Last acad year, at a major field conference, I was chatting with a well-respected, Cool Guy (CG) tenured professor who thinks of himself (and in many ways does work) to be an ally. We were talking about our work, bemoaning the job market, etc. Typical conference cocktail chat. /2
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I was a VAP & 2 months past a series of unsuccessful MLA interviews. We talked about how my work fit (or didn’t) in the larger field. Prof CG asked me to recite my elevator pitch. I gave it kind of reluctantly. It’s never fun to recite, especially during a social/cocktail hour /3
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Prof CG listens thoughtfully, then tells me he can “diagnose” problem that made me unsuccessful on the market. Ha, I think, I’m already planning on leaving academia for a host of reasons. But go for it dude. I’m happy to learn how to pitch my research better. /4
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Prof CG looks me up and down and says, “You need to change your look, starting with your glasses and going from there.” I’m pretty taken aback—I thought we were talking about how I frame my research, not my appearance. /5
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He says, “In interviews, you need to look like the fantasy of a scholar.” (Yuck) He gestures to one of my male colleagues. “See him? He looks like the fantasy of a scholar.” He proceeds to tell me how to make myself over to look more like that fantasy. Starting with my glasses./6
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What I want to say is, “Dude, I look like the fantasy of a scholar because I AM that already.” I know I’ve won a big diss prize in my field but am not allowed to tell anyone yet. I know my work is good. I look like a great scholar because I am one. /7
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Instead I say, “You know this is bullshit, right?” He doesn’t understand what I mean, or where it’s directed. He laughs, “Oh yeah, academia is crazy!” /8
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Nah man. What I mean is that what you are saying is BS. It’s sexist BS for me. It also has racist, ableist, ageist, & all kinda of other oppressive and offensive implications. You gotta look like the “fantasy of a scholar”—in other words, like that white dude over there? /9
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Prof CG is tenured. He’s in a position to hire other people. And what he doesn’t seem to grasp is that he’s saying that your work and how you frame it matters much less than whether or not you look the part of someone who belongs. Which, it so happens, means you look like HIM /10
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This is bad enough for someone like me, a white, able-bodied cislady with an upper-middle-class background and a more or less non-regional accent, among other advantages. What does this mean for people who look even less like this guy than I do? /11
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Now, at that time I was already 90% sure I’d be leaving traditional academia. One major reason is that I was very disillusioned by the job search—especially the interview—process, and how it demands folks fit their identities & work into discrete, pre-existing categories. /12
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For me, it was especially off-putting to be told (in interviews, no less) that laying plans to work with communities beyond campus made me a less serious scholar, that even mentioning a desire to incorporate public-facing work somehow rendered my research “less rigorous.” /13
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But ProfCG was getting to a much more fundamental way search committees demand job candidates squeeze their identities into stale, frankly boring-ass boxes we’ve seen many times before. In this case, it was literally about looking like what—who—they’ve SEEN before: themselves./14
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I could’ve pretended not to care about partnering w larger publics in my interviews.
, but easy. Yet no matter what I changed—my stated goals, glasses, whatever—I would never look like the “fantasy” given as example: a man. Specifically, a straight white able-bodied cisman/15Näytä tämä ketju -
I’ll reiterate what I told Prof CG: this is bullshit. Let me be specific, though, for anyone out there hiring now or in the future. This is BS because it is unjust, and because it’s bad for the field, for the humanities, for higher ed, and for society in general. /16
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You’re going to eliminate a LOT of fascinating, innovative possibilities if you dismiss candidates who don’t look like your own “fantasies,” who look different than those who’ve been hired before. You’re doing your students, colleagues, & intellectual future a huge disservice/17
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So for anyone on a search committee out there: if you care about justice and inclusivity—if you care about the future of your field—open your imagination a little. The next great scholar may well look like someone you’ve never yet dreamed of even in your wildest “fantasies.” /end
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P.S. btw: I do believe Prof CG was acting in good faith, giving what likely was solid, if demoralizing, job market advice. But he didn't seem to fathom how it might be a problem, or serve to replicate so many structural inequalities that he and many academics purport to oppose.
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