#karen kelsky

[aliteraryprincess]

Celebratory Book Haul!

Since my dissertation prospectus is finished and turned in, I treated myself to $50 worth of books. Husband isn't happy with me. But I am!😆

Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis

Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher

The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis

The Night Dance by Suzanne Weyn

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C. S. Lewis

The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison

The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis

The Professor Is In by Karen Kelsky

The Last Battle by C. S. Lewis

[drdemonprince]

what would you recommend if it's already too late for me and I got a useless master's degree and am struggling to find work with it? it's been over 6 months of job searching and the only work I have is an exploitative part time RA job that I can't support myself with and is just burning me out more, I'm exhausted and have health problems due to the stress of being in academia, I have loans that are already in repayment, I'm autistic and don't interview well but lately I haven't even been getting interviews and idk I'm just at a loss. if I knew when I'd get a new job I'd quit this shitty one just to give myself a break but it's my only source of income rn and yeah I have some savings but if it takes another 6 months or more to find a job I'd be fucked. anyway this turned into a vent post but yeah totally agree that anyone thinking of grad school should seriously reconsider. I wish I had (although being in a similar situation 5 years ago with no job prospects after undergrad and being unemployed for a year was what pushed me to do more schooling in the first place)

I'm so sorry you're in this situation. I really would recommend checking out Karen Kelsky's blog -- she has a ton of resources there for current & former academics who need help making their academic credentials more palatable to employers outside of universities. She does offer coaching and resume/cover letter editing services too, though I'm hesitant to recommend you spending any additional money when you've already been screwed over and you're not making enough to cover the bills. For now, just check out all of her advice on her blog, and maybe pirate a copy of her book of libgen.is -- it will take a while to reorient your perspective away from what academia has drilled into you, but you will get free of this and learn to see yourself in a way completely independent from your academic life, believe me, and life will be better.

[luxe-pauvre]

MAY 2024

Read:

I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream: The Terror of Tamagotchi

How to set yourself free with ritual

We are all caught in a pessimism trap but there is a way out

Her body is a problem

The Everything Virus

How to Future

Libraries, A Love Story

The Anxiety of Difficulty

Thinking Like a Scientist Will Make You Happier

Why Won’t Academia Let Go of ‘Publish or Perish’?

On the moral responsibility to be an informed citizen

Don’t be stoic: Roman Stoicism’s origins show its perniciousness

How Do We Get People Who Believe in Pseudoscience to Trust Science?

The Professor Is In by Karen Kelsky

Watched:

Priscilla and the Plight of Women(’s Biopics)*

The Double-Edge of Beauty Explored Through Malèna

The Beautiful Illusion of Cozy Games

Challengers

Belfast

Wicked Little Letters

Eileen

Poor Things

Listened To:

Good Luck, Babe! by Chappell Roan

Challengers (Original Score)**

Challengers [MIXED]

Went To:

Swan Lake @ the Royal Opera House

[post-academic]

Every year in the United States, universities produce more and more Ph.D. graduates in an ever-shrinking academic job market. Many are saddled with hundreds of thousands in debt and left to teach part time at such low rates that many qualify for food stamps. Why does this happen and why do bright students continue to fall for it? Dr. Karen Kelsky, renowned academic expert and owner of The Professor Is In, answers these questions in this engaging and enlightening talk.

[bbtwords]

So write.... Not like a girl. Not like a boy. Write like a motherfucker.

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar Cheryl Strayed Quoted in Conclusion: Declaring Independence, The Professor Is In by Karen Kelsky

[cancerbiophd]

“the professor is in: the essential guide to turning your phd into a job” by karen kelsky is a really great resource for both prospective and current phd students in every field (humanities, social sciences, and STEM). it’s probably the most thorough advice book for phd students i’ve encountered and covers everything from choosing the best thesis advisor to grant writing tips to how to apply for post-docs and interview tips and much more. as the title suggests, it does lean more towards those wishing to stay in academia to become assistant professors and such, but there are still good tidbits for those going into non-academia careers (and the advice given for grad school in general is applicable to everyone). 

i highly recommend checking it out, no matter where you are in your grad school career! even as a seasoned grad student about to graduate i still found a lot of helpful tips in there (as you can tell by my stickies). 

[hawtchocolate]

I’ve been reading this cool book, The Professor Is In by Dr. Karen Kelsky, about understanding the faculty job search process in academia. She’s a little more focused on humanities than life science, but covers both fairly well, and I took away a few really good tips from her!

