etc. Not only is it an ugly impulse to try to forestall critique by positioning all critique as SINISTER, but it seems basically insecure. There are a lot of things I like about Eidolon, but if it's going to succeed it needs to get over this defensive crouch. Guess what guys: not everyone in the Twitterverse is going to like your content. That doesn't mean their motives are SINISTER. You can't please everyone, so do what you want, publish what you like, and stop trying to browbeat everyone into liking you. If you stand by your content and think it has value, who cares what the Twitter trolls think?
On the whole I think that Eidolon is a good thing. I think that the defensiveness is natural given some of the topics that they tackle, and while all criticism of Eidolon should not be ascribed to the sinister motives to which 12:48 refers, I think that it is true nonetheless that there are more than a few people out there whose criticism *does* have its origins in "sinister" things. Also, you have to account for the people who are coming from a place of bad place from the outset who will pretend that their criticism isn't rooted in any of the sinister attitudes one encounters in Classics when it actually is.
"place of bad faith." sorry for the typo.
University of Kansas rumormill- who is the Open Rank hire?
The Classics Wiki job offer counter suggests that three people have been each offered three jobs, anyone know of how true this is? Also, have they accepted one and then declined the others?
The condescension shown ("I feel sad for those people" - cf. the Trumpian exclamation 'SAD!') by someone so privileged towards those of us who are in the trenches is really remarkable. This may be Eidolon's 'deplorables' moment.
Seeking advice:
I saw on Facebook a SC member post the link for the position they're trying to fill. I applied for said position. In the comments on their FB post, one of their friends and research collaborators (public knowledge) said something to the effect of "Ooooh, I should really apply for that!" and the SC member liked that comment.
Would this constitute something worth reporting to the HR department of that university? I mean, it seems like they could have made this position for this specific person (it is a very specific job). In my paranoia, I took screenshots just in case...
FV hivemind, help!
If you think reporting this to HR is a good idea, you should leave academia.
Even if your paranoia is right, all that the 'like' means (plausibly) is: "I am glad someone is applying!" The university wants people to encourage applications. So you really think sending your screenshots to an HR dept.? People have run searches and hired their mistresses and NOTHING has happened. Leave academia.
Following the example of our comrades at Eidolon, I look forward to dismissing all peer review comments as having sinister motives. Take that, Reviewer #2!
Eidolon is eating our lunch!
https://giphy.com/gifs/reactionseditor-reaction-l0Iyau7QcKtKUYIda
Eidolon and Mary Beard. I'm not sure whose White Tears are flowing the whitest, but I'm making popcorn and settling in to find out!
Who does that Mary Beard think she is? She's ugly and a woman, and she thinks that she is entitled to ideas and opinions? In my day such things weren't tolerated! Make Classics Great Again! Eidolon is fake news!
A lot of White fragility.
Whoa, I didn't realize that condoning sexual exploitation because 'it's hard to keep up [White] civilized standards in [Haiti]' was an opinion or idea that any of us was entitled to. Even the hobbits and deplorables. But maybe I missed that memo while teaching my 4-4 load....
May Beard is old, and old people grew up in a time when it was OK to say a lot of things that aren't ok to say that. If we give her a pass, it should be on those grounds, not because she is a woman.
*to say now.
So we need classics without senility?
Beard has since replied to those who called out the above statement. Her response, I think, was nuanced and shows that she isn't some raging colonialist tut-tutting the behavior of savages or something.
Genteel racism, ladies and gentlemen. I of course don't condone what happened in Abu Ghrayb. But.....
*Abu Ghraib
By this logic shouldn't all war crimes be 'contextualized'?
40 minute presentation - how many pages should that be?
About as long as an Eidolon article on dicks in Ancient Greece?
<5300 words
If I were writing the script for a 40-minute presentation, I'd aim for 4,000 words, maybe 4,300, but of course I'd have a bunch of pretty pictures. Leaves me space to describe an illustration or two, and to throw in some of those off-the-cuff jokes that I've written into the margins...
I usually figure about 2 minutes per double-spaced page (depends on how much you ad lib, your speaking speed, etc.), so for me a 40 minute presentation is about 20 pages.
Extra credit if your jokes are inside FV references like 'we all know Eidolon is fake news' or 'as a self-loathing Classicist.'
