"Rock In A Hat," Or "How Everyone Gets It Wrong"

[Bought Yahoo]

I'm sure Bill is a wonderful guy and would be a wonderful student in one of your classics classes.

[Kishkumen]

I'm sure Bill is a wonderful guy and would be a wonderful student in one of your classics classes.

Um, OK.

[Bought Yahoo]

I have said before that I wished I could have been a professor of classics. When I read Paradise Lost and Inferno I am hopelessly lost and feel stupid.

[Kishkumen]

I have said before that I wished I could have been a professor of classics. When I read Paradise Lost and Inferno I am hopelessly lost and feel stupid.

Being a professor these days isn't all it once was. For one thing, academia has changed quite a bit, and not for the better. But you already know that. When I got into this profession, my idea of it was way behind the times. I had a silly, romanticized, and altogether inaccurate view of what it would be to be a professor of Classics. If I could move to a different discipline at this point, I might do it. It is not that I feel any different about the material. The subject matter is wonderful. What I don't care so much for is the politics of the field. I am trying to hang on, publishing where possible, and then checking out as soon as I can retire. Academia pretty much blows chunks these days.

[Bought Yahoo]

I'd like to see a book about Paradise Lost for persons unfamilar with classical references.

[Philo Sofee]

I'd like to see a book about Paradise Lost for persons unfamilar with classical references.

Ok, but it'll be short. Man came to earth, wrecked it and lost Paradise.

[Physics Guy]

Being a professor these days isn't all it once was. For one thing, academia has changed quite a bit, and not for the better. But you already know that. When I got into this profession, my idea of it was way behind the times. I had a silly, romanticized, and altogether inaccurate view of what it would be to be a professor of Classics. If I could move to a different discipline at this point, I might do it. It is not that I feel any different about the material. The subject matter is wonderful. What I don't care so much for is the politics of the field. I am trying to hang on, publishing where possible, and then checking out as soon as I can retire. Academia pretty much blows chunks these days.

I’m pretty bummed about online teaching right now, but on the whole I’m still very happy to have this job. It’s about what I hoped it would be during all the years I tried to land it.

As far as politics in the field goes, it can be frustrating that getting published in the top-ranked journals often seems to require following trends. But you can get reasonable work published in a reasonable journal even if you’re following a different drummer, I think. So it’s not too bad.

I’ve sometimes wondered whether the larger units of publication in the humanities—books rather than our quite short papers—might make publication more political. A book has more to which someone might object while a paper is small enough that people are more willing to let you have it.

Or is it something else?