David is wise. In my experience, it does not work differently in
English departments. Job-seekers should be able to frame their
research, regardless of what they do, as amply qualifying them to
teach the bread-and-butter courses. Most new tenure-track lines have
at least one core course waiting for the new hire.
So -- at an early stage, graduate students should consider how their
dissertation prepares them to teach a core course or two in the kind
of department they would like to join. On the job market, for
example, my dissertation in American temperance literature before the
Civil War, so full of canonical and popular authors, looked like good
preparation for teaching the early survey of American literature.
Most every English department offers this, and this is often not a
popular course with students or professors. In other words, it is
good work for a new guy. In interviews I deflected questions about
what highly-specialized seminars I would teach if given the chance.
Instead I emphasized an enthusiasm for the early American literature
survey, and I expressed a willingness to teach whatever upper-level
seminars the department could most use. It's my sense that, to some
extent, any specialization will be met with frowns if a young scholar
obsesses immaturely about it in conversation with potential
colleagues who are mainly interested in what you can do in the core
courses.
Jon Miller, Associate Professor of English
Department of English, The University of Akron, 44325-1906
Visit http://jonmiller.org for syllabi and course materials.
On Mar 4, 2009, at 1:46 PM, Courtwright, David wrote:
> Michael:
>
> I agree with Ernie. The history of illicit drugs and drug addiction
> is as suspect than the history of alcohol and alcoholism. Probably
> more so. Yet I can't say that my research in the field has been a
> career handicap. There's a large difference between research and
> teaching. Publishers and funding sources are interested in the
> addiction area because it touches a policy nerve. Academic
> departments aren't much interested, at least not in the way they're
> interested in minority studies. But that shouldn't matter if you
> can offer their bread-and-butter courses. (I've spent most of my
> time teaching history of medicine, legal history, and American
> history period courses.) Perhaps it works differently in English
> departments, which tend to be highly politicized, but historians
> and social scientists seem less concerned with the research
> specialties of new hires than their ability to plug conspicuous
> holes in the curriculum. I say this as someone who has taken part
> in perhaps twenty assistant professor searches over thirty years.
>
> David T. Courtwright
> University of North Florida
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society on behalf of Ernest Kurtz
> Sent: Tue 3/3/2009 4:36 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: literary drinking
>
>
> Michael,
>
> I admire your courage, but in my professional career, I have
> consistently found alcohol studies to be as stigmatized as
> alcoholism itself. And the same is true of addiction studies. But
> some truly great people have made and continue to make real
> contributions: Robin Room comes to mind, as does George Vaillant,
> but quite a few others on this list also qualify. My main
> suggestion is to maintain your ambiguity -- some people will listen
> to you or read you just to figure out whether or not you are one of
> "them." And once you've got them listening, if you are a good
> teacher, you can teach. The main thing in job-hunting, I believe,
> is convincing people that you a truly good teacher.
>
> ernie kurtz
> ----
> Ernest Kurtz, Ph.D. (Harvard 1978)
> Adjunct Assistant Research Scientist (than which rank there is no
> lower)
> The University of Michigan School of Medicine
>
>
>
> On Mar 3, 2009, at 10:36 AM, Michael Carolan wrote:
>
>
>
> As a new member of the forum (and, believe it or not, a former
> student of Professor Wedge's), I appreciate all the recommendations
> of creative work in here. I wanted to share what a veteran
> professor had to say about the field in a professional
> recommendation he wrote for me recently after I developed addiction
> studies courses at UMass:
>
> "Addiction is an area of study not unlike African American studies
> or Native American studies, and possibly all the more relevant not
> least because it not yet an established area of study."
>
> As I enter the severely shrunken academic job market, I am left
> wondering why all I see are openings for minority, third world, gay
> and lesbian studies but none for alcohol, mental illness, and/or
> addiction? Am I missing something?
>
> With deep respect,
> Michael Carolan
> University of Massachusetts-Amherst
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Alcohol and Drugs History Society
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of David Fahey
> Sent: Saturday, February 28, 2009 1:19 PM
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: literary drinking
>
>
> [Personal papers of George Wedge]
>
>
> Database:
> University of Kansas Libraries
> Main Author:
> Wedge, George F. <http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?
> SC=Author&SEQ=20090228121723&PID=nZT-3bbxeXgav16B8dUssxr0H2ka&SA=Wedge
> ,+George++F.>
> Title:
> [Personal papers of George Wedge]
> Linked Resources:
> Finding aid <http://ead.diglib.ku.edu/xml/ksrl.ua.wedgegeorge.html>
> Publisher:
> 1958-1993.
> Format:
> Archival/Manuscript Material
> Description:
> 12 linear ft.
>
>
> Indexes:
> Finding aid available on the Internet.
> General Notes:
> Wedge taught English at the University of Kansas from 1958-1993.
> This collection consists of writings, manuscripts, research, and
> correspondence.
>
> Margaret Wedge; gift; 2003.
>
>
> ________________________________
>
>
>
> Location <http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/help/location.htm> :
> Spencer Library (University Archives)
> Call Number <http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/help/callnum.htm> :
> PP 408 <http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?
> SC=CallNumber&SEQ=20090228121723&PID=nZT-3bbxeXgav16B8dUssxr0H2ka&SA=P
> P+408>
> Status <http://catalog.lib.ku.edu/help/status.htm> :
> Item details not available
>
> On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 11:11 AM, Crowley, John
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> There is, of course, no shortage of examples of alcoholic
> characters and
> alcoholic behavior in twentieth-century American literature. Just
> look
> into the recent wave of memoirs. One early success, Mary Karr's THE
> LIAR'S CLUB, is everywhere redolent of her father's whiskey
> breath. The
> one I most admire and the one I've taught most often is DRINKING:
> A LOVE
> STORY by the late Caroline Knapp (who died much too young, but not
> from
> drinking after all).
>
> This topic reminds me of George Wedge (U of Kansas), one of the true
> founders of Alcohol and Addiction Studies within the "discipline" of
> English. For many years he compiled a bibliography of drinking/
> drunken
> writers and their stories. (I hope it's gone into the Kansas
> library.)
> Unfortunately, George never published very much of what he knew;
> but all
> of us owe him an intellectual debt.
>
> Toward the end of his life, George was thinking about the idea
> that AA
> had possibly distorted the early scholarship in the field (including,
> for instance, mine!): by subtly introducing an unduly righteous tone
> toward unregenerate alcoholic authors as well as the possibly rigid
> notion that sobriety goes with superior literary production, in
> terms of
> quantity and quality too. Perhaps a dubious idea; for some writers
> (e.g. Styron) report the virtual necessity of alcohol in their
> literary
> inspiration. Simply denial? Just an excuse? Maybe not? That's the
> direction George would have taken. Any fellow travelers? (I once
> tried
> out this approach in a short piece on James Whitcomb Riley, all of
> whose
> best poetry was written under the influence and none of whose sober
> poetry has ever been considered worth a damn.)
>
> John W. Crowley, U of Alabama
>
>
>
> --
> David M. Fahey
> Professor of History
> Miami University
> Oxford, Ohio 45056
> USA
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