The question that arises from this is: to whom are public university researchers responsible? The public? What does that mean? The electorate? Professors are not elected officials. The students? A large part of a professor’s job is teaching, but research is equally important, and, although the two are not always as easily distinguishable as some would like, much research has nothing to do with students or time in the classroom. The letters from UW counsel and the Chancellor Biddy Martin explain well the balance between the private and public in academia.

If you made a FOIA request of my wayne.edu email, I don’t know what you would find. There are ten years of emails in there, some personal, some not. I imagine there are probably emails in there about politics, but not for the last several years, because I, like many, use a personal email account for such matters and reserve my college email accounts for university business. How far, though, does Freedom of Information reach? If I send emails from my private account, but from a university-owned computer or IP address, might that be subject to exposure? How much does the public have a right to know?

In the era of sting politics, these groups seek to make public everything academics do, in hopes of turning up something incriminating or embarrassing. I would not be surprised to see, in the near future, covertly recorded video of classroom interactions, from planted students, in an effort to embarrass colleges and spread fear among instructors. When that happens, I would hope that administrations would back the instructors and not do what NPR did with Ron Schiller and the Obama administration did with Shirley Sherrod, firing people for damage control before investigating the facts.

In the end, faculty and administration responses to scare and smear tactics like these will decide the fate of academic freedom in public universities.

The common advice to remedy this is to be careful about what you post online, which, on the face of it, seems like sound advice. If you don’t post embarrassing or incriminating material, nobody will be able to hold it against you. Guard your privacy, and create a sharp division between your personal and public, online, lives. I am not unsympathetic to this advice, and I do believe we should be aware of our potential audience(s) when posting online, but this approach can lead to paranoia, isolation and silence. The problem is that we have no control over the audience. A photo posted for friends suddenly becomes available to school or work authorities, or worse.

In addition to some improved media literacy awareness, we need to begin to realize that there really is no longer a way to delineate a clear line between what used to be private, personal interactions, and what has become the public arena of social media. Even if you are careful about what you post online, you has no control over what others do. Friends can post incriminating photos, or tag you on Foursquare or Facebook without your knowledge or consent.  Or, in the case of PWSNT,  you can be outed as a racist.

The blurring of this line takes place not only online, but in everyday life, as evidenced by the NPR video sting and other incidents. The NPR sting is an example of someone spouting personal opinions in a public arena, and being disciplined for it. In this case, Ron Shiller was acting as a representative of NPR, and, although he said he was “taking off his NPR hat,” he got into a lot of trouble for his remarks, ultimately losing his job (here’s a good response to the mess from HuffPo). We are increasingly facing a media environment where we can’t ever take off our professional hats, where personal opinion melds with professional position. I suspect, though, that if he had made these remarks not in a meeting as an NPR representative, but in an unguarded private moment that got caught on tape, the consequences may have been the same.

So, in a mediascape where every personal opinion is taken as part and parcel of a professional identity, is the solution simply to shut up? Should we never express personal or political opinions (no politics or religion in polite company)? No. I think we should fight to reclaim our personal identities and realize that every individual, no matter what official position he or she holds, also has a personal life, and that these roles may or may not always mesh, and that one does not necessarily determine the other. We should be able to take off our hats and put others on, and we should respect it when others do so.

In short, we need to be more forgiving. We need to assert that we often have personal lives that have nothing to do with our jobs, and, although we currently have no official recourse for disicplinary action based on social media, we should begin to rethink the power we give employers in the first place. I often hear people side with the employer in cases where people are fired for extracurricular activities (”they shouldn’t have done that/posted that, etc.), but the more appropriate response should be “The employer should not have so much power, or should mind his/her own business (literally).” Shame on the employer for digging into the personal lives of its employees. Shame on the employer for being nosy. Shame on the employer for not realizing that the worker’s life does not revolve solely around the work s/he does. Have you no decency?

Looking back, this blog has grown, both in subject matter and readership, and so has the nature of blogging.  People comment far less often on blogs, I have found, opting instead to respond via their own blogs, or twitter, or other outlets, which is fine.  I am always grateful when a conversation ensues, no matter the venue.

