Hey, it's all about me.
Well, yes and no.
The purpose of this blog is largely therapeutic. Quite simply, the black dog of depression is snarling at my feet, and I am desperately trying to fend him off with whatever means I find at my disposal.
But I'm going to resist the inward turn. I'm not going to write in an angst-ridden stream of consciousness. Instead, I am going to try to move outward.
I want to think of my own predicament, and that of countless others who are in my situation (ie, unemployed or underemployed PhDs), in relation to a range of broader problems and challenges both within and outside of the academy. I have been thinking and worrying about some of these issues for quite some time. But I haven't ever really tried to organize my thoughts and impressions into anything coherent or productive. It is my hope that the attempt to do so will help me arrive at a better understanding of where I am (where we are), how I (we) got here, and where I am (where we are) are going.
Some of the topics and themes that I plan to address:
-- why the term academic "job market" is a misnomer
-- online library tools are a mixed blessing
-- the relationship between adjunct teaching labor and grade inflation
-- the implications of the growing use of teaching evaluations
-- a feminist defence of the "dead white male" canon
-- the peculiar mixture of alienated and unalienated labor that characterizes life in the academy, and especially for the untenured
-- the Uriah Heep-like stance that underlies the new notion of the adjunct as entrepreneur
But first, I need to learn some basic xhtml.
Posted by Invisible Adjunct at February 28, 2003 01:42 AM