Academic Jobs Wiki
Register
Advertisement

What they don’t understand is that the ostentatious left-wing politics of academia is camouflage for a deeply conservative way of life... with tenured faculty paid six figures to think, and the contingent faculty paid a few thousand a course on a contract basis.The piety of academia – its radical front of social justice – takes place in the context of massive inequities and supremely vulnerable young people.  https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/back-in-the-mla/

Many tenured faculty, especially those involved with the MLA, exist largely in a process of self-legitimization. They strive to maintain distance between themselves and others ("others" = NTT) and don't want the burden of recognizing that tenure does not mean superior. Faculty without tenure don't deserve a lower status, and people who point this out do not deserve to be harrassed, taunted, and demeaned. If NTT and TT are equal, why are tenured faculty so engaged with alt-ac and two-tier academy? Both schemes are complicit with the death of the Humanities, just like those faculty who celebrate them. 

Interesting takes on the two-tier academy are in the comments of this article: https://www.aaup.org/article/our-job-was-fix-it

Advertisement