The thought crossed my mind the other day that I might shutter this blog, maybe start a new one, or move exclusively to twitter, where a lot of  energy that used to go into blogging goes now. I have a few reasons for contemplating closing this blog. As stated above, twitter is taking a lot of this sort of energy, but twitter is good for some things, and not for others. For example, this post would not work on twitter (“I am thinking about closing A Memorable Fancy because I tweet a lot” would likely be the extent of it). Also, now that I have graduated, I feel as if I’ve moved on in many ways.  This blog might serve as a chronicle of grad school for me, and a new blog or venue might signal a rebirth, a moving on, a commencement. But that’s stupid. If we want that, just look at any post before March 31, 2010 as grad school, and anything after as post.  You don’t change after graduation — everything is a continuum.

The last reason for possibly closing (and deleting) the blog would be pure caution. I am on the job market this year, and I really don’t know how this blog reflects me as a scholar.  There have been times on here  when I have been whimsical or otherwise thoughtless, and in these times, I may have been impulsively critical of the very institution in which I wish to make my career, or perhaps I have revealed too much personal information, which could be used as fodder for search committees looking to eliminate candidates.  On the other hand, it could (and should, and does, IMO) show a dedication to thinking about issues surrounding cinema and other media.  I wonder what my readers think about this.

In the end, I will keep the blog, and Iwill keep posting here.  I am tempted to go through and sanitize, clean up, trim here and there, but I probably won’t.  I hope anyone looking at a post from 2005 reads it as that of a newly ABD grad student, still finding his way in the academic world, and anything from 2010 as that of a marginally more mature  new Ph.D, still finding his way, sure, but at a different stage and with a wider perspective.

1. this probably isn’t really number 300, due to a database crash a few years ago, but whatever

1. Remember that your committee wants you to succeed

This is usually true. Your committee would not let you get to the stage of a public defense if they did not know that you would pass. They have seen drafts and given comments on your project, so they know it and know whether it is ready. They will ask you hard questions, but, in most cases, they won’t try to trap you in unanswerable questions.

2. Know that you know what you know

By the time you get to the defense, you will have been living with your project for years. You will have thought about it, written about it, discussed it, and worried about it on some level, pretty much constantly, for a long time. You know it inside and out.

3. Know when to shut up

My dissertation director’s wife, an attorney, told me this a few days before the defense, and I took it to heart. If you are nervous or aren’t sure of an answer, one of the worst things you can do is keep rambling, hoping to say the right things. You are more likely to start floundering or wander onto a topic that you are not prepared to discuss. Instead, shut up and see if they have follow-up questions.

4. Be aware that your committee is performing as well

Your committee is performing for the audience and for each other just as much as you are. Keep this in mind and it gets a little less intimidating.

5. Keep it simple

When summarizing your project, simply tell them what you did. Keep it simple. Here is my project. Here is the question I posed. Here is the research I did. (A faculty member gave this advice the day before)

6. Engage the question honestly

When I present at conferences, I sometimes adhere to Robert McNamara’s advice in Errol Morris’s documentary Fog of War: “Don’t answer the question they asked. Answer the question you wish they had asked.” Works for politicians and sometimes at conferences, but not in your defense. Your committee members are experts in their field(s), and have been through their own defenses as well as those of others, and they will smell any diversionary tactics. You are better off trying to engage the question as asked, and get as close as possible to an answer. Which leads us to the next two points.

7. Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”

There is no shame in admitting you don’t know how to answer a question. A flat out “I don’t know” probably won’t work, but a stab at the question preceded by “I don’t know exactly how to answer that, but…” might work wonders. I often found myself towards the end of an answer that I was not sure I had answered to the questioner’s satisfaction, and I would stop and say “I don’t know if that answered your question…” which invited clarification or guidance (this goes with #3 – know when to shut up).

8. You can’t know everything — don’t expect to

You are the expert in the field of your dissertation, and it’s possible you know more about certain aspects of it than your committee, but you can’t possibly know everything. If questioning goes beyond your topic, admit that you are not familiar with whatever new topic has come up.

9. Get a good night’s sleep

Cramming won’t do you any good. Worrying won’t do you any good. Sleep, if you can get it, might do you good.

10. Have fun

I know this sounds weird. A faculty member told me this the day before, but it makes sense in light of some of these other points. You will pass. This is your chance to show that you are the expert your committee suspects you are, and there is no reason not to try to have fun with it. It is your big moment, after all.