@12:48: Eidolon should feel defensive and insecure. Much of its content—including the more ‘serious’ pieces—is a mess. Look at the recent article on Antigone. The author begins by arguing that Antigone was a “religious zealot” comparable to Kim Davis and Ray Moore. The author decries this behavior. Who will protect us from the Antigones, the Kim Davises, and the Roy Moores of the world? Well, the government (=Creon?) of course! "It is up to the government to be more just than its citizens when necessary, even at the expense of stands of conscience.” Not all stands of conscience of course—only those that the author disagrees with. "If public opinion is slow to act, public opinion is wrong and should lose the right to decide.” Instead, a paternalistic and authoritarian government should decide—a government, clearly, that will share the views and priorities of the author. Lucky we have such a progressive SCOTUS and POTUS these days! Lucky we can rely on the government to take decisions out of the hands of the people and impose a juster, better world according to the preferences and predilections of the author. “The government” here is clearly a proxy for the author himself, who would like to impose his idea of what is “just” and, in defiance of current observable reality, assumes that the benevolent authority of “government” shares, and will always share, his own views. In other words, the author has failed to learn anything from reading the Antigone—if ever there was an incarnation of Trump in a Classical text, it’s Creon.
In America, we don't worship government; we worship God!
I really appreciate a lot of what Eidolon is trying to do by opening up the conversation and making classics speak to the current culture. They're breaking down barriers and that is admirable. I also applaud their promotion of "taboo" subjects. But in their critique of classics, they've called into question the whole enterprise, as others have pointed out. What's the point of studying classics? Donna's most recent editorial states that Eidolon critiques what it loves. But why love classics in the first place? When does the critique become so strong that it eclipses any purported benefit? I was heartened to see Donna's editorial appeal to "joy" and "hope"--terms I do not often see in Eidolon pieces. But joy in what? Hope in what? I, for one, would welcome an editorial piece that speaks to the beauty and truth of the Greco-Roman world and its legacy. But, I suppose, that would make me a white supremacist.
Each of the three kinds of history will only flourish in one ground and climate: otherwise it grows to a noxious weed. If the man who will produce something great, have need of the past, he makes himself its master by means of monumental history: the man who can rest content with the traditional and venerable, uses the past as an "antiquarian historian": and only he whose heart is oppressed by an instant need, and who will cast the burden off at any price, feels the want of "critical history," the history that judges and condemns. There is much harm wrought by wrong and thoughtless planting: the critic without the need, the antiquary without piety, the knower of the great deed who cannot be the doer of it, are plants that have grown to weeds, they are torn from their native soil and therefore degenerate.
Every past is worth condemning: this is the rule in mortal affairs, which always contain a large measure of human power and human weakness. It is not justice that sits in judgment here; nor mercy that proclaims the verdict; but only life, the dim, driving force that insatiably desires—itself. Its sentence is always unmerciful, always unjust, as it never flows from a pure fountain of knowledge: though it would generally turn out the same, if Justice herself delivered it. "For everything that is born is worthy of being destroyed: better were it then that nothing should be born." It requires great strength to be able to live and forget how far life and injustice are one. Luther himself once said that the world only arose by an oversight of God; if he had ever dreamed of heavy ordnance, he would never have created it. The same life that needs forgetfulness, needs sometimes its destruction; for should the injustice of some- thing ever become obvious—a monopoly, a caste, a dynasty for example—the thing deserves to fall. Its past is critically examined, the knife put to its roots, and all the "pieties" are grimly trodden under foot. The process is always dangerous, even for life; and the men or the times that serve life in this way, by judging and annihilating the past, are always dangerous to themselves and others.
I propose a FV Nietzsche reading group. After all, a Basel SC saw fit to give him a TT Hellenist job at a very young age, as a freshly minted ABD (it is said that he even turned down a Heidelberg SOF opportunity to reduce time to tenure). He must have had an amazing SCS interview and campus visit.
I see that DZ has also recently complained on Facebook about the FV commentary, which has clearly proven that this community is filled with closeted white supremacists. Kidding aside, I am actually pretty concerned about this tendency of the left to periodically denounce various of its own members as "problematic" (or as one above poster above put it "SINISTER") and excommunicate them for expressing the slightest wrongthink.
Recent Eidolon editorial staff comments just prove they really are completely intolerant of anything but the orthodoxy they preach. It's the fascism of the left, but fascism all the same. It's also all incredibly pompous and self-important.
"The Left" is eating our lunch!
Is it too much to ask that we get back to talking about the job market? We are Classicists, by definition we are all pompous and self-important.
what more is there to say about the job market? the season is over and none of us got any jobs!
There is still the secondary market. Not many jobs have been posted yet but I'm sure that will change soon.
I really hope the Cincinnati job is taken by a Cincinnati PhD
In fact, it is too much to ask everyone to shut down a productively critical discussion of Eidolon's value to the field just so we can get back to talking about that job you're after.
You guys! What if we're all fighting over an eidolon, when all along the real [jobs] were in Egypt?!
Helen of Troy is eating our lunch!
Speaking of Egypt, Zahi Hawass seems to be trying to stage a comeback. Maybe some people can get a job as Western PhD Who Gets Yelled at by Zahi Hawass.
