Incredibly interesting discussion of a topic I've wrestled with for years. I understand her point about the sacrifices necessary to even enter the tenure track pool, but most of us ground out getting the Ph.D. by being a TA and or doing adjunct work with no hope of being on tenure track. As you point out, a great scholar like Rob Ruck can find his career sabotaged by the petty bullshit that is omnipresent in academia, especially at second rate joints like Chatham. I found myself on the receiving end of similar treatment at Carlow. An important point that is sort of outside the confines of discussing this book, is that many of the old professors who would be considered unproductive had such a deep and wide-ranging knowledge of history, as well as the humanities in general, that I find lacking when talking with young "productive" academics. Van Hall, Dick Smethurst and Orisya Karapinka come to mind. They had life experience and didn't limit their intellectual curiosity strictly to their field. I don't think Orysia ever published but many of us who got our Ph.d s at Pitt will always appreciate her mentorship. Pete was also an appreciated corrective to some of the Marxist mentoring I was receiving. I could go on. Just wanted to say that I appreciate this installment of your "work".
I'm glad you know many of the characters referenced here. Van Beck Hall was as good as it gets as a reader of monographs, Smethurst translated an assortment of Japanese materials my grandfather had brought back from the war, and Pete had some of the best all-time lines I've heard in seminars or independent studies ("Foucault...that's like kid stuff, like that Facebook" ... "Morton Horwitz, my goodness, he was a red! A red diaper baby, even"). Orisya I didn't know but the European students seemed to love her. Ruck was probably the greatest of all the "adjuncts" I've ever come across, running his races and out-publishing much of a very good faculty for the better part of a decade.
If they went to nursing school they’d have job security and mobility. Too bad they spent over a decade developing ‘skills’ which were pointless
Incredibly interesting discussion of a topic I've wrestled with for years. I understand her point about the sacrifices necessary to even enter the tenure track pool, but most of us ground out getting the Ph.D. by being a TA and or doing adjunct work with no hope of being on tenure track. As you point out, a great scholar like Rob Ruck can find his career sabotaged by the petty bullshit that is omnipresent in academia, especially at second rate joints like Chatham. I found myself on the receiving end of similar treatment at Carlow. An important point that is sort of outside the confines of discussing this book, is that many of the old professors who would be considered unproductive had such a deep and wide-ranging knowledge of history, as well as the humanities in general, that I find lacking when talking with young "productive" academics. Van Hall, Dick Smethurst and Orisya Karapinka come to mind. They had life experience and didn't limit their intellectual curiosity strictly to their field. I don't think Orysia ever published but many of us who got our Ph.d s at Pitt will always appreciate her mentorship. Pete was also an appreciated corrective to some of the Marxist mentoring I was receiving. I could go on. Just wanted to say that I appreciate this installment of your "work".
I'm glad you know many of the characters referenced here. Van Beck Hall was as good as it gets as a reader of monographs, Smethurst translated an assortment of Japanese materials my grandfather had brought back from the war, and Pete had some of the best all-time lines I've heard in seminars or independent studies ("Foucault...that's like kid stuff, like that Facebook" ... "Morton Horwitz, my goodness, he was a red! A red diaper baby, even"). Orisya I didn't know but the European students seemed to love her. Ruck was probably the greatest of all the "adjuncts" I've ever come across, running his races and out-publishing much of a very good faculty for the better part of a decade.
Another banger.
Here for the work!