And Them East Coast Killas Ought to Represent

Let me say a bit more about a point PGOAT made yesterday. I haven't been to the Central or the Pacific APAs, so I'm in no position to compare them to the Eastern, but PGOAT's implication that the Eastern sort of has shitty philosphy is dead on. I mean, I saw a couple of good talks at the Eastern last year, but for the most part everything sucked. Hard.

I was talking about this with a friend, because we were having a really hard time finding talks to go to, and we ended up asking one of our profs about it. The explanation she gave was pretty simple: "All the good philosophers are up in suites doing interviews."

So there it is. The job market makes for bad philosophy.

On a related note, I really need to get my shit together to go to the Central next year.

I drink therefore I am.

I owe you all some tales from the Chicago APA, don't I? Unfortunately, I can't seem to figure out a way to tell you about most of the best anecdotes without jeopardizing my hard-won pseudonymity, so I fear the tales you're gonna get will be a little disappointing. But here goes.

One thing worth mentioning is how much more fun the Central is than the Eastern. Fun? Seriously? Well, maybe "fun" is stretching it a little bit. But things are definitely a lot more relaxed. This is, in large part, a function of hiring. Or, to be more precise, the lack thereof. As we've mentioned, the Eastern is where most of the hiring goes on for tenure-track jobs. The Central, by comparison, is primarily where the hiring for one-year jobs goes down. But it's really kind of peripheral. Most people are actually there to do philosophy. There are a lot more talks given than at the Eastern, and the quality of the work is widely regarded to be a lot higher. (The third APA conference, the Pacific, is supposed to have the best work of all. Very little hiring goes on at the Pacific. It strikes me that these things are not unrelated, but I couldn't articulate to you exactly why this is.)

While you can still catch the odd whiff of abject desperation at the Central, from the poor saps who are looking for one-year scraps to tide them over 'til they hit the Eastern next year (like, um, ME), it's not like every young academic you see looks as if they're about to barf, pass out, or go postal. It's really more of an opportunity to hear some talks, kiss some asses, and get boozy with old friends from other schools who you haven't seen in a while. The commenter at one of the 9am sessions I went to informed us that he hadn't gone to bed until 6:30. I'm pretty sure he was still drunk. The dude didn't really come across as the sort of guy who regularly pulls all-night binges. But despite being totally fucking haggard, he seemed really happy about it. It was really cute.

It's summer camp for nerds, really. It's the sort of thing that makes me look forward to having a career in this damn discipline. I just have to get a job first.

It Took Me Years to Write, Will You Take a Look?

For the past couple of months, I've had this thought sort of drift into the foreground of my mind every week or two: I have no idea what I'm going to use as my writing sample next year. I'd really like to be thinking about it early, since the crunch last fall to get two writing samples done in a few months was punishing. Maybe I'll use them again. But maybe I won't. And if I end up going with that second choice, I want to be thinking soon about what the paper's going to be.

Right now, though, it's late, and the more pressing concerns are the scotch I'm about to drink and the bed I'm about to fall into. So I guess I'll let that thought drift into the background for another week or two.

You've Got to be All Mine, All Mine

I've spent the day running various spyware scans on my laptop trying to get it to run right and making my way through the end of term stack of grading. Not exactly a party. So let me take a break from all that to tell you about something much more fun.

I mentioned a few days ago that the furture Dr. Mrs. Dr. PGS had an interview? Well, she did. No news yet, but she seemed pretty happy about how it went. What I'm happy about in the meantime is the suit she got for the interview. You guys should see it. It's this clingy black thing she picked up at Ann Taylor, and it makes her look all grown up in a very, very good way. Don't get me wrong, it looks totally professional. But--what can a boy say?--it's damn sexy too.

E-mail My Heart and Say Our Love Will Never Die

In today's inbox, both good news and bad.

The good news. The first e-mail sent from next year's placement committee. The good news isn't that it's only April and next year's job market is already demanding my attention. No, that's actually sort of bad news. The good news is who's on the placement committee for next year. There's going to a junior faculty member on the committee. Can you believe it? We're going to get placement advice from someone who did this herself after Clinton left office! This is, for reasons I hope I'll get a chance to tell you about later, a huge improvement over last year.

