Yesterday we decided to skip the morning session, where there wasn't much that appealed to us, and then hit the book room for an hour before heading off to our two afternoon panels (, both of which were exciting enough that I have half-scrawled proto-blog-posts in my notebook already, to be posted over at Glossographia when time and energy permit. Thoughts: I have them. Oh yes, I should also remember to post an abstract of my paper up there too. Eventually a bunch of us headed out to Gallagher's for dinner, which did not disappoint, and then back to the conference for the dance, where I drank overpriced beer in sufficient quantities for the purpose.

It's well into the morning already; Julia is still enjoying a well-deserved Mother's Day morning sleeping in, so I don't think we're going back up to the conference today. I might have liked one last romp around the exhibit halls, but I have enough damn books already, so probably it's for the best that I don't. We're going to head back around noon, then I'll call my mom. Then maybe try to catch Star Trek tonight before picking up Arthur from his grandparents on Monday. Then on Tuesday, reviewing the copyediting for my 200,000 word book MS. Yikes!

Tags: academia

Yesterday a.m. we were up early to get to the blogger meetup, where I finally got to meet ancarett and a_d_medievalist and of course to see owlfish, plus we met a whole bunch of LJ and blog people whose identities remain obscure to me. Alas. Outside, we ran into angevin2 briefly, but unfortunately she was laid low with killer death plague. Mostly I just went to panels that were of interest to Julia throughout the day, but I did go to a neat panel on sociolinguistics in medieval England where all the papers were of interest to me. After that we went to the AVISTA reception (owlfish, being our connection to that august group, was of course there) and then we ended up chatting with numerous people including a_d_medievalist, doing what all academics do when they get together: complaining. Note to self: stop that! Then we headed out for dinner and eventually ended up at The Olde Peninsula, which one of my grad students recommended to me, and was every bit as good as promised, including a really great craft brew. Yesterday at dinner, owlfish had remarked that she didn't know enough good places to eat, and no sooner had I remarked that we ought to tell her about this place that we realized that she was sitting no more than eight feet from us. Yikes. One of us is stalking the other, but I'm not sure which yet.

Julia and I are taking the morning session off today because of general fatigue, plus there wasn't anything too interesting on the lineup for the 10am session. I am a little disappointed not to be going to the 8:30am plenary address on the Michael of Rhodes manuscript because it is chock full of interesting arithmetical calculations, but also because the website I just linked to embodies all the worst ideas about the transition from Roman to Arabic numerals. Boo. Our plan is to go in around 11, spend some time in the book room, and then off to a couple of really interesting afternoon sessions, followed by great revelry into the wee hours. But now I'm going to go write an email to Arthur who doubtless will want to hear about my day as well.

Tags: academia

So here we are in lovely Kalamazoo, doing what K'zoo people do. Yesterday morning Julia and I went to a rather odd session where I learned both the secret meaning of the Voynich manuscript and that the Cathars knew about the structure of the Milky Way and that we are in the End Times. Lovely. My own session (admirably organized by owlfish) was well attended and apparently, or so I hear, a few people crept in just to see my talk on the introduction of Arabic numerals into English printed books. I didn't think it was my best talk, from a presentation perspective, but the argument is sound and I really like the topic. So, whee! Then off to the exhibit hall for a small amount of spending and a great amount of longing, which will doubtless lead to future spending. Then a whirlwind tour of Kalamazoo with owlfish in an attempt to find food, but finally we returned to Bilbo's, a local eatery of considerable repute. Now we're off to the big blogger meetup about which I've heard so much.

Tags: academia

The students in my graduate-level linguistic anthropology course, Language and Societies, have written extended abstracts of their research papers, which we have now published at a new blog, Language and Societies. Both I and they would greatly appreciate any comments, questions, or suggestions you have regarding their projects, several of which go well beyond this course and will form the basis for ongoing research leading towards advanced degrees in linguistics or anthropology, and/or (one hopes) peer-reviewed publication. Please comment on the specific posts at the Language and Societies blog. Thanks!

Tags: academia, language

As a recent migrant to the city of Windsor (ON), I don't have an especially strong connection to the place. I have no connection whatsoever to the local comprehensive university, the University of Windsor. Excluding Michigan institutions like WSU, the U of W is the only local degree-granting institution for students from this area; the next closest is UWO, over 90 minutes drive away. Given the troubles in the local economy, not just over the past six months but more generally over the past decade, one would think that the province would prioritize training and education programs in hard-hit areas like this one (particularly since large parts of the region are potential sources of Liberal votes).

