since I've never been offered a job in academics, it was quite strange last weekend to be in a conference session where the presenter talked about her academic career and even I, slow with math and dates, understood that she lost her adjunct classes because I had been offered them. she has a MA in the field, I don't. she had four years of teaching experience in the field, I had none. I hadn't ever, ever looked at academics from that side of the table.
so what did I have? a degree in a department with hiring lines. some would claim that a lit degree doesn't really qualify me for composition, but at least it's from an English dept. and that meant I had a chance of being hired, or at least to be around on a fairly full-time basis.
on the market I've always felt not quite lit enough (or at least canonically) for the lit people, not quite comp enough for the comp/rhet people, not quite ws enough for the ws folks. oddly enough, I get the most invitations to speak from the Jewish studies folks since most of my research is there (but I'd never be hired there since I really have no credentials at all in that field!). however, when I use similar non-canonical conference proposals -- they go nowhere in lit or ws, so I take what I can get.
just thinking. interdisciplinary background sounds good, but I'm not sure it's good for getting a teaching position.
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