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Original poster

Academics Chat Thread

999 replies

LRDtheFeministDragon · 02/09/2017 22:32

I believe the old Chat thread has fallen off the front page of this section, and I thought it might be time to reinstate it. I know it's only sporadically useful, but sometimes it's nice, right?

I am a lowly postdoctoral English Lit type. Finished my PhD in 2014, teaching associate for a couple of years, and now part-time while DD is a baby. I'm currently working frantically to get my book manuscript to the publisher by my deadline (October), and also trying to regain enthusiasm for the job market.

Who else is lurking around here?

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YetAnotherSpartacus · 15/12/2017 11:42

The organisers want me to talk a bit about public histories and being a public academic (insofar as I am one, which isn't far). I'm keen. The natural thing to discuss in the context of my paper would be how history functions as a contested site for constructing contemporary identities, and how different groups argue over whether such-and-such a figure is 'really' trans or 'really' lesbian. I do really want to talk about this and think I would do it in an even-handed way, but I am worried about it

Personally, I would not do it unless I knew more about the context of the class because 'even handed' is likely to be construed as bigoted and transphobic in many contexts.

I teach queer theory (although not the transactivist rubbish non-reading /misunderstanding of Judith Butler). I teach queer theory to 2nd year students via feminism, and I point out that there are places where some gay male activism has been inimical to women's rights and feminist theory*

What theorists do you use? I'm curious. I run screaming whenever anyone mentions QT, but would be curious to read some that you thought was worthy.

Butler gives me a headache. Personally, I think that a lot would have been clearer all along if she was able to articulate her ideas more clearly.

murmuration · 15/12/2017 12:43

How are people doing? I'm buried in marking and so incredibly behind in arrangements for Christmas! I still need to send packages to the US and at this point they will arrive after Christmas, sigh. But exams have priority... this happens every year. I even bought some presents in Nov, but actually being able to find time to leave my office and go to the Post Office just doesn't happen until it's urgent and too late.

I'm so looking forward to time off.

GaucheCaviar · 15/12/2017 15:20

First calmish day in ages today. Hurrah. Only 999 things on my to do list rather than the usual 1,000, and only two imminent deadlines. Luxury. Unfortunately my ILs land in town tomorrow, so this is very much the calm before the ill-tempered storm ;-)

murmuration · 15/12/2017 15:35

Ugh! Got an email saying student questionnaires are in...and couldn't resist reading. Why do I do that? And why is it the negative things that stick with me? Several hundred students in the class and one says one mildly negative thing about my lectures, and that's all I've gotten out of the whole thing. I really have trouble not zeroing in the negative/unfair bits (some clearly simply untrue - saying "we never got X" when I know they did because I gave them X!) and just not seeing anything else.

Trying to remember that multiple students took the time to come up to me in person and tell me how much they liked my lectures. That's got to be more effort than one person complaining in text, right?

GaucheCaviar · 15/12/2017 16:00

Absolutely. I actually got a Christmas card about how much the student had enjoyed my teaching and a wee candle in a jar in my last class this week, which made my day. Week. Month.

catspants · 15/12/2017 16:19

I submitted my Doctoral thesis in May and graduated in November. I feel like I don't want to do another research project. Ever! My PhD took me 5 years in total instead of three. I had to fight myself to get to the finish line 😭

ghislaine · 15/12/2017 17:28

Murmuration - I will probably get a TEF blacklist for this, but now I never look at student questionnaire results. There's always one student who can't stand you and it's that comment that inscribes itself on your brain. Save your mental health. If you must look, get your spouse/partner/trusted non-academic friend to look them over first.

Original poster
LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/12/2017 17:42

Just checking back in.

I did my talk yesterday and it went really well! So thank you very much everyone for the reassurance. It was a bit of a battle to get it written, but I did, and they liked it.

Yet - well, this is the thing. I am not a queer theorist in terms of training. So the work that influences me most is at one remove - it's work by colleagues in my subject area, who use queer theory. I tend to find their work interesting, but often when I trace back to the theory they're basing it on, I think it's less subtle than the applications.

In my talk I tried to draw a distinction between being a queer historian and being a historian of sexuality, and to say a lot of it is about accepting uncertainties in the record, rather than trying to retrospectively 'claim' historical individuals.

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SunshineClouds · 15/12/2017 19:52

and to say a lot of it is about accepting uncertainties in the record, rather than trying to retrospectively 'claim' historical individuals

Absolutely. I work on women in a later period, and one of the challenges is not to try to fit them into a 2nd wave/women's lib/feminist triumphalist model, or a teleological model which is very presentist. So I might use a term such as 'proto-feminist' (although maybe I'd call Mary Wollstonecraft a feminist). I also have yo think about the conservative anti-feminist women.

It's too presentist, and not doing justice to the past, to squash past historical people into our contemporary boxes.

