Talk:Spanish 2011-2012

Demographics:
ABD (early):

ABD (will finish this academic year): 12

Completed Graduate Studies in US:19

Completed Graduate Studies in Iberia (Spain/Portugal): 2

Completed Graduate Studies in Latin America: 1

Ph.D. in hand (one-year, VAP, Lecturer, post-doc, adjunct):12

Ph.D. in hand (unable to find academic employment at the moment): 0

ABD (almost done with Ph.D.) and currently in a one-year, VAP, visiting instructor, lecturer or adjunct position: 1

Assistant Professor: 11

Assistant Professor who hates current position and is considering leaving the profession if nothing more interesting comes: 1 (Where's the "like" button?)

Full Professor:

Lurker: 1

Depressed: 4 + 2 (specially when I realized I could "realize" Graduate Studies in the US") LOL + 2 (the market is always depressing) + 1 (getting there)

The Insiders
Let's start talking insiders. Does anyone with his ear to the ground have news about positions that already have a favorite in mind?

A: Certainly, insiders have at times gotten positions that were intended for them. Much more frequently, however, such speculation has been just that.

Things that are negative about believing in rumors of "insiders": Things that are positive about believing in rumors of "insiders":
 * They generally aren't true. Whether somebody made something up, somebody heard something secondhand, or some individual on a certain search did indeed have a specific candidate in mind, it usually doesn't indicate anything about the final outcome of the search.
 * It is contrary to reality. Insiders can in fact face greater scrutiny because committees want to avoid the appearance of bias.
 * It is delusional. Search committees are far from unified, faculty voting on candidates have different perspectives, and there are no guarantees for anyone.
 * Believing that there is an inside candidate could make you take a very real employment possibility less seriously. It is foolish to put your own success in jeopardy by investing in such fantasies.
 * Such speculation is a waste of time when you could be working to improve your own candidacy for this year and the future.
 * It might give you a false sense of security after you have failed to get a certain job.

Q: How exactly does it give you a sense of security? Either the job is taken by an "insider" and then the rumor was correct and you can know why you failed, or someone from the outside gets the job and then you can feel no sense of security, unless of course you bury your had in the sand and avoid checking who got the job.

A: What I meant was, if you believe that you didn't get the job because it was a "fake search" (which is usually a fake excuse--just because a university hired someone again who was already an attractive enough candidate to hire once, doesn't mean they didn't take other candidates seriously), it will make you feel more secure that your own shortcomings for the position aren't to blame. My bottom line: don't believe the hype, and don't take it personally if/when you don't get any given position. There is no predictable sense of reason to this whole process and there are many subjective opinions involved in choosing the "right" person. So don't get worked up about whomever you believe to be an "insider."

A. Sounds like the above could be from a former insider!!

Too Many Peninsular Positions
Peninsular speakers make up what, 10% of the Spanish-speaking world? (And the number of parlantes de español in the US is fast approaching--if it does not already exceed--that of Spain.) Why are there so many freekin peninsular jobs? Yea, Spain's great and all, but this Eurocentric crap is medieval.

The Euro-cultural conquest wasn't successful in much of Latin American anyway. But yet the nonsense continues, both in academia and with these idiots in black robes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwjlFs99YDU

Funny, because as a peninsularist, I had the opposite reaction. I felt like there were a ton of Latin American positions and SLA jobs, and a paucity of Peninsular jobs. That said, I also didn't dismiss the work in those fields just because I don't work in the those areas. Show me the numbers and then maybe I will listen to your silly whining.

There are always too many peninsular ads, that’s nothing new. What I see this year is an abundance of Caribbean and Mexico ads. It’s a nice change, I’d say. What the other poster didn’t say is that for there to be a descriptive cultural demography, there should be 10 times more Latin American jobs than Peninsular, as the Latin American population is about 10 times that of Spain. (It’s a bit more than 10 times the Spain pop. in reality.)

