Query:

I’m a very-early-career academic.  In my present situation, I don’t perceive any bias against Christian perspectives.  But I do see such bias in the academy at large, and fear that my chances to get hired at a good university will be hampered by having worked in the past at a Christian college, by being a man, and by being white-skinned.  If you have suggestions for how I could mitigate these biases against me in my applications, I would be interested to learn.

 

Reply:

As you point out, you’ve got three strikes against you.  Worse, the pernicious notion of “intersectionality” will move a lot of academics to hit you with an aggregate bias which is greater than the sum of its three parts.  In general, anyone facing such bias has to be triply good to receive equal treatment.  That’s just a fact of life.  So you will have to work very hard.

But you know that already – and maybe having to work hard isn’t a bad thing.  Let’s see if I can offer some practical suggestions.  First, a small one:

I see from your curriculum vitae that you’ve published a large number of book reviews.  This has advantages and disadvantages.  Reviews may bring your name to the attention of other scholars, especially the authors of the books you review.  They are also much easier to get published than articles in the same journals.  On the other hand, they carry a lot less cachet than articles, and a really good review essay can easily take just as much work to write as an article – sometimes even more.  Consider redirecting some of your energy toward articles and books.  Take this suggestion with a grain of salt, because whether it’s good advice or bad depends partly on your own work patterns.  For instance, I myself find writing book reviews much more onerous than writing articles, and I find getting articles published much more onerous than getting books published.  But you may not.

Now, as to broader strategies:

I see from your CV that you make a lot of presentations at conferences.  In your position, that’s very good, not just because of the exchange of ideas, but also because it gives you an opportunity to discover likeminded scholars at other institutions and make contact with them.  Do that aggressively.  The importance of networking can hardly be exaggerated.  By the way, when you present a paper, don’t depend on the presentation itself to make you known to other scholars.  Step up and introduce yourself personally.   Be frank about your professional goals.  When possible, find out about the background of the person to whom you are speaking ahead of time – after all, you want him to become interested in your work, so you should return the courtesy by being interested in his.

You would also do well to attend not only secular professional association meetings, but also explicitly Christian professional association meetings.  I don’t say that you necessarily list the Christian meetings on your curriculum vitae!  Such fellowship is encouraging in itself.  Moreover, a number of the Christians with whom you will come in contact at such meetings themselves work in secular institutions such as public universities, and may know of opportunities which would interest you.

To make contacts with congenial scholars at universities at which you might like to work, don't depend only on meeting them at conferences.  You can also write to attendees whose work interests you ahead of a conference, saying “I find what you’ve written interesting, and I see that you’re going to be presenting at the So-and-So-Conference.  So am I.  Would you care to have coffee together while we’re there?”  You can also make what salesmen consider “cold calls,” meaning that you write to other scholars without a pretext like an upcoming conference, just because of shared interests.  At a certain stage in correspondence, you can mention (if it would be true), “Say, I’m working on a paper on such and such, and I think you would be an ideal reader.  Would you be willing to glance at it and tell me what you think?”  Be prepared to return the favor.  If you are going to be passing through town, you can even get in touch ahead of time and ask whether it might be possible to get together for a cup of java, or even for lunch.

Your field is English literature.  Such is the corrupted condition of English literature scholarship these days that it may be virtually impossible to get a position in an English department at an institution which you would find interesting.  So what?  You can cast your net more broadly.  At a number of universities, new academic institutes are being organized, not inside of the “line” departments, but alongside them.  Commonly these institutes offer courses and talks about great books, social and political order, philosophy, and all sorts of things universities used to find important but have come to neglect – things which you may be qualified and even pleased to teach.  Occasionally – but this is rarer – it can also happen that a person trained in one discipline is able to capture a niche position in a department of another discipline.  For example, a historian might cross over to a classics department, or an English literature specialist might hybridize a history department.

Now let me elaborate on that idea of casting your net more broadly.  Perhaps I can rattle your thinking a little more.  I’m pirating some the following remarks from a much earlier blog post which most readers probably haven’t read.

