In The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jonathon Kramnick offers an analysis of the contemporary academic job market in English in comparison with its state 20 years ago (coincidentally when I was first on the job market). This can be put in the context of statistics on the awarding of phds from the NSF. This chart shows... Continue Reading →
the broken fun of the humanities
The moral of this story is probably that some Chronicle of Higher Ed clickbait articles are too absurd to pass by, in this case, Timothy Aubry's "Should Studying Literature be Fun?" I find this to be such a bizarre question and ultimately I'm unsure what it has to do with the concerns of the article itself.... Continue Reading →
the future of the English major, or “Hey Mister, where do you want these deck chairs?”
The Association of Departments of English (ADE) released a report today on the changing English major. As those who tuned into the last episode (or the last 1000 episodes) of this program will remember, there has been a steady decline in English majors (going back to the early 90s when measured as a share of... Continue Reading →
collapse porn: MLA edition
So two articles, one from MLA's Profession helpfully titled "The Sky is Falling" and another in The Atlantic that suggests "Here's How Higher Education Dies," perhaps from some kind of sky impact. Put together one might wonder if the MLA and its disciplines might manage to hold on long enough to die with the rest of higher education. This... Continue Reading →
Blackboard and the arse end of the internet
There's no doubt there is no dearth of cesspools on the web, and I wouldn't want to get into a debate about which is the worst. But Blackboard is it's own special circle of internet hell. As I've mentioned a few times here, after ending my stint as WPA, I'm back to teaching a regular... Continue Reading →
the late age of late ages
It's undeniably a quizzical situation. For the middle-aged rhetorician it's the comically late age of the humanities/English Studies and the tragically late age of humans (cf. climate change) in the midst of a still spry rhetorical universe that will go on without us. I can only imagine a generation of mid-century factory workers punching clocks... Continue Reading →
academic nostalgia for meatspace meetspace
Here we are once again, another national conference. I'm waiting out a three hour delay on my first flight with the second rescheduled, so fingers crossed. And let's not even get started about the return trip. I don't want to curse my luck that badly! Tell me again why we do this? I mean I... Continue Reading →
“How Hard Do Professors Work?” Why do you want to know?
Variations of this question have become a genre unto themselves, as this recent article in The Atlantic exemplifies. The article takes the occasion of some "Twitter battle" to revisit this topic. But really, why do you want to know? Are you just curious? Is my job so very mysterious? maybe the high cost of college has led... Continue Reading →
Part Three: the university of a tiny rhetoric
The last part of a three part essay. Here are parts one and two. This brings me momentarily to the Stover article, but Latour’s interview ends with some remarks about the university (and rhetoric). Latour notes that rhetoric, from the start, is fundamentally a way to teach people: It means that you can take someone... Continue Reading →