So I was very surprised today to learn that while the province is spending a great deal of money to expand graduate programs, only 4 of the 3300 new graduate spots are going to Windsor (which has graduate programs in all the fields being expanded). Even OCAD, which is an art school and presumably does *not* have such programs, is getting more slots. So I'm a bit confused. I grant that U of W is not exactly the most prestigious university in the world, but surely as a comprehensive, technically-oriented 4-year institution it deserves more attention than this?

I fiddled with the numbers in the linked article in order to compare the number of slots supposedly to be produced with the number of existing postgraduate slots (data from the AUCC, although I admit I took the numbers from Wikipedia where somebody usefully compiled the figures):

University	New	Current	Increase
University of Ontario Institute of Technology	97	90	107.78%
Ryerson University	289	1570	18.41%
University of Waterloo	461	3660	12.60%
University of Western Ontario	504	4600	10.96%
McMaster University	338	3130	10.80%
University of Guelph	232	2280	10.18%
Trent University	26	360	7.22%
Wilfrid Laurier University	68	1000	6.80%
Lakehead University	49	750	6.53%
University of Ottawa	277	4960	5.58%
Laurentian University	33	600	5.50%
University of Toronto	588	14100	4.17%
York University	168	5650	2.97%
Queen's University	97	3850	2.52%
Carleton University	67	3300	2.03%
University of Windsor	4	1480	0.27%
Brock University	0	1259	0.00%
Nipissing University	0	230	0.00%

I get why UOIT has such a large increase - it's a brand-new polytechnic that is just starting to establish grad programs, and the institutional mission is closely related to the goals of the funding. But surely Nipissing, Brock, and Windsor, located in areas likely to be hard-hit by the current recession, deserve more attention than they are receiving. I understand the principle that well-established research institutions (like Waterloo or McMaster) are more attractive because of their proven record of production. But increasing regional inequities at a time when, for financial reasons, most residents of this area would not be able to simply pack up and move to the GTA, seems like a remarkably boneheaded decision.

However, I should add that I am not upset in the least to learn that most of these spots are going to high-demand engineering, enviro sci, and related fields. The last thing our universities need to be doing is encouraging even more students to do doctorates in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. We need to be ensuring better funding for existing student spaces in these fields, but expanding enrollments is not going to do that, but in fact will just make the situation worse for existing students in terms of competition for funding and jobs. So if you've just been laid off and your question is, 'Should I go to grad school in anthropology?' my answer is almost surely going to be NO.

Tags: academia

Please cram it in your piehole. Maybe you think it's cool, when you're seventy years old, immensely privileged, and have nothing to lose, to systematically provide ideological justifications for the dismantling of everything we as academics are supposed to hold dear. It isn't. Even when you're right about an issue (which you might be, this time), it's for the wrong reason. Maybe you really think that every time a tenured physics professor offers a political opinion in the classroom, this should be grounds for dismissal. But the immense hypocrisy that emerges when you, a literary theorist, offer those opinions and expect the rest of us to just nod grimly at your pomo nonsense, makes me think that you are just playing games with all our academic freedom. Please stop.

Tags: academia, growlery

I'm hoping to inspire some useful discussion and debate about reference letter writing practices over at Glossographia. If there are any of you out there who have something to say but don't normally read my academic blog, the link is here.

Tags: academia

(followup to the previous, friends-locked post)

For anyone who has ever engaged in the often-thankless process of academic job searching, or who hopes to, from either side of the table: 9 Interviews.

Tags: academia
Current Music: Red Hot Chili Peppers - Don't Forget Me

I've only been blogging over at Glossographia for six weeks, but I've been blogging here at The Growlery, for six years, which must correspond to a century or more in Internet time. And over those past six years, but particularly over the past six weeks, I've been thinking a bit about the different reasons I blog.

I blog because I like to think someone out there is reading and thinking about an issue differently than they did before. I have never been accused of being unopinionated, and the sharp immediacy of the blogging environment gives me a thrill I rarely find outside the classroom - with the added benefit that my words are there on the screen to mull over. Want to know what I think about something? You can be pretty sure I've written about it somewhere, and if not, you know where to ask.

I blog because the community of interesting and thoughtful people that I know through blogging. Livejournal is not primarily the refuge of fourteen-year-old emo kids. Fully one-third of my friends list has at least one graduate degree, and there are (at last count) a dozen people with doctorates and another half-dozen who are pursuing the doctorate. I know doctors, lawyers, and architects - most of whom I have never met in real life - and people from virtually any other field of endeavour you might think of. Not to mention the reams of bright, fascinating people whose paths have not yet led them to further education, or never will.