As someone who uses the phrase 'fake news' and is frustrated by Eidolon in many ways, I would say that Eidolon should grow a thicker skin, ignore the haters if necessary, and do its thing, going from strength to strength, as they see fit. Sincere advice from a 'deplorable.'
In fact, Plutarch has a little essay about how you can even benefit from your enemies. Just a bit of 'beauty and truth' from the Graeco-Roman legacy, to borrow a phrase from the poignant post above. Just how we reconcile what we perceive of 'beauty and truth' in this tradition with our current values and with the expectations of modern HS education and the modern research university is up for debate, but if we don't see 'beauty and truth,' why bother? I don't know how Horace compares to the greatest classical Japanese poets (nor will I ever, since I don't have the time to learn classical Japanese!), and my love for Horace doesn't - explicitly or even implicitly - put Japanese poetry down. But Japanese poetry is not part of my tradition. Is it white supremacist to say that?
There is a disturbing parallelism between Trump and Eidolon: both are really anxious about what other think, and quick to react with hostility to annoyance or strong criticism. The E(i)ditorial could be paraphrased as: "Our enemies say we don't love the Classics. But we are truly the ones who love the Classics. Sad!" I disagree with a lot of what Eidolon has done, but have also learned from it. Perhaps all of us who criticize Eidolon could list one thing we like about Eidolon, and Eidolon could do us the courtesy of acknowledging that some of our criticism have force, or at least are not SINISTER.
7:27 here. Just to practice what I preach, I appreciate Eidolon's bringing high school teaching, and high school teachers (Ph.D'd or un-Ph.D.'d) into the conversation. That is worthwhile work (most certainly not FAKE NEWS) and many of the people who do it are brilliant, committed Classicists who half of the idiots in academia wouldn't give the time of day.
Okay, I'll jump in: one of the things I really liked about early Eidolon pieces was their concern for privilege within the field (especially at the annual meeting, e.g.). I think a lot of us here in the land of eternal VAP-hood feel invisible within the profession, and Eidolon seemed to want to bring us into the light. Maybe I haven't been paying enough attention, but that seems missing from the recent pieces and especially from the angry, defensive commentary about how SINISTER the criticism is. A lot of Eidolon's contributors are extremely privileged, whether within the field or outside of it. I was particularly struck by a snarky comment on the above-referenced facebook thread from a full professor (who must, I suppose, remain nameless) that we job-seekers should be working on articles to get jobs, rather than commenting on FV with critique of Eidolon. I don't know about anyone else, but it seems that all I do is work on articles and teach, except of course when I'm checking FV, and I really resent this pompous remark's implication--so common in the field--that we would all have jobs if only we were more productive, hard-working, dedicated etc. I know few people more productive, hard-working, and dedicated than my fellow sufferers on the contingent track. The comfortable obliviousness to his/her own privilege by this senior scholar was quite shocking and depressing to me.
@8:02 and 8:16, thanks for your comments, 100% agree with both of you. Now I'll get back to writing that article...
I generally like Eidolon's commentary on sex/gender issues in the ancient world. I liked their Harry Potter series last summer. What I object to is the sometimes-hectoring tone of their articles, which tend to have a lot of "musts" in them. Not everything in the field MUST be about race, sex, whiteness, queerness, privilege, slavery or whatnot. Some people in Classics want to study Greek particles or pot sherds, and that's okay too.
It bothers me a little bit that Eidolon so often takes to task a relatively small group of people who happen to love the literature of the Greco-Roman past, when some even smaller sub-set of that group usually inadvertently -- though, granted, not always -- says something that might be construed as not 100% as socially conscious as it should/could be.
Meanwhile -- and I feel slightly bad blaming her for this -- but her billionaire brother's website is the single most egregious purveyor of racist, misogynistic, antisemitic, you name it, vile fake news garbage that, in the span of a single heartbeat, purveys more white supremacist hate than a thousand classicists at a thousand typewriters could in a lifetime.
Does anybody know if the passage about beams in your eye/motes in your neighbors has been translated into Greek or Latin?
Eidolon's editors basically think if you decide to take Latin and you're not obsessed from day 1 about the plight of Roman slaves, you're an insensitive, wicked, loutish boor.
At best, Eidolon is a flash in the pan. They engage in too much self parody to sustain it for too long.
Yes, by all means, let's just embrace myopia and stick to ruminating on Greek particles and fragments while ignoring the discipline's structural and systemic problems. Then on the rare occasion when you manage to pull yourself away from Denniston or Jacoby (and pull your head out of your ass), wonder in amazement why people think what we do is irrelevant. Woe betide anyone like the folks at Eidolon tackling topics and issues that need to be addressed.
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