If Academia Operated Like the Professional Sports Universe

The recent Manny Ramirez saga, which culminated yesterday afternoon when the Red Sox traded him for fifty cents on the dollar to the Los Angeles Dodgers, has made me wonder: what would the world be like if academia operated like the professional sports universe? As Peter Gammons has explained, the Sox realized [...]

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Is the Academic Monograph an Endangered Species?

In the United States, a system of just 88 university presses support and maintain the entire process of tenure and promotion for scholars working in the arts and humanities disciplines. I learned this a couple weeks ago at a depressing talk by Stephen Wrinn, Director of the University Press of Kentucky. Wrinn’s discussion attempted [...]

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The Bleak State of a Career in an English Department

Every year around Christmas time there’s one thing I look forward to getting more than anything else:  my MLA Profession volume.  Each year, the Modern Language Association (MLA) publishes a volume that summarizes the state of scholarship in English Departments and attempts to assess the plight of humanities scholarship.
This year’s issue is especially compelling, and [...]

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