I blog because of my colleagues. Anthropology seems to be underrepresented in the academic blogosphere, in comparison to, say, history or linguistics (two other fields in which I have some specialized training and interest), which is a shame. I find it to be absolutely essential not only as a tool for social networking, but also as a tool for playing around with ideas that may not yet be quite ready for peer review, but which need a collective of thinkers. Is academic blogging playful, even trivial sometimes? Sure, but so is 95% of what academics do on any given day. Is it going to give me tenure? Not likely, but I don't sit up nights panicking about that. Is it worthwhile, socially and intellectually? Damn right it is.

I blog because I see the potential for blogging to change the way we think about academic mentorship also. One of the real joys I had while working at McGill was to observe the level of student participation in presenting ongoing research, as in the NOCUSO field school blog from Finland, or the zooarchaeology field school blog from Parc Safari in southern Quebec, both spearheaded by my friend Andre Costopoulos, but written and run by the junior scholars there who I am happy to call my friends and colleagues also. In these efforts, as well as in the web-published projects I run, I see a grand opportunity for extremely bright and thoughtful young scholars to develop their ideas and find their voice - as well as to stay in touch. Next term I am looking forward to having my graduate students at Wayne do similar sorts of work.

I blog because I believe in the democratization of knowledge. That may sound all highfalutin and whatnot, but what it comes down to is a feeling of obligation to share things that I know, without any expectation of reward. I've been doing that for over a decade now at the Phrontistery, and my motivation is still much the same as it was back in 1996 in the Middle Paleo-Internet. Sure, my day job involves me getting paid to share my knowledge, but that doesn't mean I think I should get paid for everything I write. I am privileged enough to enjoy a career that allows me the freedom to do this service.

I blog because of my friends (academic and otherwise). I recently moved to a city of 300,000 where I know virtually no one who is not a blood relation - and let me tell you, I don't do well in isolation. Most of my closest friends are nine hours' drive away in Montreal, and most of the rest are even more distant. But over the past little while I've come to realize that I'm not really alone, and that, while I really do need to get out more, it would be foolhardy in the extreme to discount what I have here. There are people I've never met in person with whom I feel a strong personal connection. There are also people I once knew as well as family who have faded from my life through their absence, which I regret, and hope to avoid in the future.

I blog because of my family. I don't know what Arthur will think of the various things I have written about his young life, when he's older and jaded and thinks his dad is a big dork. I'd like to think though that there is value in having this record of funny moments and strange episodes, the sort of minutiae that most people never know about. And I blog because Julia blogs - she was the one who sucked me into this life, after all - and not a day goes by that we don't spend some time looking over one another's shoulder at some funny thing, or talking about something we've encountered in our mutual journey.

Lastly, I blog for me. I'm not sure what kind of person I would be without this outlet, but I can't imagine that I would be better off. Like a lot of people, I can be anxious, I can be overanalytical, and I can be wracked with doubt. But having the ability to express these thoughts in a relatively neutral medium can be (and is) a great source of personal strength. And having the ability to look back on things I wrote long ago, to rethink an issue, or just to remember a good day warmly, is something I wouldn't trade for the world.

(Crossposted to Glossographia)

Tags: academia, growlery, lj

Just got back from a local conference where I was presenting preliminary results and ideas relating to my stop sign research project, Stop: Toutes Directions. I'm ecstatic; the room filled up with people after the speaker prior to me finished, and cleared out quite a bit afterwards. The panel chair (a sociolinguist who also runs my institution's humanities center) was thrilled afterwards, as was another prominent sociolinguist, as well as the very prestigious plenary speaker for the conference. Going in, I was a little concerned that my talk would come off as all style, no substance - too dilettantish to count as serious research, no theory to go along with my neat examples. Really I shouldn't have been - the folks at Wayne have always been thrilled, both in anthropology and linguistics, to hear about this secondary interest of mine - not to mention my junior colleagues who are working with me on the project so very eagerly. The linguistics people asked me to give the talk again sometime later this term for the people who weren't able to attend for various reasons, which will be very exciting. It's just too bad it wasn't ship-shape last week when I was in Montreal or I would have given it at McGill too as a dry run. Ah well, maybe next time. At least two times in the project's life - once in March, while we were still collecting data during the term, and once in August - I had serious thoughts about just pulling the plug on the whole thing. My concern was largely that I was doing the project for the wrong reasons (social rather than intellectual, e.g.). These concerns are now virtually gone, and I'm moving forward in doing more data collection, more analysis, and finding a publisher for what I hope will be an excellent edited volume.

Tags: academia
Current Mood: wheeeeee!