I'm a lit major and I realized literature professors have the comfiest lifestyle I have ever seen.
How do I become one? I mean specifically what exact steps do I have to take and hoops to jump through that will give me near 100% expectation of getting a job professing literature? I don't even care if it's at a low-tier institution.
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Get treated like shit and have hardly any job security while working on your tenure. then youre set. also a Doctorate
>have hardly any job security while working on your tenure
So basically it's politics. Oh well thanks for the honesty.
you don't know if is talking out of his ass, and you thank him for his honesty?
go do some actual research
I mean I know the formal procedure but what are the practical challenges and actual odds of landing a job.
get a phd and end up as an adjunct making $15k a year while working part time at a fast food place to feed yourself
Well he was correct, so not much research needs to be done
Let me help you, user.
"The academic study of literature leads basically nowhere, as we all know, unless you happen to be an especially gifted student, in which case it prepares you for a career teaching the academic study of literature – it is, in other words, a rather farcical system that exists solely to replicate itself and yet manages to fail more than 95 per cent of the time. Still, it’s harmless, and can even have a certain marginal value. A young woman applying for a sales job at Céline or Hermès should naturally attend to her appearance above all; but a degree in literature can constitute a secondary asset, since it guarantees the employer, in the absence of any useful skills, a certain intellectual agility that could lead to professional development – besides which, literature has always carried positive connotations in the world of luxury goods.
"For my part, I knew I was one of those ‘gifted’ few. I’d written a good dissertation and I expected an honourable mention. All the same, I was pleasantly surprised to receive a special commendation, and even more surprised when I saw the committee’s report, which was excellent, practically dithyrambic. Suddenly a tenured position as a senior lecturer was within my reach, if I wanted it. Which meant that my boring, predictable life continued to resemble Huysmans’ a century and a half before. I had begun my adult life at a university and would probably end it the same way, maybe even at the same one (though in fact this wasn’t quite the case: I had taken my degree at the University of Paris IV-Sorbonne and was appointed by Paris III, slightly less prestigious but also in the Fifth Arrondissement, just around the corner).
"I’d never felt the slightest vocation for teaching – and my fifteen years as a teacher had only confirmed that initial lack of calling. What little private tutoring I’d done, to raise my standard of living, soon convinced me that the transmission of knowledge was generally impossible, the variance of intelligence extreme, and that nothing could undo or even mitigate this basic inequality. Worse, maybe, I didn’t like young people and never had, even when I might have been numbered among them. Being young implied, it seemed to me, a certain enthusiasm for life, or else a certain defiance, accompanied in either case by a vague sense of superiority towards the generation that one had been called on to replace. I’d never had those sorts of feelings. I did have some friends when I was young – or, more precisely, there were other students with whom I could contemplate having coffee or a beer between classes and not feel disgust."
suck a truck of academic dicks for 10 years
It is 100% politics, yes.
If you have to ask, you're already out of the running. Sorry bud.
This desu. The ones that end up there have been sucking falli from their first fresh freshman day.
i'm going to reread this, it was great desu
Submission, Michel Houellebecq
Veeky Forums hates academia, so you're not going to find informed responses here. And, those with experience who will tell you one way or another, are weird enough to go on Veeky Forums and have more than likely become disenfranchised with a lot of the social responsibilities involved with pursuing the kinds of career paths they want. Bitter people, overall ignorant of the subject.
n-n-no it's because of the jews
Emma Roberts is a domestic abuser
tmz.com
>you're not going to find informed responses here.
>Bitter people, overall ignorant of the subject.
Oh, and what about you? one of these "i'm better than everyone else but i still shitpost too hmmm no contradiction to see here" types
n-n-no you!!
I imagine you already know the path, PhD and all of that. I guess the biggest thing is a record of publishing frequently and publishing well in your subject area. You'll want a killer dissertation, you'll want to go to the best PhD program possible, etc.
