[Xmca-l] (non)grieving scholarship

[Alfredo Jornet Gil]

I have not been able to contribute to this list as much as I'd like to lately, among other things, because I need to find a job, and I need to make sure that I have checked all those boxes that selection committees will check (enough first-authored publications? in good enough journals? enough leadership in projects? teaching? supervising? acquiring funds? more than all others candidates? and more than favoured-for-whatever-other-reasons candidates?). So I have been doing all I can these weeks to fill up a competitive CV, for my contract is about to expire.


And, although I did not think that it was particularly well written, it was both relieving and discouraging to read this article (see link below, which I take from the facebook wall of a colleague who I think also subscribes this list). The article makes visible the pain scholars go through when, after so many years of digging and digging and digging a little (but deep!) hole, may after all have to leave it and find some other thing to do. In Canada, I met a French astronomer who was moving through the world with his lovely family, short-term project after short-term project, getting better and better at what he worked on (apparently he was among the few who had expertise in computer modeling simulating some astronomic events) , and finally having to step out academia last year to find something else to do, for his family no longer could stand the constant uncertainty and travelling. It could be me soon. And that may not be a bad thing, or even a thing in itself, but the story seems to be quite endemic to academia and may be interesting to some of you:


https://www.chronicle.com/article/Why-Everybody-Loses-When/242560

Alfredo