the pleasures of the small conference

At the end of our honeymoon, Dave flew back to the US, and I headed up to the University of Leeds for a conference. I've been trying to get to smaller, more focused conferences, so I was quite excited when my abstract on Disney's Hercules was accepted. This was my first paper on a "classical reception" topic, and I was a bit nervous to present an analysis of the movie in the company of much more experienced reception scholars.

I shouldn't have worried. Because the conference was so small (50-odd attendees?), people were so friendly! Introducing themselves in the elevator, offering thoughtful remarks during discussion, approaching after talks to continue the conversation, asking real conversational questions over dinner. I didn't know that conferences could be like this. I had a blast.

But perhaps most important of all is a revelation that came out during my panel. A classicist from University of Vermont was presenting on two children's TV shows about Hercules from the '90s – Disney's "Hercules: The Animated Series" and the "Young Hercules" show on Fox. Do you remember who starred in "Young Hercules"? None other than RYAN GOSLING.

I find this irrationally hilarious, and hope you do too!

decisions, decisions, decisions

The time has come (the Walrus said). After all of this hullabaloo, I have three tenure-track offers in front of me, and three more days to make up my mind. This is far more than I ever hoped or dreamed for myself this year (or possibly ever!), and I feel unprepared to make the decision. Just six months ago, I was considering leaving the field in the event that the job market just didn't pan out for me. The suggestion conjured an entirely different world and future for me and Dave, one which can be set aside for now. Now I have to contemplate what it really means to start a tenure-track job at a specific place in August – can I get tenure? will I start having children before tenure, and where do I want them to grow up? where can I get the best mentoring, so that I can grow and thrive in my research and teaching? which institution has the best support for what I want to accomplish with my career? and perhaps most importantly, can Dave come with me?

It's been a hard week. I received an offer that I would dearly love to take – I fell in love with the department, my future colleagues, and the rosy vision of the life I would have there. The catch: no job for Dave now, and it seems unlikely he would find one there in the future. How can I take a position in a place, knowing that my husband can't join me there? What if I find it difficult to "trade up," as it were, and find myself "trapped" in a wonderful job, but alone? Tradeoffs, compromises, meeting in the middle. All I can say is: marriage – it's not for the faint of heart.

I'll have an update in a few days. In the meantime, I'm trying to shed the burden of anxiety I've been carrying for weeks. Today I got my haircut at a new salon. In the blank after "Occupation:", I finally dared to write "Professor."

expectations

All my friends, faculty, and family are constantly asking me, "How did it go?" As I discussed earlier, I think it's nearly impossible for the candidate to know how she is being appraised. Most of the time, I reply with a shrug, "Okay? Pretty well? I guess?" Then there are visits where I can be pretty sure things did not go okay, pretty well, I know.

Last week, I visited a small liberal arts college in the Northeast. I am a finalist for a campus-wide diversity fellowship; I am up against 3 other finalists, all from different fields across the college. The Classics department is tiny, so they are thrilled by the prospect of having another faculty member to offer a few courses and raise the profile of the department among their colleagues. All this to say: it's in their interest to help me get this fellowship, right? Which would involve clearly communicating expectations, right? And yet, I didn't find out until I had arrived on campus for the interview with the fellowship committee that I was being pitched as someone who could also cover for Art History and whose courses "deal substantially with post-Renaissance Western art, literary studies, and film studies." Excuse me? I mean, yes, I would be more than happy to incorporate those fields into my classes – but you probably should have warned me ahead of time. So that, when I'm asked about how I would use films in my class on Heracles, I do not respond with Disney's Hercules and Arnold Schwarzenegger's great classic of cinema, Hercules in New York. Only half of the fellowship committee came to my talk, which is just as well: two images miraculously disappeared from my powerpoint presentation, so I had to act them out with my body. Academic dignity may have been lost, but surely I earned a few points for enthusiasm.

