Here is a quite-long collection of odds and ends, written about in a directionless and loping manner, that anyone other than long-term readers who are interested in me personally may feel comfortable skipping.

1. As somebody pointed out on Twitter, I never actually came out and said that I successfully defended my dissertation. So: I successfully defended my dissertation! And made the necessary revisions and deposited it with the grad school. (And paid the $125 deposit fee. Ugh, Purdue, ugh.) So I think technically I’m a doctor now. (For the record I’m like a lot of academics in that I don’t want to be referred to as Dr. pretty much ever.) I walk next Saturday morning. feelsgoodman.jpg. I’m really happy with how the dissertation turned out, too. You can read about it here. I’m starting to work with professors on developing it into a book proposal. It’s exciting.

2. No job just yet. I’m still applying and waiting on a few academic jobs, though not a lot at this point. I am feeling pretty confident about a couple of the applications I have left in the pike, but the list grows thin. Still, I’m plugging and chugging along. I’ll let you know if and when I hear anything positive.

I want to balance a few things here: the academic job market is absolutely brutal in general, though my field is a bit better than a lot of the humanities; it often takes people a couple years to find a job; I have a strong CV but a lot of people do; I have an unusual hindrance in what my faculty call “a dean problem.” That is, I have a controversial political profile, and despite the fact that academia has an ostensible commitment to intellectual, academic, and political freedom, that sort of reputation can really hurt. I don’t mean to imply that this is the only problem; with the market as bad as it is, I could easily not get anything even without my political baggage. But mentors of mine, from both my own institution and others, have been frank in saying that under current economic and administrative conditions, having an easily-Googleable record like mine is a problem most people can’t afford to have. I also have heard directly from one member of a search committee, in a hush-hush way, that my Google search got me moved out of the interview pile, and got a strong hint from another that this was the case with a job I had a campus visit for. I also had a gig that I had a handshake commitment for that was inexplicably rescinded without a word of explanation. I’m not trying to be self-defensive here, and again, a lot of my rejections are probably just the common case of weight of numbers. But I also want to be real with you about what I’m looking at.

None of this particularly surprises me, nor do I find it wholly illegitimate. I mean, yes, I believe in political and academic freedom, and I think there’s a lot of hypocrisy in how the academy endorses those ideals without following fully through with them, but I also have always known the stakes here. I was raised to believe in saying what I believe to be true, and to sign my name to it, out of the conviction that this is what democracy and personal integrity requires. That means that I have to be able to live with the consequences, and I can. The only thing that really bothers me is the possibility that people misinterpret my political zeal for an inability to work with others, particularly from other political backgrounds. That just isn’t the case. I get along with everybody in my program; in fact I’ve been called the  big brother of my department on multiple occasions. And treating students from very different political backgrounds with perfect equality and caring is a matter of tremendous personal importance to me. Though I love research and will continue to do it no matter what my future holds, teaching has always come first for me and represents my true passion. I place the highest priority on ensuring that all students find my classroom a warm and respectful place, even while I maintain high standards.

I dunno! I get one more half paycheck from Purdue for May. My lease here in Lafayette runs out on June 30th. Beyond that, I have no particular plan at the moment beyond continuing to look for meaningful work and writing. If it doesn’t work out for me this hiring season I will go back to the well next year. If not then, we’ll have to see. Campus is the only place that ever really made sense to me, but you don’t always get what you want in life! There are favors I can call in and jobs I could do, but I don’t want to  commit to something only to go back on the academic job market in the fall. Some sort of postdoc or VAP would have been ideal but really I’m not picky. I have felt a little bit of slight regret about finishing in four years, given that I have a fifth year of funding and I’m so comfortable and happy here. But, nope: I was able to finish in four years and I did and I’m glad I did. I proposed, researched, wrote, defended, and revised my diss in 360 days, and I ended up with a text I’m proud of. No regrets.

I suppose from a “Westley considers his assets and liabilities” sense I should be freaked out, but I’m not. I trust my ability to teach and to research and to write. Westley’s brains, Fezzik’s strength, Inigo’s sword. I feel good, I feel confident. I do.