[mediaeval-muse]

Reads of 2020: The Good, the Bad, and the Meh

Reflecting on what I read this year, and I thought I��d share my thoughts with you. I noticed that I read a lot of bad or middling books in 2020, and I didn’t read as much as I usually do (I’m guessing it’s because I finished my PhD, moved to a new state, and had a lot of mental health struggles). So, in no particular order, here’s a recap of what I managed to accomplish:

The Good: Books I Loved

Fiction

Piranesi by Susanna Clarke

The Empire of Gold by S. A. Chakraborty

A Choir of Lies by Alexandra Rowland

The Countess Conspiracy by Courtney Milan

After the Wedding by Courtney Milan

The Masqueraders by Georgette Heyer

Unveiled by Courtney Milan

The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

Spin the Dawn by Elizabeth Lim

Poetry

The Unstill Ones by Miller Oberman

Non-Fiction

Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit

Humankind by Rutger Bregman

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber

The Unidentified by Colin Dickey

Rebel Angels: Sovereignty and Space in Anglo-Saxon England by Jill Fitzgerald

The Professor is In by Karen Kelsky

Utopia for Realists by Rutger Bregman

Borrowed Objects and the Art of Poetry by Denis Ferhatovic

God: A Human History by Reza Aslan

The Meh: Books I Enjoyed, but Am Not Raving About

Fiction

Ring Shout by P. Djèlí Clark

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

A Touch of Stone and Snow by Milla Vane

Lacrimore by SJ Costello

Mirage by Somaiya Daud

Fortune Favors the Wicked by Theresa Romain

Butterfly Swords by Jeannie Lin

Domu: A Child’s Dream by Katsuhiro Otomo

The Sea by Villadsen Rikke

Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer

Once Upon a Marquess by Courtney Milan

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

The Bourbon Thief by Tiffany Reisz

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley

Unclaimed by Courtney Milan

Talk Sweetly to Me by Courtney Milan

The Heiress Effect by Courtney Milan

The Red Tent by Anita Diamant

The Monster of Elendhaven by Jennifer Giesbrecht

Non-Fiction

The Fall of the Faculty by Benjamin Ginsberg

Know My Name by Chanel Miller

Cranioklepty by Colin Dickey

The Bad: Books that Let Me Down

Fiction

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Bride by Mistake by Anne Gracie

Not Quite a Husband by Sherry Thomas

Paladin’s Grace by T. Kingfisher

Unravel the Dusk by Elizabeth Lim

In Search of Scandal by Susanne Lord

The Raven’s Tale by Cat Winters

Wicked Intentions by Elizabeth Hoyt

A Dangerous Invitation by Erica Monroe

Prosper’s Demon by KJ Parker

Death in an Ivory Tower by Maria Hudgins

Gawain by Gwen Rowley

Non-Fiction

So What are You Going to Do With That? by Susan Casalla

[eloneblog]

Clear template on how to approach grant writing by Karen Kelsky.

[aliteraryprincess]

November Wrap Up

Where exactly did November go? At least this one is posted in a timely manner...

Books Read: 8

I had a much better reading month than October, thank goodness. My favorite of the month was The Professor Is In, though Deathless is a close second. The worst of the month was "Brother Jacob." And for some reason I subjected myself to rereading Midnight Sun and dealing with Edward's angsty narration again. I don't know why I did that, but it held up at 3 stars. Books marked with ® are rereads.

The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide to Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job by Karen Kelsky - 5 stars

Wolfsong by T. J. Klune - 3 stars

Lovely Bad Things by Trisha Wolfe - 4 stars

"Brother Jacob" by George Eliot - 2 stars

Deathless by Catherynne M. Valente - 5 stars

The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz - 4 stars

The Equivocal Virtue: Mrs. Oliphant and the Victorian Literary Market Place by Vineta and Robert A. Colby - 2 stars

Midnight Sun by Stephenie Meyer - 3 stars ®

On Tumblr:

Have some lists and cute animal photos. That's all I've got for you. And I guess the incredibly late October wrap up. 🤷‍♀️

October 2023 Wrap Up

Cat Photography: Sleepy ❤️

Dog Photography: Willow

Nonfiction aliteraryprincess Has Read - Updated 2023

aliteraryprincess' Nonfiction Shelf

Books aliteraryprincess Has Read by the Same Author - Updated 2023

On YouTube:

There's not as much here as usual. I just was not in the mood to film whenever I did have a free moment. I usually opted to nap instead. Maybe it's the seasonal depression setting in.

