Subject: Re: marketing
gauthier@SLU.EDU
Date: Mon Mar 10 1997 - 13:28:00 GMT
Will Hochman said,
>
> If I say much about my book you'll ask me more questions about "marketing
> myself as a Salinger scholar." If six years in grad school for the phd is
> "marketing" or a life long love of reading and in particular reading
> Salinger's fiction is marketing, if I have written a few sholarly essays
> (my last one in _Issues in Writing_ vol 7 number 2 is hardly academic but
> I do call on Seymour for help) and you think that is marketing, then know
> this buddy--I'm pretty pathetic because I don't make any money on any of
> this scholarship. I do however feed my heart with thinking about Salinger
> stuff and sing it online...I suppose you could call that net marketing...
>
> if however, you are referring to me marketing myself as a professor, then
> i suppose so...though my salinger scholarship is not what most schools
> find attractive. I'm a poet trained to teach creative writing by Richard
> Hugo and I'm a "techie-teacher" who likes to design and implement
> computerized writing classrooms and teach in them...and to survive in my
> field I do indeed have to publish as well as teach well. If being active
> on this list is part of that, I consider myself a fortunate fella.
>
> Exactly how, Paul G, do you market your self?
>
> Will
>
Will,
Perhaps I should choose my words more carefully. I was thinking of
"marketing" in your secondary sense. Obviously, most people don't spend
6 years in graduate school, acquire a lot of student loans to pay off,
then go into academia (at least not English) for the money. I know you
don't make a lot of money for your articles/books, and wasn't trying to
insinuate that you are a money-grubbing yuppee. OK?
That said, I was just trying to get a sense of how one goes about
getting a job on the college level. You ask how I "market" myself.
Currently, I am not on the job market. I'm finishing my course work on
the Ph.D. this semester, and will take my exams next semester. We can
choose one major area (modernism, for me) and one or two minor areas
(drama, for me). Right now, I am leaning towards writing my dissertation
on Joyce's drama because my guess is that more departments would be
interested in a Joycean than, say, a Salingerian. That said, I will add
(though I hate even having to say things like this) that I too have a life
long love of literature and reading--particularly Joyce.
Now your question has put me on the defensive as much as my
question put you on the defensive. *sigh* That was never my hope.
I was simply trying to get a sense of a process that I will soon be going
through, and I know that you had been through it before. That is all.
Then Malcolm said,
>
> Hasn't JDS' characters, nor JDS' motivations, taught you anything? Only
> phonies try and "market" themselves. Like Yoda said "Don't try, just do.
> There is no "try"." You need to go live in another country for awhile and
> brainwash this "marketing" term away. You'll quickly find that only
> Americans use it as a buzzword/synonym for how one chooses to live one's
> life. The rather hoary implication being that anything one spends a lot of
> time on is simply to eventually be able to hawk it. PT Barnum would be
> proud of you.
>
Christ, Malcolm, I love the way that you can psychoanalyze me based upon
2-3 paragraphs. Just so you know, I'm hardly in the "business"
(quotations trying to demonstrate I am simply using language that people
understand) to make a lot of "money." If you are suggesting that someone
does not need to specialize (what I call "packaging") in areas, and then
let future employers know about these areas of "expertise" through
"marketing," then you are somewhat naive. I'd love to go to the MLA
convention in a couple of years and tell the professors who interview
there that I took my exams in literature, wrote my Ph. D. on literature,
and I teach literature in my classroom. The thing is, they would look at
me, scratch their heads, and say, "Well, we need someone who can teach
Victorian poetry. Sorry." I suppose I could tell them, "Hey, I know
Victorian poetry," but they would want someone who has specialized in the
area (articles, conferences, and dissertation).
As for your Yoda quotations, I wrote a 20 page paper on the Star
Wars trilogy, own the movies, and just saw _The Empire Strikes Back_ on
the big screen again last night. It's a great flick. Yoda is my
favorite too. Luke was lucky enough to be one of the few jedi knights
around though. There was not overcrowding in his profession. There is
in English. That said, I will probably have to market myself so that I
can "do." I hope that you can understand that.
See you on the Joyce-list.
Paul Gauthier
gauthier@slu.edu
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