I Really, *Really* Love My Dissertation & one more useless rant against the (humanities) academic establishment

Note: this is a rant that might not be of interest to non-academics. Academics may not care for it either since I'm mostly a "lazy" non-academic right now, critical of the establishment as most of us in the margins or outside are. So, let's just say I'm writing this primarily for myself because I need to rant once in a while. Thanks.

I know I'm repeating myself -- I often do here in this blog, my apologies to you my readers -- but it's true, I really love my dissertation and I care deeply about its subject. In addition, I think it's a good dissertation, all 511 pages of it. A great contribution to its field.

And all this, first the fact that I continue to care and second, and, most importantly, the fact that it is a contribution, makes me is very, very sad and hopeless. I'm nearly reduced to tears every (rare) time I open the PDF file and read some of it. No, I do not have a hard copy of this most significant piece of work that took me ten years to bring to its final form (it began as a paper I wrote in 1998 and I defended it in 2008).

Why am I deeply saddened about this? Because the way academia works is CRUEL. Nobody really cares for anyone else's work unless it's published in countless peer-reviewed journals and somehow, catches people's attention. Then, if you're lucky, a BIG NAME in the field that you mention in your dissertation might read something and write something either citing you or, maybe, if you're really really good, respond. Even if one's work comes to be published as a book, it may still be a meaningless achievement because if not enough scholars are interested in the subject matter, nobody will even know it was published or read it. It's just, well, the "ivory tower." You either work with something "fashionable" or you're a "non-person."

Of course I'm using all this as an excuse and the truth is that I'm DOING NOTHING about it (OK, I am LIVING. I just spent a whole year cyber schooling my sons and before then I was working at the school).

I did present my dissertation results at various national and international conference, but I have concluded that conference presentations are mostly USELESS!! They are just lines on CVs for the presenters. No true dialog takes place, only amongst people who already know each other and who organized panels and picked the presenters -- not for unknown newcomers. Of course one can try to use these conferences to network and become part of already established groups, but that's hard. The only professional association I had any success with this was the Children's Literature Association, but who cares about children's literature anyway? (thankfully my former dissertation advisor does and he helped me write my dissertation chapter about this subject). As I've said here before, I got lots of "blank stares" when presenting since I guess what I did was just completely outlandish and related to a literature that is not very studied here in the U.S.

I haven't tried to publish, especially because my easiest way to publication would be to try and publish my dissertation as a book in Brazil and publish articles there, but I am not living in Brazil right now, nor do I intend to return, so that wouldn't help me at all to be more known in the Academic community in the United States.

It is impossible, really, trust me, to get a tenure track job in my area that would enable me to continue doing the research that I love. Nor would I want a TT job (remember, I like to live a little bit?). Besides, I've concluded that I don't want a TT job. Too much pressure, too much politics...

The only thing I'm left with is teaching classes here and there as an adjunct and maybe, if I'm lucky, in the future as a full-time lecturer. Teaching most probably won't allow time for research and that's about it.

So, yeah, that's some of the explanation as to why I read my dissertation and it makes me cry. So much time and energy spent for nothing really. OK, that's wrong, I'm being melodramatic and whiny. I learned lots and lots and my committee members did too. Another problem is that mentorship is definitely not a forte of my home institution and my committee members, so I didn't have much help in that respect.

All hope is NOT lost, though, my friends, because there is the internet!!! What I want to do someday is to have a website in which I display my research results. I've also said that before here, so my apologies again for the repetition. But I hope I can find alternate ways to undermine that cruel hold that academia has on knowledge and research. There must be alternate avenues to take knowledge even further than peer-reviewed research can. Sigh.

Do you know what it feels like sometimes? It feels like I'm this puny creature fighting against a huge, complex machine whose processes just got out of hand and outdated, but who still holds power over us. The academic machine. The meat-grinder tenure process. Etc. There are countless pages in the web criticizing it. My husband thinks that the few that I read (mostly personal blogs and some Chronicle articles) have simply poisoned me and made me have a negative view of everything. We cannot talk about this. He feels I am the one making all my problems up. Am I, really? I know I'm whiny and all, and that I haven't tried -- mostly because I don't see how even trying would take me anywhere. So, yeah, maybe I'm really wrong.

In any case, K is lucky to be in a field in which one can still do significant work and be recognized and even apply and get interviews and offers. Because the in the humanities? It's a wild, depressing, world out there. So, yeah... I guess I should just not look at my dissertation anymore.

Why did I even do it? A nice blog reader who teaches Spanish decided to use one of my posts (the one about the census and being or not Hispanic) in a teaching presentation she's going to do for a conference (maybe I should check this conference up!) and she's also using a picture book I wrote about in my dissertation, so I offered to email her the PDF, which she (thankfully) accepted. I hope she enjoys the part about the picture book. It feels great to be able to help someone, particularly through the blog. Now, if they can even be helped by my dissertation, that will be even nicer! Maybe someday it will be useful for something after all.