My Year on The Academic Roulette Wheel
I have always had faith. That is, throughout my career as a graduate student I believed that I would be able to land a decent job teaching at a decent college or university. Not an unreasonable expectation, really, after years of toil in the mines of the academy.
Sometimes, I think that the years I spent in murky areas of study have prepared me well for the confines of academic institutions. Highlights of my course of study might have included Disciplinary Indoctrination, Analysis of Abstract Theory (concurrent with Abstract Analysis of Theory), Political Economy of the University Department (prerequisite for Choosing Sides in Departmental Wars), and the truly perplexing Art and Technique of Identifying Which Hoops to Jump Through and How.
But that's only when I'm feeling cynical.
For the most part I feel lucky to be engaged in a pursuit that I find intellectually stimulating and that I expect will someday allow me to contribute something, however small, to the world. Sure, there are many hassles and uncertainties involved, but every occupation comes with those.
Indeed, I feel so privileged at times that I am struck by guilt stemming from my family's working-class roots (no matter how I try I can't seem to explain to them what it is I'm doing and why it is taking so long). So I can't muster up any ire at present-day conditions of academic employment -- the kind of anger that these days constitutes the subtext in almost all conversations among A.B.D. doctoral candidates in the social sciences and humanities -- without feeling like a fool. The fact is, working conditions for most of the world are far worse than those for prospective college professors in the United States.
Nonetheless, during my first year on the academic job market and as I grow increasingly aware that my faith will be tested, I find myself feeling resentful. Mainly, resentful of a process by which the financial and geographic future of myself, my wife, our daughter, and infant son depends on what a depressingly large number of my colleagues describe as a spin of the roulette wheel.
Six years ago, when I began my doctoral studies in cultural anthropology, I did not imagine myself in such a position. Like many others who entered graduate school at that time, I was dissatisfied with the 9-to-5 working world, and I had been assured by those who seemed to know that by the time I earned my doctorate I would have my pick from the glut of teaching positions vacated by retiring baby boomers.
Truth be told, at my college graduation I swore I'd never step into a classroom again. Fancying myself a writer of fiction I supported myself with jobs moving furniture, delivering automobile radiators, parking cars at a posh Florida resort, and selling Italian ices on the streets of Manhattan. Before long, though, I found myself working for a well-known magazine conglomerate, where I earned a series of fairly rapid promotions. If I had chosen to take it, a clear career path was open to me.
Instead, since I found the work and the lifestyle stultifying, I began graduate studies in cultural anthropology, a decision based solely on independent reading and research, having never taken a course in anthropology. Although not the most practical of fields (there aren't too many jobs for anthropologists available outside academe), I have found in anthropology a pursuit that enables me to satisfy my long-standing interest in cultural diversity and the ways that different cultures respond to the conditions of contemporary human social life.
My dissertation, "'We Are All Rebels': Popular Culture and Cultural Groups in Urban Mexico," focuses on Mexican popular culture and local politics in an urban setting. It examines the relationship between "the culture of everyday life" and forms of artistic production (in this case, that of local groups of writers, artists, and musicians), and the role of this relationship in the development of democratic institutions. The work is based primarily on one year of field research in Nezahualcóyotl, Mexico (a former shantytown built on a dry lakebed bordering Mexico City).
Although I see my work as interdisciplinary, the reality is that I am almost exclusively a candidate for positions open in anthropology departments. Based on my perusal of job listings over the past year and conversations with advisers and colleagues, it is apparent that the vast majority of these jobs come in one of two types.
First and most common are the one- or two-year positions -- rarely with any hope for advancement to a tenure-line position and usually (for me) in geographically out-of-the-way colleges or universities. Second are the "big name" positions -- asking for 5 to 10 years of postdoctoral teaching experience and a hefty record of publication. This second group constitutes the jobs I have no hope of getting.
Of the remaining positions I am further limited by my geographic specialization in Latin America (a department looking for a specialist in South Asia is not likely to even consider hiring me) and -- perversely I believe -- by the fact that I am not myself of Latin American origin.
My prospects are further complicated by the fact that my wife, gainfully employed (thank heavens!) as a doctor, very reasonably demands that we not uproot our growing family to a small town on the other side of the country where we don't know anyone and which we may have to leave in a year or two anyway.
So where does that leave me?
Well, as I steadfastly assert, I still have faith. As the job listings come out this fall, I will send out applications, and I will remain optimistic that what I believe is my good work will be rewarded.
