The Academic Job Market--One Thing I Wish I'd Been Better Prepared For

(originally written 10/11/11)

I'm watching several friends take on this year's academic job market, and having just come off the market myself, I have one bit of advice I wish had been shared with me earlier in the application process.

The job market is likely to be one of the most emotional years of your career to this point. One reason is that being on the market is so drawn out. You spend the summer waiting for ads to be posted, you spend September-December writing and sending applications, you spend the same period waiting for requests for more information or invitations to interview, you spend winter break waiting for MLA, you spend the few weeks after MLA waiting for invitations to interview on campus, you spend time after that waiting for additional information and/or an offer. If you get a job, you have to wait 3-4 months for it to start; if you don’t, you start the process again. In short, you spend a year of your life in limbo, just waiting for some resolution.

At every step, you will likely experience incredible highs (“Hinterlands University emailed to ask for my teaching philosophy!”) and incredible lows (“Hinterlands University emailed to say they received 400 applications and do not intend to interview me at MLA.”) In fact, it’s quite possible that on any given day you could experience both peak and valley, maybe even several times over.

The emotional rollercoaster is compounded by any number of other factors: noticing a typo in a job letter that’s been replicated dozens of times, seeing a job posting that seems to describe your exact qualifications, not hearing anything from anyone for long stretches of time, being invited to interview, reading job wikis (avoid this if you can—they can be poisonous), getting unexpected encouragement, learning that a position (or positions) was cancelled, getting helpful or enthusiastic feedback on any of your job documents. The list could easily extend for many more pages, and while the factors may change from candidate to candidate, it’s unlikely that anyone, regardless of qualifications and preparation, will avoid the job market ups and downs.

There are as many ways to meet the emotional challenges of the job market as there are causes of potential emotional swings. I relied heavily on chocolate, meals with close friends, and regular contact with people who could put my “plight” in less emotional contexts; other people pour themselves into work or monster movie marathons. Whatever your preferred method, knowing that your emotions are likely to be running high, and preparing ways to meet those emotional challenges, is nearly as important as any other action that you take during your time as a job candidate, especially if you’ve done a good job of preparing to be a candidate during your time as a student.

Notes on a Name: Dissoi Topoi

Dear Readers,

A note on the title of this blog:

Dissoi logoi is an ancient Greek concept traditionally translated as "different words." It is generally understood as the practice of arguing both sides of an issue in order to better understand your opponent's point of view on a given topic. A related definition is "making the worse case the better" with the same goal--to figure out the strengths and weaknesses of an argument. Other people, however, have argued that dissoi logoi can be better understood as taking a contrary position. That is, a practitioner of dissoi logoi does not take a stand on an issue and then attempt to understand their opponent's position. Rather, dissoi logoi is the practice of opposing any position as a way of sparking deeper thought, multiple reconsiderations, and different ways of thinking about a given issue. In the first sense, dissoi logoi is an argumentative tool; in the second, it includes an inventive aspect somewhat lacking in the traditional conception.

Topoi, on the other hand, are inventive categories. Ancient orators relied on topoi, literally "places to find things," (though some people disagree with this translation) to help them discover the available arguments to make about any given issue. Aristotle treated the topoi at length, dividing them into categories for students to memorize and access when they needed to consider the available means of a given argument.

So, dissoi topoi is a phrase I coined (I think) to play on these two ancient concepts. This is a blog of opposition meant to generate (my own) deeper thinking, to help (me) invent new ways to think about old issues, and to build a place (for me) to go for arguments. Hopefully it will help readers with some of the same things.

(Oh, and let's be realistic--I thought it made me sound smart. I mean, c'mon.)

Welcome

Dear Reader,

No doubt you've wandered here accidentally, and I am happy to have you stop by, if only for a minute to browse and scurry. Chances are that you're looking for something witty and urbane to fill the void in your life left empty by the discontinuation of "The Jack Benny Show." Given enough time searching here, no doubt you'll come across something fitting that description (1000 monkeys on 1000 typewriters, and all that), but by and large you'll find the haplessly and helplessly self-absorbed verbal meanderings of a prose addict. I'm no Jack Benny, I'm afraid.

That said, the content of this blog is likely to be relatively clean, occasionally polemical, and often self-consciously self-conscious. I'm sure to spend some of my musings on writing, graduate school, parenting, marriage, teaching, and politics. If any or all of those fit your needs or wants, I invite you to meander by periodically. Baring some unforeseen causatum befitting a Chicken Little-esque hysteria, I'll be here.