As usual, Norton has chosen a great title for a great blog past that actually explains how an entire intellectual career has unfolded up to this point. Why is it a great title, other than the obvious allusion? Because no one who knows her would ever accuse Mary Beth Norton of "not really trying." Ever. At anything. You heard it here first.
Along this journey, Norton enriched her analysis by folding in new intellectual developments that were changing history as a field: she mastered the histories of gender and sexuality, as well as Atlantic Studies. She brought the trilogy to a crescendo (a?) this month with Separated by Their Sex: Women In Public And Private In the Colonial Atlantic World (Cornell, 2011). "And so my unintended trilogy on the theme of gender and political power in early America is complete," she concludes. "Research for it led me in each iteration in so many unexpected directions that I do not know what to anticipate as I embark on a new project, that long-postponed look at the years immediately prior to the American Revolution. But I do know that the book, informed by the past decades of work on the trilogy and its sidelight volume, will be very different from that I would have researched and written in the 1970s."
Stay tuned: the end of one thing is often t he beginning of another, and I wouldn't expect the announcement of Norton's next trilogy until at least 2030 or 2040.
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13 comments:
What? There aren't 65 comments here already lecturing you for presuming to lecture your readers about how they should conduct their professional lives and research agendas? How dare you assume that every single one of your readers is considering writing a trilogy, and who the hell are you to lay that trip on the rest of us?
Thanks for letting me know about this post at HNN and Mary Beth's new book. Her journey to her trilogy--plus one--is a really interesting story.
I feel so oppressed by myself.
Keep feeling oppressed. I hope Zenith treats its full time lecturers (not adjuncts) better than Princeton does:
http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2011/04/19/28315/
Actually, that poor man was what Zenith calls "full-time instructional staff," who at Zenith have multi-year contracts and represent a parallel teaching, non-scholarly track.
We have barely any visitors or course replacements at all any more because of budget cuts. But we have lots of instructional staff in the languages and the arts, as every college like us does.
My guess is that there was more going on than a blow-up with a grad student, and it's very sad.
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Sorry, Blogger cut me off...
Yes, we call them something similar in my institution. But in your two previous posts, you equated them to "adjuncts". Then, you couldn't understand when me and others told you that for most people, "adjuncts" are paid-by-the-course instructors, with little or no benefits, no matter how many classes they teach at an institution. And that that's why so many people disliked your post.
Thanks for the heads up on Mary Beth Norton's new book, and to the link at HNN. I'm fascinated by other people's writing process (because I'm still frustrated by my own), so this was a lot of fun.
Spanish Prof: at Zenith we call 'em all adjuncts, and that is so regardless of how incorrect my critics feel this usage is. And in fact, despite the fact that non-tt faculty work under wildly different conditions, it isn't incorrect -- even though the question of common usage was something that had initially escaped me.
I do think your observation about the original misunderstanding is correct. I would also say that the language issue emerged rather early, and should have been resolved with my explanation of what I meant: there was something more at stake, don't you think? My guess is that there would have been another point of conflict if that one had not been made available.
I think it became articulated as something akin to a class and/or identity issue (which it is, actually), for which the only desired outcome was that I accept the p.o.v. of those who resented being written about as the only possible source of knowledge/language/whatever. The other point is because *they* feel abused by the system (which they are, no question) their abusiveness is endlessly justified.
Here is an example of the CHE regarding what is considered an adjunct: http://chronicle.com/blogs/onhiring/how-much-is-an-adjunct-worth/28409
If for most people, the term "full-time adjunct" is an oxymoron (regardless of how they are officially called at Zenith or any other institution), then they could take issue with statements like:
"Do move, or at least rent a room, if you must commute to a full-time adjunct position. There is nothing more annoying than hiring someone to do full-time visiting work and then have them work essentially part-time because it isn't a tenure-track job. Full time means 3-4 days a week, depending on the teaching schedule you are assigned; it means meeting with your students in office hours; and it means meeting with your students outside of office hours if they can't make it in the two hours you have decided you are willing to contribute outside of class". Theirs is a part-time job. If they are being abused and pay next to nothing to teach core courses, then telling them to meet with students outside office hours sounds like reinforcing the exploitation.
I don't think that "the only desired outcome was that I accept the p.o.v. of those who resented being written about as the only possible source of knowledge/ language/whatever". I do think, however, that by not addressing the discrepancies in the terminology, the end result is that you did not acknowledged their realities, which are vastly different from what I could infer is your definition of "adjunct": any non-tenure track professor or instructor. Regardless of how they are officially called, a visiting assistant professor, a post-doc or even a full-time instructor is not in the same situation as an adjunct. Conflating all of them into a single category is a mistake, in my opinion, and a lack of understanding on how academia works for those who are not in the privileged position of being tenure-track or tenured professors (like you and me).
Enough. Please?
Two comments:
It seems some of the vitriol was semantic. You meant a one-year visting appointment should be treated as a one-year full-time professional appointment w/ attendant advising and committee work. New phds often take these positions in hopes that next year the department will get a line. Hope springs eternal. One of your critics at least thought you were discussing lecturers who assigned course work added up to a full course load. Different entirely. Eventually some of these folks build up to 1 year or longer contracts and seniority, but their service demands are and should be negligible.
Norton's process is heartening. It helps me think about why I return to the same era and issues and explore them in different ways and validates the enterprise.
You know, it's interesting that you should post this, because just the other day I was thinking that the two projects I have slated next are talking at the same subject, but from very different directions (one "big history," one small). There may be an accidental two-parter in my future as well. So thanks for the reference!
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