Wednesday, May 27, 2009

You Can Read

my essay on getting tenure at The Chronicle of Higher Education Career Network. The editor cut a line that I kind of like so here it is as a teaser: "There are obviously an infinite number of uses (not practical uses, not desirable uses, just uses) for a spoon."

You'll have to guess where it went.

8 comments:

irad said...

Congratulations! (on the article, not tenure)

I am starting a spoon collection (two so far) so I'd love to see the list of 25 uses. Tenure should free you up to circulate it without professional risk in case it includes anything controversial like making music or eating soup.

A. P. Bucak said...

Thanks, Ira. There were a lot of variations on eating things and catapulting things ... I wasn't terribly original.

* said...

[just for your knowledge]
I informed Peter Singer about this piece and he liked it!

Liz said...

Congratulations! As a former student, I am not in the least surprised but I am thrilled for you nonetheless.

My first thought is that the cut sentence came between these two: "But the truth is I could have kept making that list forever. When told to fill an infinite list, I go at it until I run out of time." -- mostly because "infinite list" seemed like a new concept the first time I read it.

But now I think that is an obvious place for that sentence, and you, being a tenured professor and fiction writer, would have put it somewhere more interesting. Like between the first two sentences of the paragraph that follows.

Hmmmm.

But once again, congratulations!

Annie said...

Congratulations! I kind of felt that way when I earned my library degree. I'd been functioning as a librarian in a position where I was called a librarian, but it wasn't until I finished my degree, I could truly call myself a librarian, and feel no one could question my credentials.

I identify with the constraint you felt, writing what could be published, as opposed to taking risks. Now, you have both freedom, and a publication history!

Elena said...

I love this line about the tenured feeling: "like I have secured my oxygen mask, and it is time to offer assistance to those around me." Its the perfect description!

Hugs from Jamaica!

Oliver de la Paz said...

I know where the spoon goes.


Congratulations, P! Excellent article. I'll be securing my oxygen mask (hopefully) next year.

Susan Allspaw Pomeroy said...

I think it went in between these sentences: So being told to fill a bulletproof vitae, to reach deep tenure, meant I kept my head down, list-making, for five years. Having tenure feels like being released from list-making.

You go, girl!