There is this guy I know since Grad School. We didn't do our PhD together, but we had friends in commons and we would all occasionally hang out at the LASA (Latin American Studies Association)or similar conferences in our field. Back then, he was already an annoying pompous as**hole. He did his PhD at an Ivy, and I will never forget the day he told me: "Because here [the Ivy he was attending] is very different than most other universities. Here, we breathe (sic) theory". I don't usually do this kind of things, but that day I took a special pleasure in humiliating him in public showing his lack of knowledge of the Frankfurt School (he was the one who started talking about Walter Benjamin out of nowhere, and I have a BA in Political Theory, so I know something about the Frankfurt School).
Anyway, this person graduated and got a TT job that, considering the academic job market, most recent PhDs would consider themselves lucky getting it. It's in an attractive midsize city with a lower than average cost of living. It's a public regional university, but they offer a PhD in Spanish. It's a 2-2 teaching load. But he is not like most people. From day one he was complaining about the low quality of the grad students and their lack of a solid theoretical basis. He also behaved like a diva with his colleagues, with a "I'm too good to be here and you should considered yourselves lucky that I accepted this job" attitude. He didn't care to hide his feelings. As a result, he would often have to cancel his graduate seminars for lack of enrollment.
On the other hand, he was extremely productive. His book was published by an excellent press his fourth year into the TT. He seems to publish at least 3 additional articles every year (on very random topics, as if he was recycling every paper he wrote as a grad student). So his colleagues at this university were worried that they would be stuck with him, since it would be very difficult to deny him tenure considering how productive he was -another indication of how little teaching is valued in certain institutions. Lucky for them, he was on the market again since the first semester he arrived at his first job. His colleagues were more than happy to give him excellent letters of recommendation hoping to get rid of him. Three years after his arrival, he got another job. A better one: a TT at a public R1 with a very good reputation.
As you may imagine, that wasn't enough either. Now, only Princeton, Duke, Stanford, Cornell and Harvard were worth of his brilliance. He spent two years at this R1. A few days ago, I don't know exactly what happened, but despite the fact that he had a CV two miles long, a published book and a finished manuscript for a second, his contract was not renewed a third year. But don't worry. He actually landed another TT job, at an R1 with an even better reputation than his previous job. Unbelievable!I've always thought that his CV looked better than his real knowledge. I still think so. But now, I am also convinced that, unless he does something really stupid like sleeping with a student in an institution that actually cares about those things (and yes, some institutions do care. Where I did my PhD a TT professor was told to look for a job elsewhere after it was discovered he was having an affair with a grad student. That despite the fact that they were both in their 30s and single), in the end he will get his dream job at Duke or Princeton. If that ever happened, though, he'd start aiming for an endowed Chair position, and would be miserable if he didn't get it.
I hate people like this. What world do they live in? Psh! As if anyone could learn from someone whose ego is the size of Montana. Whatever.
ReplyDeleteI'm a big believer in karma. In fact, I think he'll get caught for whatever the academic equivalent of Al Capone going to jail for not paying taxes is. I'd like to know why he was forced out of job number 2.
ReplyDeleteI aim not to become somebody like this as I despise them and prefer not to be a self-loathing person.
ReplyDeleteMy PhD advisor once told me: "Theory is like money. You should have it in the bank and use it when it's necessary. But don't be a tacky show off"
ReplyDeleteWords of wisdom...
He sounds like a despicable human being. And very common to the academic world.
ReplyDeleteBut I must say that stories about individuals like this also make me realize how ambivalent I am re: my own ambition. Maybe because I *am* ambitious, and feel quite ashamed when I become envious at other people's success at things I don't succeed at. Maybe because I also want to believe I have limits to my ambition -- I'd rather have a well-balanced life than move every 2-3 years, like this jackass seems to have bounced around. Maybe because I have a particular antipathy to people like him who hold up some particular aspect of their supposed intellectual profile -- their knowledge of theory, for example -- as a way to knock down any number of other scholars.
Ambition, I find, often tends to make people believe in a zero-sum game -- that there are only so many good things out there, and that if someone else gets one of them, that means I lose. It's a manner of thinking I find despicable in others, but especially so because I have a capacity for that kind of thinking.
Sigh.
I find nothing wrong with ambition, I just think it is a very personal matter for each person. I don't know you well, but wouldn't being a one of the scholars that other refer to when working in similar subjects as you do be enough? Is such a goal really a zero-sum game? Up to a point, yes, since resources are not infinite. But one can always manage to find something. Do you really need to make it to Harvard (as opposed to, say, Ohio State University)to become that respected person?
ReplyDeleteRegarding this person in particular, his personality is obviously the most annoying thing. And despite what I said in my post, I am not so sure he'll make it to the very top. At one point, the dispersion in his scholarship will show. Even if he keeps publishing books. And for dispersion, I am not saying he publishes on contemporary Spanish literature and on Unamuno. No, I mean XIXth century Spanish poetry, Medieval literature, Latino theater, Contemporary Queer Bolivian literature and Feminist Argentine Cinema (of course, I am making up the topics, but they are that wide)...I wouldn't trust his list of publication just by looking at it.