13 Comments
Sep 20, 2022Liked by Joshua Doležal

Joshua, I’ve just discovered your Substack, and I want to thank you for writing about recovering from academe and post-academic life. I’m a Nebraska alum, too (BA, 2012), and I did my PhD in English at Penn State (2019). I struggled on the job market for a few years before settling down with my wife and daughters in Omaha and pivoting to an alt-ac role as a grant writer. I just needed stability and to be near my family. I’ve been fighting to untangle the crossed wires between my life’s passions -- literature, history, research, learning -- and the deeply ingrained need to be intensely productive, to “publish or perish.” It’s as if my brain can’t disengage from the pattern set in place while working on my diss. But I’m trying to “heal from academe,” as you put it, and your writing is really helpful. It’s nice to know there are others out there.

Expand full comment
author

Jace, well met. How interesting that you'd also be a PSU grad, since I'm now living near State College. You capture the academic mindset of incessant productivity well. Nothing inflames that problem more than the job search. I remember cranking out 95 applications during my first year on the market, and trying to customize every one, and then only getting one interview. Even after you earn tenure and aren't running scared in quite the same way, the attitude is baked in. It's never enough.

Keep in touch, and maybe you'll find something useful in the archive. The first post I wrote back in March, "The Calling," might speak to your own transition.

Expand full comment

It’s never enough. You’re never “done.” Right. That’s the pattern of thinking I’m trying to break. Well, thanks again. I’ll check out that previous post. I hope you’re enjoying central PA. I often miss State College (and Bellefonte -- beautiful little town). All the best.

Expand full comment

Thank you, Maple tree 🙏🧡 Yes. Anything that makes us slow down and redirect our attention to gratitude is a healthy, good, and healing ritual.

Are you familiar with Wendell Berry? Im sure you must be. The Mad Farmer Liberation Front.... make more tracks in the snow than necessary... when they have captured your mind, lose it. Practice resurrection. 🔆

Expand full comment
author

Yes, Berry is a favorite. Haven't read the Mad Farmer in a while, but there are some deep affinities between Berry's critique of corporate agriculture and my own critique of academe. And of course he beat me to the latter critique, too. "The Loss of the University" bemoans specialization and jargon in higher education, and while Berry didn't foretell all of the current madness with assessment and corporatization in higher ed, he rightly pegged the "university" as a misnomer for an institution that is an incoherent grouping of disciplines. Now I need to go read some Berry -- thanks for the nudge.

Expand full comment

Thanks!!In the second paragraph, you refer to an earlier post on the topic of reward systems. I’m curious about that too.

Expand full comment
author

This is the post I meant, I believe. Going pretty far back in the archive for this one! https://joshuadolezal.substack.com/p/can-you-be-recovering-and-still-be

Expand full comment

Thank you! I read it! It didn’t talk about broken reward systems but I enjoyed and appreciated it. Lately, I’ve been thinking about broken reward systems in regards to submitting peer-reviewed articles, and was curious what you might have to say on the matter.

Expand full comment
author

Ah -- perhaps it was more implied. The post on whether you lose a book for every child might be another one I meant to reference.

I'd love to hear more about what you're struggling with regarding peer review. Certainly I have little motivation now to grind away at niche research that maybe a dozen scholars will read. Writing for a larger Substack audience scratches a similar intellectual itch with a larger sense of community. Although I am preparing a paper for a Cather seminar this summer -- because I want to answer a question about neurotheology. I'll probably share a draft of that on Substack and may try for a more popular publication venue for the longer piece.

I did grind away at some articles that I wrote mainly for a publication line. That is the worst case scenario. But most of what I was working on near the end of my tenure was work I really enjoyed -- and that I thought might have broader appeal.

The satisfaction of peer review, at least theoretically, is that you're creating new knowledge and serving the discipline in a significant way. But I'm sure you share some of my skepticism about how peer review is actually conducted. I knew an audiologist once who said that she routinely had to sort through bad data in published scholarship. So something wasn't working with the vetting there. And I think it's been well documented that women and people of color have been denied publication even while submitting sound science. Helen Longino's "Science as Social Knowledge" is a great reference there. In literature there is no objective standard for reliability -- it's all a series of judgment calls about persuasiveness and importance. And there have been some significant hoaxes that you've surely seen that expose the hollowness of some disciplines. The Sokal hoax was one, and then this one more recently.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/10/new-sokal-hoax/572212/

So I'm not sure peer review has ever been a pure source of knowledge? Curious what you think.

Expand full comment

Sorry - I wrote a long comment and deleted it. I’m sure you got it in your email. The short of it is that I’m tired of waiting a year or two for each paper to be published. In operant conditioning, it’s important that a rewarding stimuli is delivered close in time to its associated behavior.

That hoax is pretty crazy! I’m guessing those were more theoretical papers, or did they also present data? What would make a source of knowledge “pure”?

Unrelatedly, because I have a two-month-old baby that doesn’t sleep at night, the chances of me submitting this comment correctly is about 50/50. :D

Expand full comment

Great article. The comment about academe -- that "It’s like trying to please a parent who will never say, without an ulterior motive, that they’re proud of you." -- is so true...

Expand full comment

Why would you shoot a Deer? Do you not believe that life is life? Is it their fault they have been contained and taken from their truly natural way of life? Humans created this problem, why is it always the innocent who suffer and are killed?

Expand full comment
author

Thanks for reading, Angela. I have no plans to hunt the deer in this area, but it's fair to say that deer suffer from overpopulation, too, often in the form of hunger or disease. Their natural way of life typically includes an apex predator like a wolf to maintain ecological balance and prevent overgrazing in the forest. There aren't many easy answers in the absence of wolves.

Expand full comment