The best thing you can do now is cultivate a relationship with your professors whom you like, in particular three of them so they can be good letters of recommendation. Let them know well ahead of time that you're considering studying literature at the graduate level, they may have some advice to offer.
Also: DO NOT PAY FOR IT. FOLLOW THE FUNDING. If you don't get in on your first try, wait for next year. Don't go into debt for this, even if you have a job it'll blow to pay off, and the odds are actually against you here.
Go to a program that has you teach for your funding, the experience will make you look better to many future employers.
Also start reading actual lit crit, a lot of students who want to go graduate level don't properly prepare themselves.
The only problem is she isn't abusing me
wanna do so much bad stuff to this lady... to retaliate for the feelings she gives me. damn dude
I'm just advocating for cautionary skepticism. I may be no better, but at least I am certainly no worse than these disengenuous others touting their hear-say as experience and fact.
>comfiest lifestyle
Deplorable.
ANY job that basically doesnt have a hard scientific background comes down to networking. Especially bullshit humanities jobs.
Just about any low university will take you if you have published something. My professor sucked and he still had his job. It would probably also help if you studied crit theory
Try tysons critical theory today. It holds your hand the entire way and covers a lot of ground
are you a white heterosexual male?
We hate academia as it is. Even the academics I've been taught by hate it. It's a rotten system and you'd have to be a fool to think it doesn't need some serious reform
>what exact steps do I have to take and hoops to jump through that will give me near 100% expectation of getting a job professing literature?
>near 100% expectation
There's nothing you can do. Two of my closest friends are pursuing English PhDs. What I have heard from them is that the market for the kind of job you are describing is terrible. Qualified candidates exceed open positions by approximately 5x. My friend that I grew up with realized he hated teaching so much that he quit being a TA and no longer intends to pursue English literature as a career after getting his Phd. He is also on a bunch of anti-depressants and he suicidal because of this life crisis (he has always wanted to be a professor since we were young). This is probably an extreme example, but its relevant enough to your question to merit mentioning. My other friend doesn't seem to mind teachnig so much. However, they are both extremely cynical about academia in general. If you are very passionate about literature, you should do it. However if you are merely entertaining this career path because you have romanticized it as being "comfy" or you simply like the idea of being a professor, you should do something else with your life.
Tenure isn't a thing anymore. The current crop of tenured professors will take it to their grave, to be replaced by adjuncts and associates. Get ready to starve to death working 70 hours a week. The English department in particular has no future. Everyone is waking up to the fact that humanities degrees are absolutely fucking worthless and you don't actually learn anything from them anyway. Students, employers, everyone now knows. The Ponzi scheme is about to collapse.
Anyway if you still want to be a professor, I suggest you be born Jewish as soon as possible. Be sure to memorize Marxist talking points and learn how to regurgitate them as inefficiently as possible. Instead of thinking about books empty your head of everything except thoughts of sexism and racism and heteronormativity and cissexism and bullshit like that that doesn't exist and just project that on every book you come across over and over again like a mindless retarded robot. Be prepared to lose your job in campus witch hunts and go through struggle sessions and ultimately be put up against the wall by the little Communists whose minds you poisoned when they finally attempt to build their utopia on a mountain of corpses for the 427th time.
i dont know what you're talking about. in the last 2 years my college just tenured 2 professors, a white guy who studies chaucer and a white woman who studies spenser.
>actually replying to this post
>implying this possibly underage /pol/ migrant Peterson dickrider has ever been anywhere near a university
I can tell you about my path, since I got a job last summer having just finished my PhD. Publishing is the key. Do your best at grad studies, but try to publish articles in decent journals and wrote your dissertation with publication in mind. 2 or 3 articles, which can come from chapters of your dissertation, puts you in good stead with hiring committees. When you finish, keep your mbutins low and look for a job at a smaller, remote, teaching based college. While there keep publishing. A strong record of publication is the best capital when it comes to hiring.