3. To answer the obvious questions: don’t go to grad school; going to grad school was the best decision I’ve ever made.

4. In somewhat related news, a lot of readers have been asking about tip jars and such. I appreciate this very much. I have an Amazon wish list and a Steam wish list which, in the past, readers have been kind enough to purchase me things from. I also had a GoFundMe page that I used back during Christmas. (Which got me through Christmas break in a very literal way, so thank you all so much.) Several people have asked me about starting a Patreon account. While I dig the Patreon model and get the appeal, I don’t want to sign up for the simple fact that I’m not sure how much longer I’ll be doing this. I don’t have any particular plan to stop, but it has occurred to me more and more often. That’s because I want to find a way to say things that is less explicit, boring, and direct; because I want to devote myself more fully to the work that I set out to do; and because frankly I’m tired of a world of online writing that seems to have accepted intentional misreading and subsequent defensive prose as the cost of  doing business. I know it’s a hack move to lament that things are worse than they’ve ever been, and I’m not a romantic about the past eras of online writing, but I am exhausted from arguing about what I don’t believe instead of what I do believe. Every day I see people quoting my work on Facebook or Twitter in a misleading manner, frequently quoting sentences of the type “X, but more importantly Y,” by simply quoting X. I cultivate dissent about what I do believe, but I’m so sick of getting yelled at about what I haven’t said and don’t believe.

But, again, I have no specific plan to stop. I just don’t want anyone to kick money in on the understanding that they’re paying to support future work only to have me walk away. Writing is compulsive for me so I frequently can’t stay away for long. Besides, I quit a couple times from my old blog and came back and people mocked me about it a bunch, so if I ever do leave I’ll just ghost.

Now here comes the self-defensive part. Your haters are your closest readers. I have had one in particular since I think 2009, if you can believe it, although given the anonymity and sock puppetry that’s a part of such things, who can tell. Anyway this one dude has always fixated on my wish list, for some reason. So: yes, I think that you can be a socialist and still have material wants; no, I’m not embarrassed by anything I have on my list (I used to have a Suicide Girls book on there and he thought that was so worthy of mocking, though why an adult would feel embarrassed about that I couldn’t tell you); no, I don’t feel entitled to anything at all. Yes, there are some more expensive items on there even though I’ve usually asked for books from my readers. Though some readers have been extremely generous in sending me more expensive items, those things are listed there because I am graduating soon and have my birthday coming right up, and it’s useful to have a wish list to share with close friends and family. I certainly don’t expect my readers to buy me any expensive computer parts or stereo equipment. I don’t expect my readers to buy me anything at all. Sheesh.

Bottom line: I appreciate all of the offers for help, and I do believe in the principle of paying writers, but ultimately right now I don’t need money, I need a plan. I’m a bit worried about finances in the short term, sure, but like I said, I’m confident about the future and just need to figure a few things out. All the support is appreciated, particularly the moral support.

4. I have to write a post about what field I consider myself to be in, at some point, because it’s a source of continued frustration when dealing with internet people. Everybody in my actual academic life understands and recognizes the type of interdisciplinarity I’ve pursued, and the linguists I’ve worked with directly understand my capabilities. It’s mostly internet jerks who try to put me in a particular box in order to then make fun of me. So I’ve got a post in me about disciplinarity, research, and academic card-checking.

5. In happy news, I have some really cool things coming up as far as my professional writing goes. Some of these are just pitches that have been solicited, some are in various stages of negotiation, and some are contracted and just waiting for finishing and publication. I don’t mean to be arch or mysterious; it’s just that these things often do fall through. But some of these are ideas that I’ve been working on for ages and it’s awesome to see them come to fruition. And if I can get into gear and get them done, it’ll really help a lot financially. I’ve been useless as a writer since I defended on April 20th, and I’m sure I’ve tried the patience of several editors because I’ve been so inconsistent with communication since then. I think it’s just a lot of built-up exhaustion and mental fatigue from getting my diss done that has come out in the last couple weeks. But it ends tomorrow. I’m getting back into gear and I’m going to make these pieces happen.

Speaking of which, I owe about 5,000 emails to various editors, friends, and readers, so I’m going to get to that right now. So sorry if you’ve written me and I never got back to you– I’m a terrible correspondent. It is very hard for me to talk with people who like me and agree with what I write. I’m much more comfortable arguing. But it’s always, always noticed and appreciated.

Wonder what’s next!