Assistant Professorship in Asian American Studies

Just got this job announcement today:

Assistant Professor of Asian American Studies
California State University, Northridge
Asian American Studies Department, Northridge, CA 91330-8251
Salary: $51,024-$62,000 (subject to budgetary approval)

PhD in Ethnic Studies, American Studies, English, or closely related fields, with an emphasis or a demonstrated interest in Asian American and Pacific Islander Literatures and Cultural Studies. Tenure Track. Degree expected prior to August 17, 2010. Desirable secondary interest may include media studies, composition theory, creative writing, performance studies, popular culture and postcolonial theory. Evidence of teaching and research excellence, an understanding of Asian American Studies as a disciplinary field and a commitment to providing service to the Asian American community required. CSUN is a Learning Centered University with a diverse student population drawn largely from the Los Angeles area.

Send letter of application, C.V., at least three letters of recommendation, evidence of teaching effectiveness, publications or recent writing sample, and representative syllabi of Asian American Studies courses taught or in planning to Asian American Studies, CSUN, Northridge, CA 91330-8251. CSUN is an EO/AA, Title IX, Section 504 Employer. Primary consideration given to applications postmarked by December 14, 2009. Review full announcement on our website: http://www.csun.edu/aas/.

Alas! The timing is all wrong for me, but I do wonder if the position will get budgetary approval in the end. The university systems in California seem to be imploding right now...?

First Chapter Draft Done

Wordle cloud of my Chapter 3

I sent off the very first draft of a dissertation chapter to the co-chairs yesterday. Although I went past my original deadline by over three weeks, I am really proud of myself. The first draft ever of the dissertation! (And yes, I started on the third chapter rather than the first.) It is also the first real paper I have written since the prospectus two years ago, and the first since giving birth. So it was really quite an accomplishment for me.

Basically, full-time childcare (mothering, to be specific) is a major obstacle to academic writing and researching. While trying to get this chapter together, I was dealing with a toddler who absolutely did not want me to type anything into my laptop while he was awake and would, for the past few nights, completely wake up in the middle of the night while I was writing and insist on staying awake for several hours so that he could play with me, or rather have me play with him. As you might have guessed, I had to do the bulk of my work -- both reading and writing -- in the wee night hours, which meant that I was completely exhausted during the daytime as, of course, I had to get up and take care of the child. No sleeping in and recovering after pulling an all-nighter. After a couple of weeks of this, my brain simply was not running on all cylinders when I needed to write. I definitely had to take nights off from writing despite the deadline. But as the dh said, at least I made progress every time I was at the computer, even if I could only write a net of one or two pages a night. (Can you imagine? Sometimes I really miss my college days. I once wrote 20 pages in one night!)

Now, while I am really proud of myself for actually getting a draft out there -- one that is 40 pages, no less, one of the longest papers I have written -- I have to emphasize that it is a draft and needs some rather severe revisions. Because the texts I am working on are not widely read, I got bogged down on plot summary and did not make up for it with really good analysis. In fact, because it seems as if I am still feeling my way around the dissertation (this is only the first chapter I've written, after all), I do not yet have the confidence to make bold claims about the work. I also decided to refrain from citing a lot of social and critical theory to help make any such bold claims because of that uncertainty about where the dissertation is ultimately going. (You would think that making bold claims would help, but what I really mean is that I need to finish much more of the research first.) For that reason, and because I also decided not to integrate another primary text that I had originally planned on using, the chapter is about fifteen meaty (by which I mean my own words, without heavy quotes from the primary texts or other sources) pages less than it could/would have been. If I had had more time, maybe I could have worked on these two particular aspects, but I was already three weeks behind as it was.

In any case, I thought it would be interesting to share some of what I was working on through the Wordle above. I have to focus on the victories, right, else I will never get this dissertation done!

(I got the idea to make this Wordle of my chapter from Natalia.)