While I did my PhD I published two articles (One from a term paper and one from a dissertation chapter) and a school I know happened to be hiring as I was finishing.
Also, if you're into Jesus it can be easier to find a job at a Christian school, though the pay is lower. Canadian schools almost always have fewer applicants, also.
At my university last month they just tenured 15 professors, all of them blond haired and blue eyed Aryans!
Not gonna take a picture eof my diploma just gonna roll my eyes at you.
I've got many questions about grad schools, Masters programs and PhDs. I need to talk to someone in person to sort out what it all means.
Gee, this person sounds a lot like, oh I don't know, an academic advisor?
This really tipped my fedora.
>tfw initial goal was to become a tenured lit professor
>realized impossibility of dream and how fucking poor I was
>become hs lit teacher instead
>have fun working with kids (I teach three honors classes, film studies, and one group of freshmen) and enjoy job.
>been doing it 10 years now and don't regret it
Duh. Don't know what is with your nasty 'tude, but I don't appreciate it.
great!
I read more houellebecq's shallow disdain here. He never taught and hasn't been in the academy in any meaningful way in 40 years.
>im a lit major
iq below 130
>and i figured out
nope, incapable of thought
>teaching my brainlet major is akshually gr8
nope you’re wrong
>comfy
get off this board now nigger, we’re going to purge your kind of parasite soon
>I'm not like all the other anons, OP
Veeky Forums hates academia because they neither produce valuable, or even interesting, new works nor are they effectively teaching/preserving quality works of the past. They sure do love their social status though.
Also, you don't know what "disenfranchised" means.
Yes I do, dumb ass.
Lit student also working towards a PhD here.
There is no way for you to guarantee yourself a professorship in today's job market. If you're going to pursue a career in academia, you have to make sure your grades are high enough to get both Masters and PhD funding to look competitive. Publish as you go - my mentor advised me to brush up a couple of my undergrad research essays and try submitting them to journals just for the experience. Make sure you go to a school that has a good name at least for the PhD (Ivy League, Oxbridge, U of Toronto if you're in Canada, and make sure where you go for your MA is at least reputable. Start networking and researching now - approach profs in your fields of interest and ask them about doing independent research courses and/or an undergraduate thesis. Apply for as many scholarships and research grants as possible. Go to whichever conferences you can, even if they're just aimed at undergrad and MA students. GET A MENTOR.
Even if you manage to do all of this perfectly, you are highly unlikely to find permanent work. Most universities are cutting down the number of tenured positions available and relying on short-term contracts and sessional lecturers to fill out their ranks. If you're going to commit to a PhD, you'll have to accept doing it for its own sake.
If you think hardly reading outside of American and British literature is comfy then sure. My previous two English lit teachers were poorly versed in anything that wasn’t Jane Austen or some banal female shit.
I still enjoyed persuasion, northanger abbey and the one token non-Austen book from last semester though which was Miss Jean Brodie.
At least my other classes were more interesting. I did a philosophy paper about Chinese philosophers which i really liked.
>Being young implied, it seemed to me, a certain enthusiasm for life, or else a certain defiance, accompanied in either case by a vague sense of superiority towards the generation that one had been called on to replace.
This is pretty prescient. Not only are kids today especially inclined to do this, but kids where always like this, even me. Each passing generation feels like the degradation of the others still alive.
*Were
fuck.
I think you meant disenchanted. Disenfranchised means something like disempowered, usually referring to a loss of voting rights. These words are commonly confused.
you know what. I am sorry. I shouldn't have called you a dumb ass. You are right. Thank you for showing me my error.
Different user. You didn't call me any names. Anyway it's an understandable and commonplace error, so don't feel too bad about it.
>wageslave
>comfy lifestyle
I don't think there's such thing. Having a job means you are not financially free so you gotta wake up early to do some stressful task to pay the bills.
But being a neet while living off a land or money inheritance while focusing on reading and writing, now that would be comfy. Ideally you could farm the land or something