The End of the Year Book Tag 2023

Victober Wrap Up

September to November Book Haul

Currently Reading 11/17/23

The George Eliot Project: Brother Jacob

What I Read for My PhD in English Literature: Comics and Graphic Narrative

[drdemonprince]

speaking of graduate school, shoutout to the postdoc in my first year of undergrad who basically told me it was a bad idea for me to get my phd bc there was not much i could do with it except be stuck making minimal money as a postdoc like her ��� at the time it upset me & now i am thankful for that & that i was able to switch my major & not get an advanced degree

I want to prevent everyone that i can from getting run into the ground and scammed. Every wannabe academic, read The Professor is In by Karen Kelsky. The vaunted ivory tower career you have envisioned for yourself does not exist, and you will be hurt in the pursuit of it

[greenpeugeot]

Books 1, 2, and 3 of 2017

Strangers in their Own Land, by Arlie Russell Hochschild. Today Will be Different, by Maria Semple. The Professor is In, by Karen Kelsky.

These are the first 3 books I read in 2017. The Kelsky book I read with some current PhD students from the program I graduated from -- it's mostly about finding academic work, which I didn't do, but it was nice to read with hindsight. Kelsky offers really great advice for what to do as PhD student, starting in year one, to set yourself up for tenure track work, but I'm not sure I would have been able to hear or absorb that advice at the start of grad school. She's smart and matter-of-fact and this is good anthropology of academia.

Today Will be Different is nowhere near as good as Where'd you go, Bernadette was. It's pretty unmemorable a couple months later.

Strangers in Their Own Land is by far the best of this batch -- sort of a follow-up read to Hillbilly Elegy in the strain of understanding poor rural America. Hochschild is an outsider, not a memoirist, and her scholarship has been concerned with feeling and empathy for a long time. Here, she seeks to understand why people in rural Louisiana feel an affinity for republicanism and Trumpism, even though they are the worst hit by environmental degradation. The answer is religion, a feeling of suffering as its own kind of marker of virtue, and the metaphor Hoschild puts forward of (white) people "waiting in line" for the American Dream and feeling like they've been cut in front of by women and people of color who they see as gaining more rights and prominence. I'm not sure this book was successful, in that I as a reader don't feel like I have any more understanding of how and why these folks think what they do. The researcher position Hoschild takes makes it impossible for her to argue back; she just has to absorb and report what people tell her.

[classroomsofshame]

SLAC in the Midwest

I once taught at a SLAC in the Midwest as an adjunct. The English comp classroom I was in was only accessible by walking through the gym across the basketball court; you interrupted games and during class you heard “pound pound thud clang pound.” The locker rooms were next door, so the room smelled rancid – hot, sweaty, foul. I asked for a room change, and the only available one was a chem lab in a posh new science building. Smelled great, but big black lab desks weren’t ideal for group discussion. That was my first stint there and I actually had an office with a window. I came back for more.

The second stint my office was literally just the *end of a hallway* in the building I taught where there were some available chairs. When my students wanted to meet they had to email me to set up an appointment to meet me “at the blue chairs.”

For more info on this Tumblr contact Karen Kelsky at gettenure@gmail.com (http://www.theprofessorisin.com)

[bbtwords]

I was indeed angry back then. Because back then, I was living entirely according to the principle of external validation. I was in thrall to the academic cult, which dictates that you have value only if others in authority have validated your work. Your comprehensive exams, your dissertation, your articles, your grant proposals, your book, your job search, your tenure case: All succeed or fail based on the judgment and approval of people above you. The properly socialized academic makes that validation the core of her identity. No wonder the young of the profession are so servile. Dependency on external validation is the enemy of contentment and joy. My process of becoming post-academic has been 100 percent a process of finding my own inner source of validation. My work is valuable because I say it is. This was a brutally hard stance to achieve.

Conclusion: Declaring Independence The Professor Is In Karen Kelsky

[cancerbiophd]

Hello! Thinking of trying to get hold of "The Professor Is In" book - is the advice tailored to graduate school in the US, or would you say it's quite applicable to graduate schools everywhere? Thank you v much in advance ❤️

Hello anon!

Since I haven’t lived through the experience of grad school outside of the US, I’m not sure I can completely answer that question. However, I will say that though the book is written for the American setting (ie. academia in America) by an American (who got her graduate degrees from American universities and thus also does not have international experience), there are still aspects that apply to grad students everywhere, such as tips for conferences, publications, CVs, interviews, etc. It’s also focused heavily on the career steps following a PhD, so it would be very helpful for those looking to move to the US for a post-doc or professorship. 

