[Xmca-l] Re: (non)grieving scholarship

[Helena Worthen]

I’m late in adding to this discussion, but I don’t think anyone else has responded to MIke’s question directly.  What can the collective experience of xmca come up with? Maybe it’s so obvious it doesn’t need saying. The dscussion itself is collective, along with the ISCAR conferences, the MCA journal, the openness of participants to share resources, review, comment and criticize — sending around whole books when possible. It’s an ongoing colletive experience. An occasional  reference to the academic labor market is a healthy and welcome reality check but the discussion itself is the collective resoruce.


Helena Worthen
helenaworthen@gmail.com
Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745
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> On Feb 17, 2018, at 5:07 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> 
> Yours is a quandary shared by your generation, Alfredo.
> Being allowed to teach and conduct research in a quality institution is a
> great privilege and an
> increasingly rarer possibility.
> 
> There are several people on this list who have organized their lives to be
> independent scholars
> while staying connected to the core institutions of disciplinary training.
> It might be nice to hear
> the variety out there.
> 
> It appears pretty certain that the situation is going to get worse
> before/if it gets better.
> 
> What can the collective experience of xmca come up with that would be
> useful to the many
> of you caught in this meat grinder?
> 
> mike
> 
> 
> 
> On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 4:49 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
> 
>> Good luck then, Wagner!
>> A
>> ________________________________________
>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> on behalf of Wagner Luiz Schmit <wagner.schmit@gmail.com>
>> Sent: 18 February 2018 01:07
>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture Activity
>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: (non)grieving scholarship
>> 
>> This just hit me in the spot...
>> 
>> Wagner
>> 
>> On Feb 17, 2018 9:48 PM, "Alfredo Jornet Gil" <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no> wrote:
>> 
>>> 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
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>> 
>>