ן Erin O'Connor's Pictures from an Institution Erin O'Connor has been running the Pictures from an Institution (also here, etc.) series on her weblog. It is a fictionalized version of the MLA job market conference. From the sound of it, the literature professors are organized very much like we economists, who also interview new-PhD job candidates in hotel rooms at our annual big conference shortly after Christmas. The picture she paints of the MLA is negative, but the system works very well in economics. Perhaps we are more interested in outcomes and less in social graces; I always thought running into other candidates for the same job because interviews were scheduled back-to-back, for example, was a good thing for the candidates rather than being in poor taste, for example (they can compare notes, or at least get a little information on who the competition is). Even in economics, it's a humorous situation, though--- the interviewers are sitting in a hotel room all day listening to rookie after rookie try to explain technical topics without blackboards or much experience at being clear, trying to figure out which ones can think and which ones just obey their advisors, trying to remember which candidate is which, and trying not to psych them out by going wide-eyed when they say something stupid. And, on the side of the job candidates, there is the running around between hotels in new leather shoes and interview suits, the humorously high security guarding the whereabouts of the interview rooms, the repeating of one's dissertation spiel over and over, and the excitement of being at a conference in fancy hotels with big-name scholars.

[ http://php.indiana.edu/~erasmuse/w/04.01.15d.htm .     Erasmusen@Yahoo.com. ]

 

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