Then there are schools that clearly communicate their expectations, but they are surprisingly specific. From a research university in the south, I received this email today: "[Your job talk] should be pitched to the faculty and should represent your original contributions to scholarship. It should be not less than 49 minutes and not more than 51 minutes. There will be a question period after it." My talk, as it stands, is not more than 44 minutes, and not less than 42. At least I know how to edit it now!

adventures in academia

I'm three weeks into my whirlwind campus interview stage, with about two more weeks to go! So far, so good. I'm learning so much at each campus – about what it means to be an academic, the state of Classics these days, what makes me a strong candidate (and likewise, weak), and what my own expectations for my career are. I'm not ready to make a grand summary, but so far, a few observations:

Sometimes, the hotel with the best view:

(Hartford, CT)

can also be the most "creative" in finding solutions to broken hairdryers:

Texans really ARE serious about their beef:

And their bears! This is a terrible picture, but try to spot two pairs of fuzzy ears in the center:

This is where they live, right in the center of campus:

More seriously: I'm coming to understand the way in which academia CAN be divided into "winners" and "losers" (and how important it is to be in the "winners" camp), but also the way in which academia is much "flatter" than I had imagined, with much greater equality across different kinds of schools. On the one hand, I'm extremely grateful to Princeton. There are so many ways in which my Princeton education helped to position me for success in graduate school: it was at Princeton that I learned about Dumbarton Oaks, the American School, the Latin/Greek Institute – all things that perhaps distinguished my CV from others'. Let me not neglect to mention the strong training I received in the languages, which gave me a head start in grad school and helped me impress the people who are now writing my letters. I hardly ever talk about Princeton while I'm at Michigan, but on the job circuit, I've talked about it many times – with the many academics who did their graduate and undergraduate training there, with committees wanting to understand my intellectual trajectory – and it always reminds me of how fortunate I am to have gotten my start there.

On the other hand, my time at Princeton gave me a very skewed idea of what it means to be an academic or what the broader field is like. When I was an undergrad, I thought there were only 3 schools of import (and you can probably guess which ones those are). But it turns out that brilliant and successful academics end up everywhere – big schools, rich schools, poor schools, in glamorous and remote locations, with amazingly accomplished students and the poorly prepared. Yet in many ways, their lives seem the same: they struggle to produce and publish while teaching; administrators want to see more Classics majors and minors; committee work is a drag; students are inspiring and terrific, as well as difficult and unmotivated. There is one school where I'm truly terrified of ending up at, and it's a replacement hire for a retiring scholar whose article on Euripides' Heracles really shaped one of my chapters. Who knew? And so much of where you end up is based on luck: who is hiring this year, what they're looking for, and whether you can fool them into loving you and your work.

post mortem

The annual meeting of my professional organization is over, and I can now happily report that I survived my interviews in one piece. Although it was probably the most stressful weekend of my graduate career, I feel relatively at peace about the whole experience. I made a lot of mistakes, but I also learned a great deal – about myself as a scholar and teacher, and about the field and career more generally.

Some things not to like about interviewing:

• walking into a room full of strangers whose identity and disposition were previously not established
• probing, openly doubtful questions about the value of the research you've spent years on
• strange or incomprehensible questions that may or may not sink your chances at getting a job
• waiting outside hotel rooms and bumping into the same candidates over and over again because you're all competing for the same jobs

Some things to like about interviewing:

• it's a great opportunity to inflict your ideas on unsuspecting scholars from all over the country
• a narcissist's dream: talking about oneself ALL DAY LONG
• the chance to see what different kinds of academics value about their colleagues and institutions – is the most important thing the freedom to grow into whatever kind of scholar you want? or to be surrounded by the smartest colleagues? or to have the brightest students? or to live in the most desirable (however you define it) location?

Everyone has been asking me, "How did it go?" But it's nearly impossible for the candidate to know. The friendly and kind committees will smile and nod, no matter how stupid your answer is; the challenging and pushy committees will frown and ask a follow-up question, no matter how brilliant your answer is. I experienced occasional brain-freeze, but usually had some sort of answer for the questions that came up. I still don't know whether those answers went over well, or not. But at least I enjoyed some memorable moments: the interview in which an older committee member asked one inscrutable question, and then promptly fell asleep on the table; the interview when I was asked about my methodology of early Aegean archaeology, and gave some answer in which I mumbled "Linear B" three times; the interview in which I was asked whether the approximately four Asians in the field had a secret "cool club," etc. etc.

so you want a PhD in the humanities?

Everyone who knows me also knows that I have had my doubts about graduate school. It's been a long road, and even as I come to the finish line, I have deeply mixed feelings about the experience. Of course, if I get a wonderful tenure-track job at a place where Dave can also do his research, fantastic! Everyone should get a PhD! It always works out in the end! If I end up scrambling on the VAP/adjunct circuit for the next five to eight years and miss my fertility window? Well, I'll be wearing my bitter pants every day. Clearly, this is an oversimplification, and I choose to believe that I have some measure of control over my destiny. And yet.

