tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11212367.post113670159275304094..comments2023-08-12T02:05:17.180-07:00Comments on Sfrajett's City 3.0: Behind Blue EyesSfrajetthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18028612571210445296noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11212367.post-1136949636689469692006-01-10T19:20:00.000-08:002006-01-10T19:20:00.000-08:00And if we don't write a book, we should start an i...And if we don't write a book, we should start an ironic indie rock band called Genius Trouble. <BR/><BR/>You're such a beautiful writer; I hope you wouldn't mind correcting all my dry prose.<BR/><BR/>(Congrats on the law school. I think I got my doctorate about 3 or 4 hours south of there.)Michael LeVanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16984885131387135660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11212367.post-1136944654164716332006-01-10T17:57:00.000-08:002006-01-10T17:57:00.000-08:00Awesome! Can we write a book called Genius Troubl...Awesome! Can we write a book called Genius Trouble??? We totally should.Sfrajetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18028612571210445296noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11212367.post-1136782375974312212006-01-08T20:52:00.000-08:002006-01-08T20:52:00.000-08:00Right you are. The castration principle looms larg...Right you are. The castration principle looms large and relieves the system of responsibility (and guilt). Plus, like the vargaries of any situation embedded in contemporary capitalism, there's a lot of being in the right place, knowing the right person, or being lucky enough to get the right reviewers or interviewers on the right days. I guess we're really all schmucks of one sort or another in the end (if we disengage the fantasies). On the other hand, there's a lot of role playing and a constitutive iteration of fictional identities #1 and #3 that sediment them into the realm of feeling and perception and hierarchy we like to call "the natural."Michael LeVanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16984885131387135660noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11212367.post-1136746336638355572006-01-08T10:52:00.000-08:002006-01-08T10:52:00.000-08:00The only thing I would add to your fabulous list i...The only thing I would add to your fabulous list is to emphasize even more than you do that #1 and #3 are fantasies of the self, and the one we pick to "really" know who we are is going to determine whether in fact we end up as a #1 or a #3. Which is kind of what you intimate. The problem is that we are most of us #3s, because couldn't we all publish just a bit more than we do? If we think of ourselves as #3s, then we can blame ourselves for our fate, which is what They want us to do. That way it's not the fault of bad departments, unstable publishing industries, personal bias, politics. It's always just us and our insufficient ways.<BR/><BR/>#3s, unite! you have nothing to lose but your castrating self-designations.Sfrajetthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18028612571210445296noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11212367.post-1136733566270259682006-01-08T07:19:00.000-08:002006-01-08T07:19:00.000-08:00You're right about there only being two kinds of a...You're right about there only being two kinds of academic jobs (my woes are because I'm working at an R1), but there are also several kinds of grad students who get the "dream" jobs:<BR/>1. <B>the productive genius</B> (rare, but this is that really smart person who is either persistent or lucky and gets a bunch of their interesting work published early and often)<BR/>2. <B>the productive schmuck</B> (common, this is the person driven only by numbers, publishing any and every piece of crap they can muster; they are prolific but careless, and always perfunctory--they get the job because they have a huge vita and they won't challenge the dogmas of any of the senior faculty)<BR/>3. <B>the not productive enough genius</B> (these are the people you looked up to in grad school; they are sharp and amazing, but too cautious or unlucky in publishing; half teeter on in isolation; half meet an unkind fate at tenure time; yet a a quarter of them end up blossoming when they are good and ready on their own damn timetable)<BR/>4. <B>the lucky schmuck</B> (this person isn't really productive or insightful, but they have a good heart and they got got sucked into the system; oddly, some of them land in good jobs because they are in the right place at the right time; they end up as compromise hires in volatile departments or in departments in transition; more unbelievably, they almost always get tenure; they are the unproductive and relatively clueless people you often see sitting around the conference room table in seminars or faculty meetings). <BR/><BR/>Yidg had a professor who once told her that the need for a PhD was like a sickness. You had to feel like you would die if you didn't get a PhD--if you didn't feel that way, then it wasn't for you. I partly believe that, but I also think that the perception of the professor's life is so enchanting that most of us block out the odds and the reality and hope that we will be #1 instead of the #3 that we know is our destiny. Just look at everyone's new year resolutions for confirmation. Only a #3 vows to write more because on a #3 knows that they aren't doing enough even though they also know they have the skills to succeed. <BR/>---<BR/>Oh, this post seems like a good companion piece to Scrivener's <A HREF="http://dmorgen.blogspot.com/2006/01/following-my-bliss.html" REL="nofollow">story</A> about college.Michael LeVanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16984885131387135660noreply@blogger.com