Both the content and the mode of communication are interesting to us here. First, the content.  It is no secret that universities are  relying more and more on contingent faculty (alternately called part-time or adjunct), and that many of these faculty hold advanced degrees, often a Ph.D.  It also comes as no surprise that many new Ph.D. candidates have trouble finding tenure-track jobs, although the numbers are stunning (Croxall claims that many rejection letters mention 400+ applicants). Discuss the relationship between these phenomena in the comments if you wish.While not surprising, it is quite depressing for humanities scholars, for whom the holy grail of jobs is usually the coveted tenure-track position at a research university. Many of us simply don’t know what else to do, and have spent so many precious years crafting a dissertation and teaching for peanuts that we have either forgotten how to do anything else or neglected to learn anything else. Or it could be that we just don’t want to give up the dream. Check out Bitch, Ph.D.’s blog entry, especially the comments, for a robust discussion about this.

If Croxall had simply read the paper as scheduled, I suspect he would have had a sympathetic audience and interesting discussion among the dozens of scholars attending, and then it would have been forgotten. Maybe someone would’ve tweeted or blogged about it, but I doubt the Chronicle of Higher Ed would have picked it up. Let’s recap. I did not attend MLA, but I follow @briancroxall (as well as reading his blog and perusing Prof Hacker as often as possible), who tweeted about the paper the morning of. I read it and retweeted it, as did many others. Those of us following #MLA09 on twitter noticed the shitstorm, which led to more readership , and are now blogging about it, which will likely lead to more (check out his tweet about spike in visitors after the Chronicle article). Instead of being quickly forgotten, this paper ends up being potentially the most-talked about aspect of MLA this year, and propels Brian Croxall into an academic-blogger-media celebrity, for whatever that’s worth.

The social media-twitter-blogosphere has moved the discussion quickly to a more public discussion. These two components — speed and breadth — are what have long been missing in the academy, and comprise some of the most exciting aspects of using new media in conjunction with old-fashioned face-to-face conferencing. In terms of longevity of the discussion, that is yet to be seen.

I hope that the mode of communication does not overshadow the message. Academics in digital humanities are finding innovative ways of communicating and understanding communication, and are working to revolutionize the ways in which we read, discuss, archive, and view texts, however we may define that ever-changing term. But the context in which we do that seems to be shrinking. Whether digital or not, humanities scholars are facing a glut of Ph.D. production and a scarcity of academic jobs. Like it or not, those of us with higher degrees are going to have to find new ways to work, and new venues in which to do this work. The problem is systemic, and many solutions have been proposed (e.g. unionization of contingent faculty and decrease in Ph.D. production), but for those of us at, near, or just beyond the finish line, the academic future looks more grim than ever before.

I am approaching that finish line, and I have come to realize that my Plan A (t-t job) is unrealistic. It is still Plan A, but I need to find a realistic Plan B (and C and D). Like many, I came to grad school because I love to write, and I am passionate about teaching. Earning a living doing both will be difficult. I realized this at at time when I felt I was too close to quit.  I have seen other graduate students quit the program, and many of them are quite happy in their new jobs. That said, I will be on the market next year. I will send out applications. I will (probably) go to MLA. In the meantime? I will continue to work as a part-time instructor. I will continue to do freelance tutoring. I will blog. I will tweet. I will keep my eyes open for opportunities to use my diverse skillset. I will keep you updated.

Happy New Year.

I like books. I like the feel of paper and, like many, I am in the habit of writing in margins. But I also hate moving boxes of the things every time I move. Reading onscreen can be tiresome, and not always practical. I can’t bring my pdfs into the woods with me on a camping trip. Also, reading onscreen sometimes hurts my eyes. On the other hand, I can’t search my paper books for key terms. I would love to see a device like the Kindle that allows me to write on it and save my notes.

I think Michigan is making a wise choice, publishing electronically but giving the option to print-on-demand if you want an actual book. One thing I worry about is the idea of licensing books to libraries, etc. When a library buys a book, it gets to keep it, but what if the license expires on an e-copy, or the publisher wants to change the terms radically? All the books from that press just disappear for all intents and purposes. I also worry about losing access to individual books if I lose affiliation with my university library. In the end it comes down to the price scheme for the individual user, both for e-books and for print-on-demand. What do you think?