Final jazz composition class of the year, and, no, to be honest I didn’t really want to spend the first part of it discussing creative processes and the things that get in the way of writing. In musical terms, it’s a very interesting question, and I’ve made enormous progress this year; I had not realised quite how much I like being given homework on a weekly basis, but this is not just about having a structured task to complete but also learning the importance of setting parameters – rather than “go away and write something”, it’s a matter of e.g. “go away and write something featuring fourths”, immediately giving a focus for one’s efforts, and that then reinforces the need to set some other parameters for oneself, at least as a starting point. It works both as a learning experience (getting a really good understanding of fourths by exploring the different things you can do with them in the process of trying to produce something that sounds half decent) and as a structure for the process, and I’m going to see how to replicate this in some of next year’s teaching – tricky, since this is about developing skills more than learning content, whereas ancient history courses tend to be more the other way round, or at least the skills are developed in parallel over the course of the year rather than explored one by one, but not impossible… (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘academia’
Crown of Creation
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, jazz, Writing on July 16, 2021| 2 Comments »
The Pubic Untellectual
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, media on June 10, 2021| 3 Comments »
Perhaps it was A.J.P. Taylor’s fault. Certainly, if he imagined a ‘public intellectual’, it was Taylor who came to mind – not because he’d ever actually experienced Taylor in that role, but an impressionable age he had read an obituary or tribute that stressed Taylor’s activities in taking academic history to a wider audience, and their consequences for his career. He had drawn from this two things, one more obviously erroneous than the other: firstly, that in any conflict between history as the exclusive preserve of an elite and history as something for everyone, the latter position was clearly noble and correct; secondly, that, having established one’s academic credentials, it was enough then to be willing to take these to a wider audience for the opportunities to do so to materialise. The possibilities that Taylor had energetically sought out such opportunities, and benefited from being enormously well connected and having the prestige of an Oxford position if never the Regius chair, or simply that times had changed and there was now no shortage of historians willing to take their work to a wider audience and pronounce on the issues of the day, genuinely had not occurred to him until much later. (more…)
Village Green Preservation Society
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, local government, politics on February 6, 2021| 1 Comment »
I suspect that for a lot of people the joy of the Handforth Parish Council Planning & Environment Committee Zoom meeting (video here, if somehow you haven’t already seen it), besides the entertaining spectacle of chaos and surrealism, is the discovery of a bizarre, alien world where the question of whether someone is a Proper Officer or who actually has The Authority In This Meeting is a matter of high political drama. For me, it was a nostalgia trip. I should stress that Castle Cary Town Council was never anything like this bad, even at its worst moments, but it’s easy to see the potential that existed for such a breakdown, and there are other councils in this area whose Zoom meetings would probably be equally comedy gold. And, given that the video leaves out a significant amount of context, it was great fun to revive my once intensive knowledge of local government procedures and standing orders, to work out what must be going on and who actually did have the Authority, if not Jackie Weaver… (more…)
Chasing Cars
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, research, work on January 16, 2020| 7 Comments »
Remarkably, the results of a search for “ancient history” on the jobs.ac.uk website currently include an advert for a Demi Chef de Parti. I cannot help but interpret this as a personal Sign. Back when I had finished my final undergraduate exams, and for various reasons was pretty sure that I’d messed things up to a degree that would preclude any hope of funding for a PhD, I had to think seriously about what I should do instead, and came to the conclusion that I would really like to be some sort of chef. Of course, I had no relevant qualifications or experience, so it was fortunate that the PhD funding did turn up after all, but it’s a salutary reminder of how rarely in my life I have had any sort of career plan. (more…)
How Not To Write
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, Writing on May 11, 2019| Leave a Comment »
I’m doing the final polish of this piece while wondering why watching Meet Me In St Louis seemed like a good idea – THIS is one of the classic movie musicals?!? – and ignoring the cats, who are NOT getting fed until half eight. It was sketched out last week, between rewatching Independence Day (far superior to Meet Me In St Louis despite lack of songs and some common themes), then drafted in between cooking vindaloo and chana masala, sitting on the train into work, and eating homemade muffin (proper English muffin) while being yelled at by cats who want to be let outside to intimidate the local wildlife. (more…)
Everybody Needs Somebody
Posted in Musings, tagged academia on May 3, 2018| 1 Comment »
