Okay, so I remembered a few more details.
The provost's assault still bothers me. It bothers me because it was completely unexpected. The department had hardly been interested in my scholarly activity at all. I had ONE question in the morning about my dissertation--of the "tell us about your dissertation" variety. Actually, of the 3 phone interviews I have had, no one had asked about my research at all, much less the time frame in which I planned to complete X project. So I stopped thinking about it so much. But what occurs to me now is that, as far as I could tell, none of the current faculty in the English department have ever published a scholarly monograph. That's right--no nonfiction book pubs. At. All. So he's demanding this of me--my first instinct was, have YOU ever published a book? Do you know what it entails? Because I really don't. My thought now is, what kind of support would I have in terms of mentoring? Would there be anyone around who could shepherd me through the process? Or would I be on my own?
It was revealed to me by my activist escort that many of the faculty are not happy with the changes afoot at this particular school, as it moves from college to university. I had gotten some of this anyway, by implication and vague or wry reference. Now I got the specifics: The faculty who came to this school to avoid the "publish or perish" scenario now felt rather pressured to join that world--a world they are singularly unprepared for, it seems to me. And I got more. There are, for existing faculty members, two "tracks" that they can choose, as a compromise. They can choose to stick with teaching, and have a higher load (4-1-4), or to introduce a research requirement or expectation and enjoy a "break." The English department has a "deal" that allows them to teach a 3-1-3 load, which is nice except that comp is a 4-hour course, and the reason for the "deal," and then there would be (or so I understood) an offset of the teaching load for research. Incoming people would be held to the "research" "track," which is what I would have expected. But wow! This is a baaaad situation. What kind of resentment is this going to breed?
2 comments:
I know, I know...a completely different note but...do you think Jim tricked his student with The Grapes of Wrath ? I teach that to my juniors and am very familiar with that last scene. My students giggle over the thought of the woman breastfeeding the starving man but...it is very Mary-like. The woman's child has died and this is her way of serving her fellow man. The breastfeeding is in no way sexualized and respect is showed for the starving man's son when he is asked to leave the barn before the feeding. Though I do think students, at age 16, are not ready for such a scene, the scene itself can be interpreted as remarkable, beautiful maybe. This woman using her breast milk to save a starving man who would have otherwise died. Perhaps, the teacher was insensitive in setting up the content around this book or around that scene. Or maybe he purposefully sexualized the scene for her; I don't know. But, I would have been curious to find out what the student found offensive about it. If she was sexualizing the act of breastfeeding...well, that's a discussion that could have taken place - perhaps with a mother. Anyway, just a thought.
I am still intrigued with your experience. It seems that this interview was thrown together in regards to planning. Not very good hospitality. I'll read on and reserve my comments until you're done.
-C
Yes, I absolutely think he tricked her. If not, he would have warned her, and perhaps contextualized it. He let her read it on her own, knowing her sensitivities. I do not see the scene as objectionable, and there have been documented cases of women breastfeeding their husbands in prison in France, for example,to supplement their inadequate rations. But I certainly think he did it on purpose.
Let me put it this way... If Jim had not been trying to teach her a lesson about tolerating things that were unfamiliar to her that had to do with the body and reproduction, do you think he could have found a different book to give her?
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