At least that's what I tell myself now. If that doesn't work, I can always console myself with the knowledge that at least some of the time someone wins at the roulette table.
By Joe Mungioli
Sometimes, I think that the years I spent in murky areas of study have prepared me well for the confines of academic institutions. Highlights of my course of study might have included Disciplinary Indoctrination, Analysis of Abstract Theory (concurrent with Abstract Analysis of Theory), Political Economy of the University Department (prerequisite for Choosing Sides in Departmental Wars), and the truly perplexing Art and Technique of Identifying Which Hoops to Jump Through and How.
But that's only when I'm feeling cynical.
For the most part I feel lucky to be engaged in a pursuit that I find intellectually stimulating and that I expect will someday allow me to contribute something, however small, to the world. Sure, there are many hassles and uncertainties involved, but every occupation comes with those.
Indeed, I feel so privileged at times that I am struck by guilt stemming from my family's working-class roots (no matter how I try I can't seem to explain to them what it is I'm doing and why it is taking so long). So I can't muster up any ire at present-day conditions of academic employment -- the kind of anger that these days constitutes the subtext in almost all conversations among A.B.D. doctoral candidates in the social sciences and humanities -- without feeling like a fool. The fact is, working conditions for most of the world are far worse than those for prospective college professors in the United States.
Nonetheless, during my first year on the academic job market and as I grow increasingly aware that my faith will be tested, I find myself feeling resentful. Mainly, resentful of a process by which the financial and geographic future of myself, my wife, our daughter, and infant son depends on what a depressingly large number of my colleagues describe as a spin of the roulette wheel.
Six years ago, when I began my doctoral studies in cultural anthropology, I did not imagine myself in such a position. Like many others who entered graduate school at that time, I was dissatisfied with the 9-to-5 working world, and I had been assured by those who seemed to know that by the time I earned my doctorate I would have my pick from the glut of teaching positions vacated by retiring baby boomers.
Truth be told, at my college graduation I swore I'd never step into a classroom again. Fancying myself a writer of fiction I supported myself with jobs moving furniture, delivering automobile radiators, parking cars at a posh Florida resort, and selling Italian ices on the streets of Manhattan. Before long, though, I found myself working for a well-known magazine conglomerate, where I earned a series of fairly rapid promotions. If I had chosen to take it, a clear career path was open to me.
Instead, since I found the work and the lifestyle stultifying, I began graduate studies in cultural anthropology, a decision based solely on independent reading and research, having never taken a course in anthropology. Although not the most practical of fields (there aren't too many jobs for anthropologists available outside academe), I have found in anthropology a pursuit that enables me to satisfy my long-standing interest in cultural diversity and the ways that different cultures respond to the conditions of contemporary human social life.
My dissertation, "'We Are All Rebels': Popular Culture and Cultural Groups in Urban Mexico," focuses on Mexican popular culture and local politics in an urban setting. It examines the relationship between "the culture of everyday life" and forms of artistic production (in this case, that of local groups of writers, artists, and musicians), and the role of this relationship in the development of democratic institutions. The work is based primarily on one year of field research in Nezahualcóyotl, Mexico (a former shantytown built on a dry lakebed bordering Mexico City).
Although I see my work as interdisciplinary, the reality is that I am almost exclusively a candidate for positions open in anthropology departments. Based on my perusal of job listings over the past year and conversations with advisers and colleagues, it is apparent that the vast majority of these jobs come in one of two types.
First and most common are the one- or two-year positions -- rarely with any hope for advancement to a tenure-line position and usually (for me) in geographically out-of-the-way colleges or universities. Second are the "big name" positions -- asking for 5 to 10 years of postdoctoral teaching experience and a hefty record of publication. This second group constitutes the jobs I have no hope of getting.
Of the remaining positions I am further limited by my geographic specialization in Latin America (a department looking for a specialist in South Asia is not likely to even consider hiring me) and -- perversely I believe -- by the fact that I am not myself of Latin American origin.
My prospects are further complicated by the fact that my wife, gainfully employed (thank heavens!) as a doctor, very reasonably demands that we not uproot our growing family to a small town on the other side of the country where we don't know anyone and which we may have to leave in a year or two anyway.
So where does that leave me?
Well, as I steadfastly assert, I still have faith. As the job listings come out this fall, I will send out applications, and I will remain optimistic that what I believe is my good work will be rewarded.
At least that's what I tell myself now. If that doesn't work, I can always console myself with the knowledge that at least some of the time someone wins at the roulette table.
By Joe Mungioli
