Since Karl (finally!) announced it [below], let me foreground it: the formerly grouchy medievalist has every reason to be a happy medievalist: a tenure track position at Brooklyn College. Congratulations! Very well deserved. May you thrive there, Karl!
11 comments:
Congrats, Karl!
I'm pretty freakin happy about it. Lord knows there aren't many places I'd rather live than Brooklyn. Being able to count Steve Kruger as a colleague, however distantly, is better than lagniappe.
and I should say vis-a-vis "deserving": no more than others. I'm happy to be where I am, but I've no illusions about having won the position through my superior, haha, medieval skills. It saddens me to have won because the market wrecks so many equally (at least!) deserving scholars. More luck to them!
Bah, revel in the deservedness now, fret about the others later. The whole process is a crap shoot, yes -- a friend of mine with three major publications (American Literature, Modern Fiction Studies, PMLA), excellent evaluations, and who just so happens to be a charming individual got eight interviews but no bites -- but the thing of it is, it's not as if the people who got the jobs he interviewed for aren't deserving. Pity not the (present and, in my own case, likely future) wanderers, as they'll land somewhere someday; instead, revel in the fact that you had capital enough to step to the table, and that you earned yourself a job.
Yay! Congratulations, Karl!
Grats Karl! Woo Hoo!
And looking at your profile, Profane, congrats to you too.
SEK: I also had 8 MLA interviews, only one call back, which (to borrow a metaphor from ALK) came up stillborn. Then the Brooklyn job announcement popped up in Jan and the job itself more or less sprang itself on me during a few weeks of grimness. If I needed a reminder of the randomness of this process, that was it.
Pity not the...wanderers, as they'll land somewhere someday
Not pity. I'm just worried about them. CU had 3 medievalists go out this year, and the best one, so far as I'm concerned, didn't get a job. Bizarre. But good lord: a PMLA article + 2 more isn't enough? It's just so distressing. And the certainty that quality will win out: sounds a bit libertarian to me, or, at least, sounds like a sensible world, and I don't truck with any such system.
Thanks Karl - I am to the point now, however, that the need to plan a thousand mile move has overcome the elation. . .
The market is just as random in History. Two years ago I had 5 AHA interviews, 2 phone interviews, and 0 on-campus interviews. A year ago I had 3 phone interviews and 0 on-campus interviews. This year I had 1 phone interview, 1 on-campus interview, and 1 job offer. Go figure.
Nice one Karl!!
Congratulations!
Wow, after reading these comments I'm even more glad to hear how Karl has done. And I hope the other medievalists out there who didn't find a job this time out will find their place in due time (of course, ideally, before I have to go on the market....)
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