The continuing saga
So, got my QE scheduled for the 29th of this month. Finally got the guy who wouldn't answer my emails to answer my emails. I think I must have pestered the right person. Whatever...
That means that I'm now on my comps, which is its own whole bag of worms. The problem is that there's this one guy in my school who does something kind of like what I do. Actually really a lot like what I do. Moreover, he's the kind of person with weight--as in, letter of rec, knows a bunch of editors for top journals, dines with the president (and the guy in charge of Germany), kind of weight. He's pretty much a rock star.
...and of course, that means that he has one hour of office hours a week (when he's in country), he doesn't respond to phone messages, or answer emails. So, I'm torn. Do I toadie up, sit outside his office with the five or six female grad students (he's handsome and speaks in a soft voice with an unidentifiable middle European accent that gives him the air of a Monte Carlo-ian prince; basically, the stuff of female grad students wet dreams), wait for him, stalk him, do whatever it takes to get him on my committee in the hopes of the crumbs that this guy is likely to let fall from the table. After all, the situation as it stands now, I imagine, is some herald of how he will act in the future as well.
Or do I, instead, go with the faculty guy in the German department who kind of does what I do, and who is approachable. I don't know people. I'm white, male, and straight. In most other industries this would make me the man, but in the humanities, I am the un-marginalized "other." In other words, I am without an edge in the most populated fields of English possible (20th century American Literature). I'd really like to have an edge.
That means that I'm now on my comps, which is its own whole bag of worms. The problem is that there's this one guy in my school who does something kind of like what I do. Actually really a lot like what I do. Moreover, he's the kind of person with weight--as in, letter of rec, knows a bunch of editors for top journals, dines with the president (and the guy in charge of Germany), kind of weight. He's pretty much a rock star.
...and of course, that means that he has one hour of office hours a week (when he's in country), he doesn't respond to phone messages, or answer emails. So, I'm torn. Do I toadie up, sit outside his office with the five or six female grad students (he's handsome and speaks in a soft voice with an unidentifiable middle European accent that gives him the air of a Monte Carlo-ian prince; basically, the stuff of female grad students wet dreams), wait for him, stalk him, do whatever it takes to get him on my committee in the hopes of the crumbs that this guy is likely to let fall from the table. After all, the situation as it stands now, I imagine, is some herald of how he will act in the future as well.
Or do I, instead, go with the faculty guy in the German department who kind of does what I do, and who is approachable. I don't know people. I'm white, male, and straight. In most other industries this would make me the man, but in the humanities, I am the un-marginalized "other." In other words, I am without an edge in the most populated fields of English possible (20th century American Literature). I'd really like to have an edge.
posted by Monstro D. Whale at
7:46 AM
2 Comments:
I know, not from experience or anything similar, that you can change at least two of the three thing that you listed and give yourself an edge if that is what you are after...
Actually, I could get two edges with the same knife. I'm also not physically challenged (or mentally as far as I know
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