The Humanities Is (Are?) All Too Human

Let me just state upfront that I'm a firm believer in the criticism that academia is an "Ivory Tower". This particular department is unusually involved in the community, but for the most part that isn't the trend overall. The trend is to discuss Really Bizarre Ideas with the unspoken knowledge that no one outside of your field is going to bother to read your work, and that it is best only repeated as amusing anecdotes at cocktail parties while slightly drunk.

It's bad enough when the outside world questions the value of your work and ideas, but it's even more reprehensible when you get screwed from within the Tower. To paraphrase the Joker, sometimes this school needs an enema. It's really aggravating to be part of the humanities, because every injustice seems the worse for it. It's like being in a Literacy program and misspelling something on your brochure. People look at you funny because you're expected to be held to higher spelling standards than the rest of the world, I guess. I have several bitch-fests simmering; here is but a whiff:

I'm really sick of people smiling and acting like they're all "humanitarian," when all they really want to do is mold people into yet another stereotype of what they think it means to be "successful." All you really prove when you smile with your mouth and cut with your eyes is that you're just as fascist as any other hegemonic structure. Yes, I used a grad student word. Some people can shove every syllable of it up their syllabus. When you single someone out for special brutalization, heap a bunch of extra work on him, cut out the support from in under him,--grr-- I could go on, but I'm afraid I'll go bursting into the coordinator's office if I do. And then my friend would probably get another three page "reflection" about the incident as extra work just for spite. Putting someone against the ropes and then killing him with paperwork just so you can have a paper trail of how hard you "tried" to rehabilitate that person is reprehensible. As one girl--who interestingly isn't here anymore--said, they're really helpful to you in all the ways that don't matter.

Getting called to the "Principal's office" earlier this semester didn't improve my disposition. Don't tell me that you're only trying to "put out a fire" when you're really just going to go and tell the other person you had a "talk" with me, and everything should be better now. When I call you on it, don't look like I just tried to light you on fire. If you tell her it's better now, I promise you that I'll ensure it won't be. Although it was really funny when you asked if it was "OK" and I said "No." The look on your face was hilarious. But I have to wonder if you really expected me to do anything less than that, besides give the speech I did about my right to say what I need to say. When you start the conversation by telling me I didn't do anything wrong "BUT," then you have to wonder why we're even sitting here in the first place. I'm not one to roll over and play peacemaker. Especially when it's all about the other person completely overreacting. How is it my problem that she needs a perspective adjustment?

And speaking of attitude adjustments, don't bitch to me about your reputation when you haven't done any work. People don't go around demanding respect--they earn it. So get some actual work done, and stop basing your opinions of yourself on the fact that I failed your student. It probably had nothing to do with you.

For my one particularly type A-plus colleague--Stop asking me whether or not the professor wants it done this way or that. How the hell should I know? I'm not privy to how he grades or what he does. Ask the man, I'm sure he'll tell you. And while we're on the subject, for godssake, stop popping in my classroom before it starts and telling me your bizarre administrative issues. It weirds out the kids.

To the supposedly liberal administration: stop fiendishly googling people who work with you on the internet, only to drag them into your office and have a little "talk" about how their public persona reflects on the university. Whatever happened to free speech? Whatever happened to the interesting debate about public rhetoric? When you called me into the office, I hoped it was about my blog. Unfortunately, it wasn't. But I was all fired up with some right to free speech crap. I actually still have that one saved for a rainy day.

For the little gossipy troublemaker in my own grad class. I have been giving you the evil eye in class because you're an evil person. Don't go asking other people about what I may or may not have said. Grow some balls and ask me. After we've cleared that up, then I can fill you in on what I think of your social behavior when you've had a few too many. I'm still good and jacked about that, and it didn't even happen to me.

But the best part had to be getting called into the office yet again (ironically, nothing happens via email--there are no written records that way), only to be told that you have been "strongly discouraged" from working with me this summer. Yep, that independent study got screwed, meaning I have to do my writing sample and another class, as if I'm not busy enough. Oh, and that my big plans to do my specialty in the classroom just got screwed because there was some red tape you conveniently forgot to tell me about. But it turns out that's OK--you're doing it instead, and if I'm really good, maybe you'll let me help every now and then. Oh, and that conference you wanted me to go to? You told me the wrong dates, and so I missed the submission deadline. But that's OK, because once I checked it out, I discovered they weren't calling for papers anyway--they wanted people to put panels together; dude, that's an administrative i.e. your thing, and way over my head, especially since you just pulled all the support away from me. But the beauty of the whole thing is how you personally asked that I be kept where I was in the teaching line-up "so we could work on the things we have planned." What things? You canceled all of them, remember?

Well, guess what? I figured out how to do it myself without your red tape, without your help, found a new conference, got a new reader with more academic chops than you to look over my writing sample (who, by the way, is amazed that you passed up the chance to work with me), and by this summer, I'll be doing what you hope to set up yourself (after I gave you the idea). Oh, and you'll be needing an agency to do your little project with. Good luck with that. I know them all very well, you know. I am one of them. I think you forgot that part. But you'll figure it out pretty damn quick when you go to set this up. Put that on your brown butcher's paper!

I know that every department in the country is more or less this way. Every dept. is catty; the pressure is enormous. We get paid very little to do the most important jobs in the university. If students can't write and think critically (English 101 & 102), then they aren't likely to succeed at all in the university. We're expected to publish before we graduate, if we hope to get a real job that pays anything. We're expected to do a full graduate load while teaching their most important classes. In fact, because we teach, we end up having to take classes through the summer in order to finish on time, because the university won't fund us past the Master's limit they've imposed on the program, even though they've slowed us down with teaching responsibilities. We have a 50% success rate on the job market. That should scare the pants off of most of us. (Except for me, as composition/rhetoric has a 100% success rate, and there often aren't enough people for jobs--nyah, nyah.)

Isn't it hard enough to live on an underrated teacher's pay without making it more difficult on everyone involved? I stay in it because I love it. And I love the kids. I love what I do, and I've figured out a way to live on the pay and still have what I want.

But I don't need departmental backbiting and sniping. And I'm certainly not one to keep quiet about it!

Thank you, gentle reader, for tolerating what I'm sure seems like total nonsense.

-- Virgil