I was awarded tenure this summer, and am now an Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Colorado-Boulder (appreciate the congrats).
I have a lot of thoughts on this process, mostly warm/fuzzy, but I’m also acutely aware of my privilege—academia is collapsing and TT jobs, let alone tenured positions at schools that take tenure protections seriously, are hard to come by. In these times, then, it’s more important than ever to think about what tenure is for. I have a nice situation and don’t want to waste it. So, what am I supposed to be doing now and why?
One answer, or one of the things that tenure is good for, is that tenured faculty can speak their minds on issues that matter to them. This kind of autonomy is core to the historical notion of the position, and reflects an idea of the academic as a sort of public voice that can speak hard truths.
it me?
Ideally, professors are hard to intimidate because they don’t rely on public approval. It doesn’t matter if my provost hates me, or my governor thinks I’m insane, I get health insurance and a steady paycheck anyway. That allows me to say what I think is right, and to fulfill a slightly different role in public discourse than other kinds of talkers (like politicians or pundits) who operate on a shorter leash.
In practice, things don’t work this way and there are a few reasons for that. First of all, the process of earning tenure—i.e., of doing original research—makes it hard to shoot from the hip. I know what it takes to be speak with confidence about something, because I got to the point where I could speak with confidence about Roman legal history, and I’d have to do all that over again before I felt okay having strong opinions in public. Second, while I’m fine having controversial opinions, I’d rather not be seen as an asshole (note: this does not apply to everyone at Associate level and above, but you knew that already).
Finally, I am—I cannot emphasize this enough—a Roman legal historian. I have very specific expertise that almost never comes in handy, and while I can claim some knowledge of ‘how power justifies itself’ vel sim. based on the more ideological aspects of my work, it’s still all about dead people. I’ve earned the right to speak on a subject most people don’t care about, by developing epistemic habits that make it harder to speak on subjects about which they do.
To be clear, this isn’t a universal problem. I have friends who work primarily on Roman law, who nevertheless fight for what’s right in public; it’s certainly doable. But I’m not temperamentally suited for that version of the academic role, and it’s hard to shake the feeling that American academia selects for people like me.
a better man than i
So then, what am I supposed to be doing? Even if I’m never going to be The Voice of Reason America Needs Right Now, there are things I can say and do now that I couldn’t last year. In particular, I don’t feel the same pressure to be an intellectual that I used to; I’ve earned my stripes and can express myself differently. Because I have written history for specialists, I can write for the public if I want and I can hold myself out as a representative of my discipline with a little less shame. That’s something I’d like to get into, eventually—some of the questions I care about (what does it mean to have an emperor? What does law mean in the real world?) matter to people outside of the academy, and they deserve good books.
The trouble is that they also deserve well-written books. I pride myself on my writing, but everything I’ve written in the last decade has been for academics. For example, I’d be very surprised if anyone without a college degree reads my first monograph. Being a good writer means, among other things, knowing your audience and writing for their needs—I’ve cultivated a certain kind of audience in order to get this position, and it’s not the public.
NOT FOR YOU
It would be thoughtless—disrespectful, kind of shitty—to just assume that I can write in a different register without trying, or that academic prose is ‘harder’ and that I can just adjust a dial to write the easier version. That sells the work short, because public writing is difficult and takes practice. I want to practice it.
This blog is how. I’ll talk about things that matter to me—like academic politics, or The Traitors—because I want to acculturate myself to writing that is less defensive, looser, and more pleasant to read. I will say things on here that I couldn’t have said pretenure, and think through problems I might have been more circumspect about in the past, but I also want to practice different kinds of voice. The public classicists I respect the most—Sarah Bond and Mary Beard are my two big examples, and the people I send friends to for readable work on the ancient world—are blogging queens. They did something right, I assume, so I’ll try the same.
Also recipes. I have these nice, pretty bowls and a photogenic counter: might as well use them.