small pond
Why is it I do what I do? Or, better perhaps, why is it I've done what I want to be given the chance to keep doing? The news trickles in, the first hoops or hurdles cleared as MLA approaches. With only three days left before I'm free from my current shite job and looking towards teaching high school come January, the question remains: why does it feel to me like failure to teach high school? It's only a one-semester position, a time filler until next fall when, if the plan succeeds, I'm given the opportunity to teach university somewhere - University of a Red State or Red College, Redsville, Red State. What is the lure, precisely, that has me drawn to leaving New York, looking askance at a possible future living in this fabulous metropolis teaching 15-18 year olds? The nature of the teaching? A difference, certainly, if the one day of classes upon which I sat in is indicative.
More than that, though, it's a question of my _work_. My research. Yes, teaching is important to me, something I dearly love doing, and am committed to doing damn well. And as such is the ultimate distraction from my research. But, as a friend of mine put it, a man who will be leaving academia for shiny green literary pastures, "We're fame whores." I don't know about whore, but I want the chance to be judged. To be judged for my work once inside - for my book(s), articles, conference talks. To demonstrate I have something to say, and to be respected for what I've said. Yet this whole application process is judgement. And to fail at it is to be found wanting, albeit from the mysterious in-between space - of the academy but not in the academy. And if I do fail to obtain a position this year, then even without the soapbox I feel I should have from which to be judged, well, what? High school - to be judged locally, known locally, succeed locally, live in an entirely local pond. Admittedly in one of the world's great cities, but a local and localised pond nonetheless.
Another friend of mine, another ex-academic, admitted whilst extremely intoxicated that he wants to be one of the best writers alive. And secondly to be known for it. Without blinking, an inebriated me replied that I'd swap the two. Fame-whore. And is that what's driven me all these years? I sincerely fucking hope not. People often ask me what drew me to my slightly odd sub-field. I have a potted answer, one that I've been repeating, in some form or another, since my junior year in college when this all began. It's a completely un-thought-through answer, one that explains in witty detail how it is I ended up doing what I do, not why. Finishing the degree, I finished to finish - to not not finish. Hardly a compelling reason, yet it sufficed, and something similar seems to continue to drive me onwards. I want the chance to be known for doing what I do, not just the chance to do it. The facade of having written everything in pencil, to fade away without trace. Yet craving the chance to inscribe my name across the smallest of corners of the smallest of ponds in indelible ink. Failure frightens me.
More than that, though, it's a question of my _work_. My research. Yes, teaching is important to me, something I dearly love doing, and am committed to doing damn well. And as such is the ultimate distraction from my research. But, as a friend of mine put it, a man who will be leaving academia for shiny green literary pastures, "We're fame whores." I don't know about whore, but I want the chance to be judged. To be judged for my work once inside - for my book(s), articles, conference talks. To demonstrate I have something to say, and to be respected for what I've said. Yet this whole application process is judgement. And to fail at it is to be found wanting, albeit from the mysterious in-between space - of the academy but not in the academy. And if I do fail to obtain a position this year, then even without the soapbox I feel I should have from which to be judged, well, what? High school - to be judged locally, known locally, succeed locally, live in an entirely local pond. Admittedly in one of the world's great cities, but a local and localised pond nonetheless.
Another friend of mine, another ex-academic, admitted whilst extremely intoxicated that he wants to be one of the best writers alive. And secondly to be known for it. Without blinking, an inebriated me replied that I'd swap the two. Fame-whore. And is that what's driven me all these years? I sincerely fucking hope not. People often ask me what drew me to my slightly odd sub-field. I have a potted answer, one that I've been repeating, in some form or another, since my junior year in college when this all began. It's a completely un-thought-through answer, one that explains in witty detail how it is I ended up doing what I do, not why. Finishing the degree, I finished to finish - to not not finish. Hardly a compelling reason, yet it sufficed, and something similar seems to continue to drive me onwards. I want the chance to be known for doing what I do, not just the chance to do it. The facade of having written everything in pencil, to fade away without trace. Yet craving the chance to inscribe my name across the smallest of corners of the smallest of ponds in indelible ink. Failure frightens me.
posted by itinerarium at 6:48 PM
3 Comments:
This is what makes this whole thing so crazy, though - the market I mean - because it's not "failure" at anything related to one's qualifications that not getting a t-t job measures. All it measures (as far as I can tell) is how well one can fit oneself into whatever box a hiring department is trying to fill. It's marketing. It's really not much different than trying to get cast on The Real World - can you be the Angry Black Man, the Slut, the Dumb Jock, the Pretty Boy who Cries, the Girl Who Gets Arrested, the Virgin, or the Gay one? If not, well, then you don't get cast - not because you're not interesting or worthy of being filmed but because you don't fill one of the pre-assigned roles that are available.
My success on the market only meant that I was able to appear to fit the advertisement. I suppose that's what any whore's success amounts to - or at least it amounts to that infinitely more than it amounts to any sort of talent.
Ok, I'm sorry for ranting, but DO NOT BEAT YOURSELF UP ABOUT THE FAILURE THING!
(I - when feeling particularly pathetic - often think that I'm a failure because I got a job where I did, and that the true measure of success would be either to a) get a job at a Fancy Research University or b) to have to leave academia rather than being the sell-out that I am.)
See, now you have me wanting to be the Gay Angry Black Sluttish Virgin Jock Pretty Boy who Cries. There's an ambition.
But your point(s) are well taken, and well appreciated.
I totally think you should be the GABSVJPBWC (couldn't be bothered to write all that out). In fact, perhaps that's something to put in cover letters?
Oh, and my crazy rant aside, do I take it that you've heard from some places and have some MLA interviews lined up? Is this true?
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