Here are the table of contents (screenshots from the “Peek Inside!” function on Amazon) that might help a bit in deciding if this book will be applicable to you:

You can also your question to readers of the book on Goodreads, or comb through the reviews to see if anyone mentions its broader non-US applications. 

I’ll also open the floor to anyone in #gradblr who has read The Professor Is In: The Essential Guide To Turning Your Ph.D. Into a Job by Karen Kelsky and can speak to its applicability outside of the US. Thanks in advance!

[andreagilroy]

On My Life

Some of you know about this because we have discussed it in person, and others of you have probably assumed this was the case, but I thought it was time to publicly and explicitly discuss what’s going on with me regarding THE FUTURE when it comes to career options, particularly the dreaded tenure track. This’ll be long, I guess. Read at your own risk.

Simply and shortly, it has been three years and I have applied for nearly one hundred positions in areas such as media studies, visual studies, American studies, cultural studies, contemporary American literature, comparative literature, and, of course, the few comic studies positions that have come up. I have applied across the country and internationally. I received one request for more information. I have never been invited to even one first round interview.

I was the interim head of a program since graduation. In my graduate years, I organized events, including a pedagogy conference. I am a member of a board of a conference in my field. I have letters from three luminaries in my field, two from outside my institution. I have an impeccable teaching record. I have a publication; and in my last round, I had two publications under review. I have multiple conference appearances. I have a strong service record in and outside academia. I had peers and colleagues look over my materials at multiple stages. I admit I did not pay Karen Kelsky hundreds of dollars to look at them.

I admit that I have not applied for every available position. Shaun and I decided long ago that our quality of life meant we would not be willing to live just anywhere. I have not applied for any and every visiting position (though I have applied for many). I did not apply for every adjunct position. I have a hard time, at my age, imagining moving across the country every year for a one-year position only having to start over and do it all again.

I admit that I could be publishing more. I know this, but my focus has always been on teaching and working with my peers in the field, and I think my record reflects this. Unfortunately, in the era of metrics publications are all that matters. I had hoped the excellence in other areas could overcome this, and that the presence of publications and promise of more (there are more on the way, still!) would work. It did not.

So it came to this: I knew the market was affecting my mental health (and thus my physical health) in seriously negative ways. I was spiraling. I felt like I was doing everything right, but getting nowhere. I would see people who I thought I was as good as getting positions, and I didn’t understand it. I was questioning my worth not just as a scholar, but as a human. I have, since I started grad school, fiercely protected my moments of humanity. I have a husband. I get to spend time with him. I get to sleep. I get to be a person. No job should take that away, no matter how much I love it. (I mean, obviously there are crunch times, but, you know what I’m saying). So I realized that I had to step away.

I realized that I could still find ways to teach outside of the tenure track. It would be hard and different, but I could do it. That’s one reason I’ve started my YouTube channel. Not everyone gets access to Comics Studies 101 in college. Maybe they can online! I’m also hoping to find ways to work with teachers at all levels who hope to teach comics, to help them teach comics better. I know there’s a demand for this in a lot of middle and high school classrooms. I know, based on my experience at conventions, people outside the college classroom want to discuss comics and fandom in serious ways. Helping out with Miss Anthology has been one of the most enriching experiences of the past few years. I look forward to finding ways more to do this kind of work.

I have also, in some of my alternative positions, remembered my wealth of other skills. I am very good at administrative and organizational tasks. I am LOVING my current work as an associate curator on the Marvel Show opening soon at MoPop. I would love to continue exploring this, for sure!

For that last three years, I have been stringing together one-term or one-year gigs with the hope it might lead to something permanent. Now, I know it won’t. I can work temporary teaching gigs knowing it is on my terms. There are problems with the “gig economy” – a lot of them – but I am happier knowing that I am working in an uncertain world -on my terms- rather than chasing some imagined carrot that may never materialize.

We also really like it here in the PNW. And for someone wanting to be involved in the comics world, it’s the place to be. I like working with creators and creatives, with people working directly in publishing (maybe someday I’ll get involved in that, too). I hope to continue to teach in the classroom, too—there are, after all, two comics programs right nearby and I’m qualified…no other area in the nation can say that! I’m happy to pick up classes (I’ll be doing one this summer for UO, in fact). I’m not giving up on teaching, just on tenure-track academia.

Anyway, that’s where I’m at!