The bad news. An e-mail from my supervisor asking when the fuck I'm going to give him some new work on my dissertation. (Okay, so he didn't actually say "when the fuck", but he doesn't need to use uncivil language to make his threats understood. He sort of has his own magical way with threatening e-mails.) So, fuck. I need to get some work done.

What Do You Want from Me? Are You Trying to Punish Me?

There were a few jobs last year that I really wanted. I mean, obviously, I wanted any job at a research university or a decent liberal arts college, but there were some jobs I really, really wanted. There was one where I wasn't exactly what they were looking for, but I was close enough. It was in a department with a lot of good philosophers in it. And more importantly, it was a department where people wouldn't look at me like a crazy person for doing work I do. I'd actually fit in pretty well there.

I didn't even get an APA interview with the department, let alone the job. For the most part, my reaction's been anger. As far as I'm concerned, they're a bunch of stupid fucks for not hiring me, because I'm good, I work on stuff that'd be an excellent complement to what they do, and there just aren't that many people who fit that bill. So fuck them. They live in a shit town anyway.

Needless to say, this reaction's a lot easier to process than my usual unbearable, overwhelming sense of inadequacy. So that's been good.

But today I found out the department hired a guy I went to college with. I didn't even know he was still in philosophy. And the realness, the concretenss of the comparison of him and me has brought that sense of inadequcy back hard, like a boot getting laid into my chest. Fuck.

Chicago

Sorry to have disappeared on you all there. I decided, at the last minute, to take in the Central APA in Chicago. And not just because I effing love Chicago. (Though let’s be clear: it was certainly a consideration. I just can't get enough of that reflect-y ball in Millennium Park.)

I actually had some hardcore schmoozing to do. There are people whose radar screens I need to be on, and I haven’t been as good as I should’ve been at keeping in touch with said people. So the trip was, for the most part, political. (And successfully politically, might I add. Connections reestablished. Yay.) I’ll regale you with more amusing tales of the goings on in the next few days.

Now That You’re Here Boy, All I Want is Just a Chance to Say, Get Out, Leave, Right Now

I was thinking more about this seminar on the "post-acadmic job track" and I realized it's sort of weird that I had no idea my school did these things. I mean, aren't us philosophers supposed to get the e-mails about these things too?

But as soon as I asked myself that question, I realized how silly I was being. Of course we don't get those e-mails. My department doesn't give a flying fuck about our careers except when our careers make their placements stats look good. They have an interest in making sure those of us who try to get tenure track jobs get them. But anything else? As long as you avoid fucking up their stats by not even trying to get a tenure track job, they could care less what you do. They care so little, e.g., that the grad chair won't even bother to forward a fucking e-mail about how not to become homeless after you've failed as an academic.

Maybe a Waste of Words and Time

From an early draft of remarks prepared by William Safire, just discovered in the Nixon library:

The President has chosen to pursue the post-Presidential job track. . . .

We're Cut Adrift, We're Still Floating

So I was out Friday night for Ethiopian with a bunch of musicologists, which happens from time to time. One of them, a decent guy I met a wedding last May, had just been to an afternoon seminar on the “post-academic job track.”

Post-academic. That’s nice, huh? Very value neutral. But I think track is just as important rhetorically, even if it’s less obviously a euphemism. It makes you think of “tenure track.” It’s like there’s just these tracks, and you can take one track, or you can take another track. It’s all about the decision you make about which track to take. (And it’s not at all about failing at the one thing you’ve aimed your entire working life at, or realizing that grad school was a catastrophic waste of n of the most creative years of your life. It’s not about that at all.)

So apparently the university puts on these seminars about how to write a “resume”, as opposed to a CV and similar such useful tidbits of information. It’s sort of nice to know they do that. You see, the school gets n years of cheap, cheap grad student teaching labor from us, and they justify its cheapness by saying it’s apprenticeship for your future in academia. But it’s a bald-faced fucking lie that most people who start grad school in the humanities are going to have a career in academia. A bald-faced fucking lie. Most of them get kicked to the curb at some point along the way. So it’s sort of nice for the school to give you a two hour pep talk about “marketing your highly desirable skills” before your head hits the pavement.