Before I came to graduate school, this is how I pictured my life would be:

Beautiful libraries! Big artsy glasses! Contented smiles that go along with the acquisition of both knowledge and wisdom!

There's some truth to that vision (I love the things I've studied; I've acquired a number of beautiful books; my eyesight continually deteriorates, to the extent that I realized last week I should not be driving at night with my glasses, which seriously need an updated prescription). Perhaps equally distorted is the vision offered by reading the Classics job market blog. It is not for the faint of heart (or stomach). A recent conversation in the comments looked like this (warning: strong language):

Anonymous said...
Does anyone know of any job anywhere doing anything for any amount of money I could fucking get with this worthless, piece of shit Classics PhD?

December 7, 2012 6:18 PM

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know of any job anywhere doing anything for any amount of money I could fucking get with this worthless, piece of shit Classics PhD?

Sorry, a lot of us are asking that question. And the answer is -- no, not really.

December 7, 2012 7:04 PM

Anonymous said...

I'm finding that even for minimum wage jobs I have to explain what I've been doing for work in the last few years. There doesn't seem to be any way around that.

And the minute you mention getting a PhD they think you are lying, making fun of them, or that there is something seriously wrong with you. No matter what, you don't get the fucking job.

December 7, 2012 7:29 PM

Anonymous said...

This is a big problem. It's not limited to classics. A good resource, in case anyone's actually interested is
http://versatilephd.com/

December 7, 2012 7:57 PM

Fallen Classicist said...

No. Don't be tempted by versitile phd and the like. Do not think that there are jobs out there for PhDs in classics. Or, better, don't count on it. And do not spend this time of the year thinking about it.

With a PhD in classics you are most qualified to be a classics professor. Not a banker. Not a spy. Not a management consultant. A classicist. The job market is predictable and people actually get jobs. Not as many as we all would like, but still.

There is nothing predictable about a job search outside of classics. There are opportunities out there. Some, certainly, are more lucrative than classics. As noted, I have a classics PhD, and am now working in an entirely different field.

But if your goal is employment, any employment, your best chance is in classics. And the time before the APA is not to be spent wondering what else might be possible. Do that AFTER the APA. Spend your time preparing for interviews, tailoring your letters, and the like.

Now, if you have decided that classics was a mistake and you want to move on, by all means, explore your options, but also give classics a second look. For all its faults, you have trained for it and are qualified for it.

December 7, 2012 8:19 PM

Anonymous said...

Fallen, remember that only 13% of qualified applicants are getting a tenure-track job in Classics each year (on average since 2008). Less than 30% are getting any job at all, including VAPs without benefits, for that same range of time.

And most of us don't have any interviews to prepare for. We're just paying hundreds of dollars we don't have to go to the APA and have cocksuckers like that HC bitch laugh at us under their breath.

December 7, 2012 8:42 PM

 

Anonymous said...

Death is, of course, the best option. Dead people don't even need jobs. But I'm too much of a fucking coward. Seneca is probably rolling over in his grave.

December 7, 2012 10:53 PM

This is almost certainly the naïvete of the first-time job-seeker, but I'm truly planning on not becoming one of these commenters. Before that happens, please, please help me leave the field (though apparently my PhD really is best put to use in the very field that rejects my qualifications), help me leave the work force, whatever it takes! ;) This year I have multiple interviews, so there's still a breath of hope in these sails. I do want to make it in this field, and I'm getting some encouraging signals! But we'll see how I do in January, when the interviews are done, and I stare in vain at the waning battery icon of my cell phone.

a bit of good news

Last night, I found out that my abstract had been accepted to a conference in the UK! Amid all the uncertainty and anticipated rejections of the job market, it's nice to get a little affirmation (nevermind the fact that I suspect all proposed abstracts were accepted). It's a conference entirely focused on the reception of Heracles/Hercules in the post-classical world. There will be talks about Hercules in early Christian theology, opera, the Renaissance, Victorian Britain, etc. My topic is less highbrow, I must admit: I'll be giving a paper about Disney's Hercules!

I haven't done much work with modern reception, but I've been hoping to get into it, so here's my chance. I hadn't seen the movie in years, until my family reunion this summer, when I watched it with my cousins! So all of that hard work is finally paying off. ;) I'm looking forward to many of the papers, and there are several seniors scholars attending whom I hope to connect with.