To put some numbers on the peninsular stranglehold in this field: as of Oct 20 there are 8 Latin American ads and 4 Peninsular on the wiki (if we subtract generalist and linguistics). That means the Peninsular jobs are overrepresented by around 350%.

Since when is the number of inhabitants of a specific region the sole or main criteria to determine the "correct" "size", "relevance" or "representation" of an academic subfield? By this same logic, the OP should be demanding that 1 in every 5 academic job positions be on Chinese literature and that all Classics departments stop hiring at once.

The way things are, I think we should all be glad that there are even TT jobs being offered...

Since when? Umm the end of the feudal period. Maybe the emancipation proclamation...or the Bastille. Number of inhabitants SHOULD BE determinative as in theory the west is democratic. What this last poster notes about Chinese is precisely correct in spite of his/her ignorant sarcasm. The Humanities should examine the human condition withouth these medieval preferences that currently pollute Spanish study in the US.

That Spanish novels/arts/modismos are %350 more beautiful/relevant/important than, say, those from Colombia, is an untenable assertion -- and these nondemocratic structures that determine the "best" themes to study flesh out as cultural imperialism. If the US academcy were to saturate with a single Spansh-speaking culture it should be Mexican or Spanish-speakers from the US, for obvious reasons.

There is one point I would like to add to this discussion. There are many, many elements that come into play when talking about the job market, and a fundamental one has to due with its tempos. My particular subfield in Latin American studies was historically underrepresented until many departments began to open positions during the late 1990s and early 2000s (which is when I got my TT job). This means that practically all departments large enough to offer this subspeciality have rather young, tenured associate professors. Therefore, for some years now there have hardly been any openings in my subspeciality, and I don't think this will improve much for a rather long period of time. On the other hand, in my department and in those I am familiar with, Peninsularists are usually older professors who are now finally starting to retire, thus freeing up lines that .--the economy and deans willing-- will translate into more jobs for this speciality.

For that same reason, one might argue that British literature is overrepresented in US academy. Perhaps, but both British and Peninsular literature are "the classics" of American and Latin American literature. And they will always be taught, get over it. I'm a Peninsularist, and I also believe this year there are a lot of Mexican/Caribbean literature positions. I'm glad for my colleagues in those subfields, what's the problem?

As for your assertion that "If the US academcy were to saturate with a single Spansh-speaking culture it should be Mexican or Spanish-speakers from the US, for obvious reasons," you're absolutely right. They are doing that very well, it's called chicano literature, it's part of the American literature curriculum, and it's beating the crap out of Spanish departments throughout the country. And, of course, it's taught in English. Doesn't that qualify as cultural imperialism?

Estas son las peleas del pobre. Instead of asking for more new lines so everyone can work, we are arguing to substitute one for other. Of course, there is no money and universities are freezing hiring but this is the kind of in-finghting that institutions love to avoid hiring anyone. I can hear the Deans: "No problem guys, you figure it out and you get back to me. In the meantime, I give your line to English or French. I hear they are doing cool thing there..." It would be a lot more constructive to place our energies in trying to figure out how to grow and consolidate gains intead of undermining our colleagues in the field. When we do that we also unwittingly hurt ourselves.

The original poster noted that we should be moving away from Euro-centrist models toward democratic ones, so this conversation has precisely to do with transitioning “classics” ("canon" is probably more appropriate) toward democratic representation – precisely what Chicano Lit does..for the penultimate poster above who mentioned it. And yes of course the Brits are overrepresented in English as are the Portuguese, French, and other former colonial powers in their respective fields/literatures/canons. That doesn’t mean that such a trend is positive, perennial, or unchangeable. Latin American Studies as a subfield hardly existed a generation ago. Until the 60s almost the entire field was peninsular…in 1970 only 150 uni-s even had Latin American studies...out of the thousands of US schools. This situation has improved significantly since then...and the democratization of the field has included a retraction of peninsular positions (as a percentage of all hires), but not a sufficient one.

