You know... little things like what I'm going to share right now just make me hate academia more and more. It's just a wretched little field whose "pop stars" are as out of reach as the rich and famous actual pop stars out there. The rest of us are just stupid folks who misguidedly decided to pursue an academic degree.
A field in which people with Ph.D.s are so DESPERATE that they have to compete against each other to get into paltry adjunct jobs. Gah...
Anyway, following yesterday's quick conversation with K (I wrote a post, didn't post it yet because it's still unfinished) I decided to be a bit proactive today and I wrote a nice email to a big shot person in my field whose name I cited countless times in my dissertation and who lives and works here in the area. My otherwise use-less advisor had previously discouraged me from contacting this person, and maybe he was onto something -- useful at last, too bad I went ahead and tried. The response was that he gets countless emails like mine and that he cannot meet or talk or check my dissertation out. Of course! Why should he? Academics are paid only do do their own work and, maybe, help out a bit with their advisees, only if it's going to further their own name and fame.
I do have a happier story about another academic who responded with a lovely email, but I'm pretty sure that this other academic is an EXCEPTION to the rule.
Why bother? Even if I published a book with my dissertation people still wouldn't read it because academic discussions are irrelevant in the real world and those involved in them sometimes aren't serious enough to do real research and check out what other people have to say. This person -- whose sweeping claims parts of my dissertation totally unmask and almost unprove -- suggested I publish papers instead (and then, I suspect, he might still not read them).
I just cannot stomach sending countless emails to department chairs of all universities and colleges in this area (and there are plenty of them) offering my newly minted Ph.D. expertise just to receive responses like this one. It would be just too devastating.
Yeah, I'm overly sensitive. I know that. But why would I deliberately hurt myself this way? Just so MAYBE someone can come forward and offer me an ill-paying adjunct position? Is it even worth it?
Never mind!!!
Wow -- the response you received from the "star" in your field is outrageously pompous. At the very least, he could have given you the token pat on the head and sent you on your way with a kind word or two. What a jerk. I'm sorry you've had that experience, Lilian.
ReplyDeleteI've been told to send specific chapters, always with abstracts, to any of the "stars" I want to contact in my field. Maybe that would work better?
ReplyDeleteThe whole thing is enormously frustrating. I had a really bad summer, dissertation-wise. Waited for THREE MONTHS to hear from my supervisor about whether I was still in the program -- and I'm pretty sure he STILL hasn't carefully read the piece of writing I sent him. Granted I set myself up for some of this (long stretch with no contact while I finished this busy-work writing he demanded) but it was frustrating beyond measure not to know what was going to happen next.