I have had one of those Thoughts, which, in the absence of an effective brain-scrubber, can be dealt with only by forcing other people to share it: how about an academic version of Love in the Countryside? For those who haven’t encountered this yet, it’s a new BBC2 series – echoing if not actively ripping off a rather sweet German series that I’ve seen occasionally, Bauer sucht Frau, which according to Chris Dickenson on the Twitter (@cpdickenson) originated with a 1983 Swiss programme – in which an assortment of farming types post dating profiles and select a few of the respondents to spend some time with them out in the countryside, ‘cos it’s difficult to form or sustain a relationship when you spend your days slogging away in isolation at unsocial hours for very little money. Not a huge step away from the university…
Well, no, I don’t get a lot of practice in talking to other people in a social context. I talk to my students, of course, but it’s not what you’d call a real conversation. It’s not the sort of life that’s for everyone. I’m not necessarily looking for a research assistant, but I do need someone who’ll put up with the long hours and understand that those articles aren’t going to write themselves, and obviously they have to be okay with a bit of mess and dust and books everywhere. It’s a pretty quiet life, and I know some non-academics might think that I’m incredibly dull, so maybe it would help if they came from the same sort of background, but then Richard Dawkins married one of Doctor Who’s glamorous assistants so that’s the kind of thing I have in mind…
In subsequent episodes, the lucky respondents have to amuse themselves in Glasgow for two days in February with only £15 while the academic is in a conference, survive a departmental picnic, look after three homesick overseas students, and cope with the meltdown when a funding application is rejected. I’m sure my wife will be able to think of other amusing and dramatic scenarios…
BE MORE CAT
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, cats, higher education on February 24, 2018| 1 Comment »
I’ve always been much more of a cat person than a dog person; no offence to the memory of dear old Bailey the neurotic greyhound, or to the various dogs of family members and neighbours, but it’s cats that I can’t imagine living without. (more…)
Red Shoes
Posted in Musings, Uncategorized, tagged academia, art, jazz, La La Land, life, The Red Shoes on February 3, 2017| Leave a Comment »
The most interesting and provocative comment on Rachel Moss’s wonderful blog post last month on Choosing Not To Give, on the sacrifices that women are expected to make in academic culture, was from Lucy Northenra: “How many women are remembered for their ability to never miss a school run compared to those who manage against all the odds to publish enough to be made professors?” Rachel’s response was equally passionate: “I may well only have one child, and during the week I see her for an hour in the morning and an hour and a half in the evening. Perhaps I might somehow write an extra 4* publication if I gave up one of those hours each day. For me, the cost isn’t worth it.”
Do you want to be remembered as a great scholar but a lousy parent – or not remembered at all except by your nearest and dearest? Why are you mucking about with plasticine instead of changing the world? Why are you wasting time on an article that five people will read with limited attention when you could be making a real difference to one or two individuals who completely depend on you? Such dilemmas go to the heart of academic ambitions and self-image.* Who do I think I really am, who do I want to be, and what to do about all the things that threaten to get in the way? (more…)
Paying Your Dues
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, digital humanities, employment, music on October 14, 2016| Leave a Comment »
A couple of weeks ago, someone on Facebook raised the question of whether, as an early career researcher with no permanent position, you should accept an invitation to speak somewhere that wasn’t going to pay your travel expenses. The majority of responses were horror-struck that any academic department would even suggest such a thing, with a certain amount of O tempora, o mores lamentation as a counterpoint; yes, we academics do regularly give our time without compensation, as part of our normal activities (reviewing proposals, writing references and tenure reports and so forth), but incurring actual expenditure is something else – especially for those who don’t have a regular income or access to travel funds. However, there was one dissenter: of course you should, the response ran; you’re being given a chance to develop your skills, hone your arguments and raise your profile, just like The Who got good only as a result of playing every gig they could in the early years, paid or unpaid. Actually you should probably pay *them* for providing you with an audience who have to endure your amateurish strummings. (more…)
I’m Backing Britain!
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, Europe, Germany on July 21, 2016| 1 Comment »
One of the things I have always found rather weird and off-putting about German academia is the way that some professors include a section in their CVs about the Rufe – the offers of chairs at other universities – they have turned down. I understand, intellectually, why this happens: in many cases, especially in the past, a professor stayed at the salary level at which they were originally appointed, unless they could wave an offer from somewhere else at the university management and negotiate a better deal, so it was only rational to apply elsewhere on a regular basis – and clearly it continues to be a means of arguing for more support staff, more research money and the like, as well as a recognised indicator of social capital. Further, if everyone knows that every job will attract applications from a load of high-powered established professors who don’t really want it but will take at least six months to play this possible future university off against their current university before declining the offer – which is why, from a UK perspective, German appointment processes take a staggeringly long time – then the people who actually end up taking the jobs, two years later, won’t feel at all embarrassed that it’s all out in public: you weren’t competing on a level playing field, so winning by default, so to speak, isn’t an issue. (more…)
Sphinx 