When I was in grad school, young people interested in the liberal arts assumed that there was one main way to pursue the life of the mind:  To become an academic – to become a college or university professor.  For four reasons, the assumption is no longer a safe one.  The first two reasons are unhappy ones.  The third is mixed.  The fourth is very happy, so this little disquisition will have a good ending.  But stay with me.

First (an unhappy reason):  University colleges of liberal arts are becoming less and less hospitable to the kinds of scholarship which used to be their hallmark.  Officially, it’s a good thing to study the great literature and thought of the ages and try to extend its insights, and officially, it’s what we all try to do -- but the very phrase “Western civilization” makes many university faculty these days spit like cats.  Officially, the university adheres to no religion -- but the unofficial religion is practical atheism, meaning that you can believe what you want so long as you don’t act as though you believe it matters.  Officially, it enforces no moral code -- but it adheres strongly to what Benedict XVI called the dictatorship of relativism.  In the meantime, fewer and fewer students can read any more at what used to be called a university level.  College is like high school.  Susceptibility to nervousness is considered a reason to be excused from the test.  Academic standards are plummeting.  Teachers who buck the trend are punished with bad reviews, or even disciplinary action.  If you like that sort of thing, you will fit in quite well as a professor.  But if you don’t, you may find it difficult.

Second (another unhappy reason):  The university is hardly a “university” in the original sense any more, because few of its citizens and subjects still believe in the universal truths which tie together all fields of knowledge, and which are the universal calling of all intellects to try to find out.  Having discarded its original mission, the institution tries desperately to justify itself by taking on odd jobs instead.  Some of these odd jobs are worthwhile, but in each case someone else could do it much better or more cheaply.  For instance, granted the merit of football, why do we need a university to field a team?  Granted the merit of job training, why is a university needed to teach recreational administration?  Granted that a certificate of employability might be a good thing, what makes a university the best certifier, or even a good certifier?  Granted the need for military and industrial research, couldn’t it be done by the military and by industry?  And granted the need to prepare young people for adult responsibilities, is assembling them in vast numbers for four years, isolated from those very responsibilities, surrounded with temptations to party, really the best way to do it?  The answer in each case is obvious:  No.

Third (a mixed reason):  As the rest of society begins to catch on that there is no good reason to have a single institution perform all the odd jobs it has accumulated, other parties are peeling those odd jobs off and taking them over, one by one.  For this reason, it seems unlikely that the current state of affairs can long continue, especially because it is highly inefficient and increasingly expensive.  Universities have become like collections of unrelated objects tied together with thread, and the thread is coming loose.  On balance, I suppose this counts as a good thing rather than a bad one, because the thread ought to come loose.  But in the meantime, the unravelling it is going to cause a lot of pain.

Finally comes the unequivocally happy reason for changing how one thinks about a life of scholarship.  In fact, if one takes a long enough view of things, it is very happy indeed.  Just because the universities are abandoning their original mission, persons who do believe in that mission are seeking other ways to take it up.  Intellectual organizations of strange and diverse form are popping up in unexpected places.  Some have resident scholars, others don’t.  Some take students, others don’t.  Some are under the shelter of the Church, others aren’t.  There is no blueprint for this sort of thing.  It is all an experiment and adventure, with lots of disappointments and a few beautiful successes.  Figuring out how to make a living at it isn’t easy, but there are all sorts of ideas – and besides, it doesn’t have to be your day job!  Historically, most scholars haven’t worked in universities.

So although for now, most young people who are genuinely called to scholarship will continue to seek university employment, this will change.  You may consider intellectually serious work in another kind of institution.  Even if you remain within a traditional university, you will have to get sea legs, because you will have to keep your footing on a rolling deck.

Be imaginative.  Be entrepreneurial.  Try things.  Exchange ideas with others.  Have respect for the old gatekeepers, but look for ways to get around them too.  Find new ways to organize communities of serious thought.  After all, that’s how universities began in the first place.  Who knows?  Eventually, universities may even be reinvented, though I don’t expect that to happen in our time.

Head up!  Eyes ahead!  Forward!