Due to the enduring nondemocratic weighting of texts/traditions/canons/scholarly importance that still exists, just about any grad student can name 5 or 6 peninsular authors offhand--regardless of his/her subfield. Ask the same person to name more than 1 Afro-Latino author and head scratching will commence. Therein is the problem. Why should Peninsular authors be considered and treated as more important? Tradition is not an appropriate response. (The answer is because those who control the canon are dinosaurs. There are other reasons.....but those are for another post...this topic is getting exhausted.)

At any rate, this conversation certainly shouldn’t offend anyone. That fields shouldn’t be overrepresented says nothing against the specialists in that field. I am/was a peninsularist too but that doesn’t mean I believe there should be more peninsular specialists than what is demographically appropriate. It makes no sense for there to be such a slanted bias toward the study of Spain (even though it is the case) especially with the changing demographic in the US.

This entire debate is useless here and it's a complete distraction. It's not even tangentially related to the job market and only creates animosity in a forum that should be free from that. By trolling Latin Americanists or Peninsularists, you will piss ppl off and make them less likely to return and put info that they will have. So everybody loses out.

Also, try and get a lil' bit of perspective and realize that the importance of Spain in the US academe has long been on the decline over the decades, and it will continue to happen. It's already the case that medievalists and Golden Age scholars are expected to serve double duty more often than not. How about the disappearance of 18th-19th century Peninsular positions? Increasingly, 20th century scholars have to cover that era. And yeah, I realize that there are more and more post-Franco/XXI century positions, but they are expected to teach 20th and even 19th century as well.

NOT IN PITTSBUGH (Peninsularists disapeared there.... and now even the Peninsular accent.)

http://pittnews.com/newsstory/former-professor-sues-pitt/

Amazing that a Latinamericanist would want to exclude Spain from the discipline. You cannot be a postcolonialist worth your salt if you are ignorant of the colonizer. As a Latinamericanist who knows something of Spain, I am astounded by those who want to disguise their lack of knowledge or training by facile pseudo-political positions. Guess where the Boom was first published? Guess where the capital for roughly 1/2 of the hotels in Cuba today comes from? Guess where myriad Latin American authors/intellectuals go to live today when they make it? Guess who is one of the largest European invstors throughout Latin America? Guess who is a major financer of contemporary Latin American cinema? Why do you see Banco de Bilbao everywhere in Mexico City? Who do you think is running the telephone system in Argentina? What country is the largest publisher of Spanish language materials in the world today? I might not particularly like any of this, but I make sure that my students know about it, especially if the plan on becoming Latinamericanists. We'll leave aside the fact that most writers ("peninsular" or "Latin American") are and have always been transnational the moment they write in a language shared by other countries, including Spain. I want colleagues in my department who specialize in Spain in its (often vexed, imperial, neoimperial, globalizing) relationship with Latin America. The presumption that studying the European side of the equation is "eurocentric" is sophomoric and parochial, and this kind of Latinamericanism is, well, embarassing. Anxiety about not finding a job is not a good starting point for reflections on the discipline. As for the argument regarding numbers of speakers, by that logic Spanish departments should be abolished and replaced with Departments of Chinese.

Lest we forget
Try doing Portuguese when 99.9% of departments, including the ones that brand themselves as "Spanish and Portuguese," are really just Spanish departments.

A: The only way to be in the market is with a combination of Portuguese and Spanish! If you do Portuguese-ONLY you are toasted!

A2: I disagree. Believe it or not, there are positions for candidates who do Portuguese only. It is not merely a sub-field of Spanish. It would be nice if people would recognize that.

A3: There are some positions for Portuguese Only but candidates who speak Spanish have an undeniable advantage. Doing Portuguese ONLY does not make sense in the US academic market.

