The Arts Will Save Us–If We Let Them
Those of you in academic and artistic circles have no doubt heard by this point that Donald Trump’s proposed budget for the next fiscal year involves the closure of both the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, along with several other cultural institutions. There are lots of reasons why …
Meaning What We Say, Saying What We Mean
Recently on social media, I posted this Slate article by Sam Kriss criticising Eric Garland’s popular “Game Theory” tweetstorm, which has been shared widely by those on the left who continue to feel shaken and demoralised by the results of the recent US presidential election. I generally try to avoid making too …
Evaluating the Sokal Hoax Twenty Years Later
Twenty years ago, in May 1996 (okay, twenty years and four months—sue me), Alan Sokal, a physicist at with appointments at the University College London and New York University, published a ground-breaking paper in the respected critical theory journal Social Text. The paper has been highly influential. I learned about …
Students Do Not Need Campus Political Parties to Be Politically Active
This fall, as thousands of new students pile into colleges and universities, they will explore the many clubs and student societies on offer. Many of them will join the youth or student wings of mainstream political parties, which will be especially prominent given the upcoming election in the United States. …
FOIA Abuse Could Become a Serious Problem for Academics
Academics take heed: if you are employed by a public university, the contents of your email account are subject to the Freedom of Information Act. This means activists, critics, or any member of the public with an axe to grind can request copies for a nominal administrative fee and quote-mine …
Universities should be employing surplus PhDs–as administrative staff.
Of the many criticisms I hear levelled at the current state of higher education, I would say that the following four are among the most frequent: The current reliance on contingent faculty rather than full-time professors is both undermining educational quality and creating a permanent academic underclass of PhDs working …
Top Ten Ways Academia and Stand-Up Comedy are Secretly the Same Job
10. You basically have to take any paid gig you can get (beggars can’t be choosers!) 9. Unusually high rates of anxiety and depression among your peers 8. Constant pressure to write new material 7. Sometimes you take a long trip just to end up talking to an empty room 6. Audiences are …
Syllabus Adjunct Clause
Hey there, Doubters! As I promised in the last edition of On the Market, here is a sample adjunct clause that can be inserted into any syllabus for courses taught by temporary faculty. Please keep in mind that since situations differ from school to school–and even from department to department–the following …
On the Market V: Diversity Statements
One of the (least) fun things about the academic job market is that every application asks for a different constellation of documents. This is especially onerous when putting together your first few applications, which can take several hours of (unpaid) labour to piece together. As time goes on, though, you …
For Slow Scholarship: A Feminist Politics of Resistance through Collective Action in the Neoliberal University
This article, jointly authored by a number of geographers in the US and Canada, is worth reading in full. As for the importance of slow scholarship, let me turn for a moment to my own experience: During my time as a graduate student, I was fortunate enough to present at over …