It turns out that students think I look like Joana Benedek. All the drab, matronly outfits and staid, moth-eaten accoutrements I wear have had zero effect.

Plus the ones on Kindle.

Please forgive me for regaling you with a long quote from an academia-bashing article:

Until 2011, students majoring in English at UCLA had to take one course in Chaucer, two in Shakespeare, and one in Milton—the cornerstones of English literature. Following a revolt of the junior faculty, however, during which it was announced that Shakespeare was part of the “Empire,” UCLA junked these individual author requirements and replaced them with a mandate that all English majors take a total of three courses in the following four areas: Gender, Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Sexuality Studies; Imperial, Transnational, and Postcolonial Studies; genre studies, interdisciplinary studies, and critical theory; or creative writing. In other words, the UCLA faculty was now officially indifferent as to whether an English major had ever read a word of Chaucer, Milton, or Shakespeare, but was determined to expose students, according to the course catalog, to “alternative rubrics of gender, sexuality, race, and class.”

What I don’t get is why students can’t have Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton AND Gender, Race, Postcolonial and genre studies. Why does it have to be an either/or situation. I mean, it’s not like it’s hard to hire specialists in all these fields, right?

Or does the problem lie in the austerity measures that are forcing this department to make this sad choice? If, as the article says, this program had 1,400 undergrads (who are probably not all majors, but still), surely this could provide for as many tenure lines as the department could need.

In short, the linked article is textbook strawman argument.

Has PETA been infiltrated by a bunch of folks who want to discredit the organization and make it look like it’s filled with disgusting bigots? Or is it simply filled with disgusting bigots?

This is how PETA honored MLK’s day:

 

Are they trying to make people hate them, or what? Who in their right mind will support a cause framed in this racist way? And “without even a thought to their feelings”? I’m speechless.

OK, I don’t get this at all:

Here is bloody rule: if you are involved in these activities [public protests] you either don’t take a cell phone, or you take the batteries out, or you put it in a shielded bag.  In addition to being a tracking device you take with you, it is also possible to use your phone as a bug, to listen in remotely. Laptops are also problematic if they have a camera, can connect to the internet, or have microphone.  At the least, keep them powered off.

The technological revolution did not happen unless you want everyone to know your business.  There are times when you do, but if you don’t, turn this stuff off.

Isn’t the whole point of being in a public protest to make it public that you disagree with a policy? It sounds quite counter-productive to try to take a public stance in favor of against something while making efforts to hide from public view.

And there is more:

Next, forget democratic decision making when it comes to specific tactical decisions.  One person should know what you’re going to do, and he or she should not tell ANYONE until just before it is to be done, and hopefully too late for effective counter-action.

This is also a very weird organizing strategy. Do you tell people, “There is a strike being planned, wink-wink, but it’s not like I’m going, and nobody I know will go either”? That is surely bound to convince people to go.

Immaturity is in vogue and getting more popular every day. Remember the Civil Rights movement? An entire generation of people fought for freedom and won. They didn’t do it by hiding from view. They stood up for their beliefs and accepted the consequences. These days, however, people want to play at being rebels but God forbid their comfort should be disturbed by their supposed politics.

People might say that networking and scholarship are not mutually exclusive and that I could make time for both. Of course, I could make time but here is the thing. I believe that being a research scholar requires a measure of dignity, of respect for yourself and for what you do. I can’t imagine making this sense of self-worth being compatible with seeking out “important” people and inflicting myself upon their notice. I can’t imagine preserving my dignity while begging people for attention with a look of an abandoned sick puppy on my face.

And by the way, two of my acquaintances in my field who were passionate defenders of networking and kept chasing “useful people” around campus and conferences have both been asked to leave their tenure-tracks because with 1 and 0 publications respectively they stood no chance of getting tenure. These are talented, intelligent people who had a chance at good research careers but who had followed the misguided advice from their thesis directors and decided that “developing contacts” was a priority.

Somebody shoot me in the face if I ever demean myself to the point of “developing contacts” instead of simply hanging out with people I like and avoiding people I don’t like.

The embrace of networking as an occupation that everybody needs to pursue with a single-minded avidity of an insurance salesperson is very disturbing. These days, even scientists are classified into the good, useful Networkers and the useless, despised Scholars. Scholars have the gall to believe that their primary duty is to – and just imagine the conceit on those losers – engage in scholarship. Just to think that, instead of wasting their time in those stupid libraries and labs, they could be using every chance they get to chirp up a storm at networking sessions!

The worst offenders are, of course, those nasty foreigners who are clinging to the delusional belief that a talent for small talk does not a good scientist make:

What I have noticed is that US-born candidates from strong groups are much more likely to have these numerous and varied connections, whereas foreigners have fewer on average. I am sure it’s partly cultural, perhaps stellar candidates who grew up in the US have had longer to absorb the need to network and have worked on it, many of them having started to do research and present their findings at conferences as early as their undergraduate years. When I see a foreigner with a great publication record but a very brief list of references, I wonder why those advisors haven’t pushed the candidate to network more.

And without networking skills, abandon all hope of getting hired. It’s the chirpers and the tweeters the world needs, not those silent, introverted types who sit there stupidly, staring at books:

 If, on top of this, the candidate is perhaps unsure of their English and not crazy about giving talks at conferences, or the candidate has a small child and cannot travel, then you have a potentially great person who has not received enough exposure or had the chance to develop their own reputation as a rising star, and despite all their potential and hard work they will not bode as well as they should on the faculty job market.

And here I was, hoping that my scholarship would “develop my reputation as a rising star.” Silly me, I should have been spending the time I dedicate to scholarship to hunting down people and informing them I plan to do scholarship. Drat! But what do you expect from us, the hopeless non-US-born anti-networkers.

My statcounter is showing me the finger:

 

That was the week when my tree test went viral. Other people go viral with all kinds of brilliant posts, and my only claim to fame is a silly test that I didn’t even create.

This makes me feel all kinds of stupid.

Students were asked to write a short composition about the reasons why they do or do not like to read. Here are some of the responses.

“I like to read because books never die.”

“I like reading because it makes me special.”

“Reading is a talent that really helps you in life.”

“Reading makes me feel like I’m a part of history that is bigger than any single life.”

“I don’t like reading. I prefer mathematics to literature because I like stability and predictability. Change scares me.”

“I have to confess that when I was assigned novels in my English literature class, I didn’t read them. I just read notes online. I want to read something that will take me to a different world. This is why I’m now taking Spanish literature.”

“I love to read because I watch a lot of TV and that’s really hard on my eyes. So reading helps me rest me eyes from all the images on a screen.”

“Reading is great because I don’t have to talk to people who annoy me when I read. I can just say, “Can’t you see I’m reading?” and they leave me in peace.”

“I love reading but only real paper books, not the digital kind. Real books have this comforting smell that I love.”

“Books make me feel like Harry Potter: they let me open a portal to a new world.”

“I like reading because it’s cheaper than going to the movies.”