I was a bit surprised that Stephen Trachtenberg chose to ignore my second invitation to talk about the plight of the majority faculty–those who serve contingently–and, instead, indulged in a speculative ad hominem flight of fancy that ends with inviting me to leave the academy!
I’m sorry Mr. Bousquet is so unhappy in the academy… Surely so articulate a man could do many things. I disliked being a lawyer so I found an alternative career.
For the record, I’m _very_ happy in the academy. Like the hundreds of thousands of academic unionists and many others, I’m willing to stay and fight to make this a place where administrations don’t reside in mansions on half-million dollar salaries when an impoverished faculty are standing in line for free cheese.
I don’t think going ad hominem was wise for Stephen, who will recognize in that last sentence a reference to his own housing and salary while he was fighting the unionization of adjunct faculty at GWU, ending in the judgement by a Bush-packed NLRB that his administration had broken the law in its creative efforts to justify its refusal to bargain with the legally-elected representative of the faculty, SEIU.
In part III of my reply, unless Stephen has something substantial to say about the actual issues of actual faculty, I’ll say more about contingency at GWU. In Part IV, I’ll explain the concept of “feminization” of sectors of the workforce, and how it affects gender equity. Either in that part or a follow-up, I’ll discuss the tired old canard that “the market” is the reason male-dominated disciplines have fat salaries. (In a nutshell: markets are socially constructed–corporations are the first to complain when they feel a “market” needs “adjusting.”)
In the meanwhile, do take a look at part 2 of my interview with Cary Nelson, The Academic Working Poor.
Recently:
- Happy Fourth?
- Poverty In Higher Ed
- What I’m Reading Now
- Meet the Trustees, Part 1: Trustees Behind Bars
- They’ll Be Watching You
- Maybe He Can’t
- Academic Labor Bookshelf
- Job Listing #666
- Psst! Forward this Link to Grad Students
- Don’t Miss COCAL VIII
Comments
This entry was posted on Sunday, February 24th, 2008 at 7:58 pm and is filed under "quality" and other fighting words, Precarity, academic labor system, administrators, corporate university, faculty on food stamps, real institutional sleaze. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Well, I was waiting for this to happen, but it makes me wonder if the Chronicle knew exactly what it was getting into when it invited you to join? Can’t wait for the sequels. I’ve always found the late night/early morning to be a decent time to get work done, given my sleep cycle has been completely messed up by parenting anyway. Does wonders for my mood when blogspatting, too. Apologies for bringing the tone down here earlier!
Dude, you didn’t bring the tone down. Actually, you schooled me in troll management! I’ve been a bit naive, thinking that you could just be patient.
I don’t know how much “work” I’m getting done. These days I’m finding it difficult to concentrate enough to prick even an enormous self-adulatory gasbag.