The conference is in Leeds in June – maybe a European honeymoon is in the works for us? My last international conference was three years ago, in Argentina. The Fat accompanied me, and we had many adventures – visiting Iguazu falls, getting our palms licked by giraffes at the zoo, eating the most delicious grass-fed beef, hanging out (weirdly) with people from our high school. I can only hope that this next conference will be as memorable!

The Odyssey on Marriage

In my Great Books class, we just finished reading selections from the Hebrew Bible and are now getting started on the Odyssey. Funny how none of the marriages of the Jewish patriarchs have inspired me with hopeful visions for my own upcoming marriage! What a relief, then to leave behind those abysmally dysfunctional relationships and turn to the Odyssey. Odysseus and Penelope have far from a perfect marriage, and there's plenty to criticize, but I have always loved Odysseus' wish for Nausicaa in Book 6:

"And may the good gods give you all your heart desires:
husband, and house, and lasting harmony too.
No finer, greater gift in the world than that...
when man and woman possess their home, two minds,
two hearts that work as one. Despair to their enemies,
a joy to all their friends. Their own best claim to glory." (Fagles' translation)

Odysseus has experienced every glory of the battlefield and every victory of the intellect, and yet he defines the greatest gift in the world as marital harmony. Love it!

Palaeography is the BEST*

Today began just like every other day: depressed about the state of the Humanities and its imminent collapse. Until! I saw this THRILLING article in the Washington Post Magazine!

Here's the intro:

***  

In the Sinai, a global team is revolutionizing the preservation of ancient manuscripts

View Photo Gallery — A treasure hunt in the Sinai: What secrets lie in the world’s oldest library?

By Mark Schrope, Published: September 6

MOUNT HOREB, Egypt — Michael Toth points at a computer screen filled with what seems to be a jumble of Arabic and Greek letters.
To get to this jumble, he has traveled from Washington to an isolated, fortress-like monastery in the middle of the Sinai Desert, home to the oldest continuously operating library on the planet.
He has helped assemble a global team of scientists that arrived with cutting-edge technology at this spot, three hours by taxi from the nearest commercial airport.
The image he has paused to appreciate is one of a steady stream coming from the room next door, where a high-definition camera is focused on one of the monastery’s rare and priceless ancient manuscripts. The manuscript rests in a cradle that looks like a chair tilted back at an angle, but with hydraulic lines and strange lights attached.
One more room over, in the makeshift command center, specialists are scrutinizing the day’s results, and the monastery’s head librarian, a wispy gray beard to his stomach, waits in a red velvet chair for the next request to turn a fragile manuscript page.
“This is the first time since the 9th century that anyone has seen this,” Toth says of hints of text below the more visible words.
The first time since the era of Viking invasions and Charlemagne.
The more prominent legible words are 1,200 years old and are interesting enough, but they are not what the scientists are here for. The team is really after the overwritten text from centuries earlier, last seen by the person who scraped it away to recycle the precious animal-skin parchment.
Such erased texts are known as palimpsests, and until their pages enter the imaging room, no one alive now or, in many cases for more than a millennium, can say for sure what has been hidden. The work is tedious, like carefully brushing away sand at a traditional archaeology dig, but the promise of what can be found is a powerful motivator.
This is Toth and his colleagues’ most ambitious project to date, and it is just one component of a major transformation under way in the desert. The team is working within the stone walls of the Sacred and Imperial Monastery of the God-Trodden Mount of Sinai — St. Catherine’s for short.
For 17 centuries, the Greek Orthodox Christian monks here have protected an unparalleled trove of manuscripts. Now the monastery is in a multimillion-dollar push to physically and digitally protect its treasures and make them easily accessible, in most cases for the first time, to scholars around the world.
In the process, the monks will establish a model for the preservation of irreplaceable ancient manuscripts in a world where more and more of them are threatened by the chaos of war and revolution.
“Working with this stuff is an amazing privilege,” Toth says.

***

Technology! Mystery! Palimpsests! Libraries! Monks! NEW TEXTS! Lack of electricity! WHO NEEDS FICTION WHEN THIS IS REAL????

Read the rest here. Kudos to WaPo for publishing something so nerdly and awesome. Now back to my regularly scheduled rage.

*Palaeontology is pretty cool, too.