Original poster
LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/12/2017 19:57

Yes! Exactly.

I will occasionally use 'proto-feminist,' but with great reluctance.

And I am very tired of reading undergraduate essays that conclude 'we know Chaucer was a feminist, despite the misogyny of his time, because the Wife of Bath is so relatable'.

OP posts:
SunshineClouds · 15/12/2017 23:21

The word “relatable “ makes me wince and shudder.

Original poster
LRDtheFeministDragon · 15/12/2017 23:43

Ditto. I have a long-standing war against it.

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GaucheCaviar · 19/12/2017 10:07

#WhingeTime

So some eyars ago I was hired in to a large department with a strong traditional slant one way in the field to bolster my up-and-coming corner of the field, where I'm pretty much on my tod doing my own thing. It's time to revise the curriculum, which we do every five years, and they launch a consultation. I put forward a proposal to improve teaching in my corner, which at undergrad level is exclusively taught by non-specialist post-doc teaching assistants and / or other staff with a methodology that dates back, I kid you not, to the 1950s. The fuckers have just knocked back my proposal and are sticking with the way it's always been done. THANKS FOR FUCKING WASTING MY FUCKING TIME, YOU FUCKERS.

murmuration · 19/12/2017 15:27

Argh, gauche! How frustrating!

In the area of WTF am I thinking, I just agreed to (1) be part of a proposal that we need to finish by Friday and (2) take on writing a section of another proposal I was already part of - but didn't have any other duties than feedback until now - also need to be done by Friday. Along with all the marking...

And I'm also learning how much time the "Christmas season" with a school-age child takes. Just spent 1.5 hours out of my working day going to a school play, and then was faced with the Head saying the parents could take the kids home early in hearing of all the kids... um, my child has after school club and I needed to get back into work... I had to leave. I hope DD wasn't left thinking I'd abandoned her - I did tell both her teacher and the secretary that she was still going to the club, and they'd come pick her up like normal in 45 minutes time.

GaucheCaviar · 20/12/2017 08:38

No nativity plays here, it's THE thing that bums me out the most about living in foreign parts.

Yesterday, from a colleague: one of my students who has depression was talking about wanting to do a PhD. We even had someone PARTIALLY SIGHTED applying for a job once. Can you IMAGINE? How would THAT work?

AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH.

worstofbothworlds · 20/12/2017 10:10

Gauche are you somewhere with churches? I've found in most forrin parts there's an Anglican church that may put one on!

Gosh they are... er... forward thinking... Back in your box, all people with disabilities and long term medical conditions! Go and sit on the shelf at home!

GaucheCaviar · 20/12/2017 11:09

Yes I am but being a rabid atheist it'd be a bit hypocritical of me to go down that route...

worstofbothworlds · 20/12/2017 12:01

Ah everyone goes to church at Christmas! Even rabid atheists!

NotSupposedtobeHere · 20/12/2017 13:09

We even had someone PARTIALLY SIGHTED applying for a job once. Can you IMAGINE? How would THAT work?

Not sure what field you're in , but why couldn't a partially sighted person be an academic? Not quite understanding your point ...

murmuration · 20/12/2017 15:12

not - guache was relaying what a colleague with stone-age views on disability was saying, not presenting their own opinion! Of course a partially sighted, or blind, or deaf, or people with many other disabilities can be an academic (like I am :) ) .

So, DD was alone but not distressed. She was pleased she got to have "play time" all by herself and could play with whatever she wanted... I'm also a bit agog that she was the only child without a parent who could take them home, but it is a school lacking wrap-around care, so perhaps selects for people with school-time flexibility.

NotSupposedtobeHere · 21/12/2017 15:27

Oh Blush oops SOH fail on my part. Thanks for setting me straight Grin

impostersyndrome · 22/12/2017 13:25

murmuration you reminded me of the 'happy' times when my DS was at primary school and we were given under a week's notice that he was speaking at an assembly. My husband was away for business and I was chairing an exam board at that time, so no one was there to see him perform.

Just to add to the guilt I was grabbed by his teacher next time I did pick-up to be told how upset he was that I didn't come. Fume.

It's not as if they're not working parents themselves, if they have children.

If it makes you feel any better, he's got over the trauma and is now a well-adjusted teenager. Grin

worstofbothworlds · 03/01/2018 16:38

Back at my desk today though not much is going to get done before term starts, horrible cold, kids off etc. etc.

On a scale of 1-10, how wrong would it be to take the day off on my birthday, which also happens to be the day of a staff meeting?
My HoD may mistake it for a half term childcare day if I keep quiet (it isn't actually. It's just a day for ME ME ME).

GaucheCaviar · 04/01/2018 09:00

DO IT DO IT DO IT

I'm thinking about moving a class just so I can fly to a pissup with my MN baby bus mates Grin

user1471134011 · 04/01/2018 12:39

Toby Young anyone?

(Go for it Gauche)