Format of this Year's Wiki
New format is just silly with the number of positions that come up..is the person who started the page going to put up a section for every new position?? I doubt it. The format of the page has been the same since I started looking at it 2007! and it has not been problematic as long as you have the common sense to scroll down and add new info at the bottom..I don't mind typing the insider info I know at the bottom of the list, but this new format is tedious, who wants to find each place individually and edit it...I know I won't06:13, November 10, 2011 (UTC)173.218.115.129

''This format is seriously deficient for the volume of info that will be on this page. There will be over 200 positions, and come MLA interview notification time, it's far too tedious to search for 20-60 universities. Sure there are a few obsessive-compulsive types that will be fine doing that, but the strength of the wiki as a public info-sharing space is the ease with which we can add info and READ info. I would change it, but I'm not on the market this year and I've got other things to do. But if it stays this way, I'm not going to update the 4-6 positions that I'll know about. I might not even update the position in my dept.''

A: This is how the person / people who put the effort into setting up the page chose to do it. One could argue that is it actually easier to navigate to the schools you are interested in because you can now see them in the "Contents" list at the top of the page. This basic format is followed by other pages that have as much (if not more) jobs (see Rhetoric/Composition 2012 & Communication and Media Studies 2011-2012). However, the people in this field should determine how they want the page set up. If you have strong feelings about it, please express them below. Furthermore, if you, or someone else, wants to reformat the page based on popular demand, go for it. This is a community endeavor. Una74 14:42, October 4, 2011 (UTC)

Please, it is possible to return to the last year format? Putting the entire list of positions is very tedious...

''Tedious compared to last year's section, are you kidding me? Last year there was one set of posts for the jobs, another for calls for interviews, and another for offers made. You had to do three searches! The new format has a contents section!! You don't have to scroll or search, just click on the job. ''

A: Page has been reformatted into a modified version of last year's page (following model of French and Francophone Studies 2011-2012). I am not reformatting this page again; further format changes are up to the users of this Spanish page. Una74 19:40, October 13, 2011 (UTC)

''Thanks for the effort Una74, but come on, this new format is nonsense. Everyone will be adding changes to each sub-section with a different format...meaning the page will be impossible to scan at a glance. The other way has a contents option at the top, which does exactly what this new format does--but it won't be clogged with useless info. Yes, the page looks fine now, but 6 weeks from now it will be cluttered and useless. Pages with far more positions that Spanish use the other format because it is streamlined. ''

''This is now reformatted back into the 21st century. ''

-

''WELL.... this format SUCKS!''

Please, Please, Please return to last year's format!!!

Hmmmm. Just like many have predicted, this year sees significantly less updates than previous years. The old format was great b/c come MLA interview notification time, I'd come to the site several times a day, see that one or 2 or 3 or more schools had notified since the last time I checked, and if i felt comfortable adding a school that a colleague had received an interview for, I'd add it. Now, I just don't come here nearly as much. Less traffic = less information. Here's the clincher: it's going to take another job season to get the traffic back up.

''Actually there is almost no difference in number of posts to the wiki with this new format thus far. (Total posts can be counted through the history function.) It would be an interesting comparison to see the page-hits per day--but I'm not sure there's a counter anywhere. At any rate, if you want to thumb through the daily posts, click the arrow next to edit, then history. It brings up all the posts chronologically. ''

''The old format might be better for boredom-browsing, but the new format has all the info for each job in the same place. The other one was all over the place. All over the place might be best(?!) This is the humanities... and it seems we are dealing with peeps who 'did their phds in the 90s....''

I have to agree with the "this format sucks" contingent. It's not just worse for "boredom browsing," but for really getting an easy idea of how the field is developing over a timeline. But hey, if you want it changed, you just have to change it. There's nobody in charge of this thing, and the only reason it is the way it is, is because someone who wanted it to be different put in the effort. So no need to say "please, please, please," just go right ahead and change it! (I'm the "lurker," not on the market this year, so I'm not putting in the effort...good luck!)