Thinking (and writing) ahead

In the past few years, the department has recently gotten much better about helping prep us grad students for the "real world" of the job search and the job. Today we had a visit from the head of Cambridge University Press' Classics division.

He started out with the idea "Okay, you've finally landed that nice plushy tenure track job, and now in order to keep that job, you've got to produce your first book within 5 years." I thought it was supremely helpful - everything from proposal etiquette (it's fine to send them in cold) to differences between dissertations and books.

On that note, in my time I have definitely read a few scholarly books that were too close in line with the dissertation they're based on. They spend the first chapter tracing the previous scholarship of their subject, get bogged down with discursive footnotes, and tend to be repetitive, since you want to prove to your committee that you really do know what you're talking about. The audience for a book is very different, though, and it kind of sounded like he was recommending keeping the ideas but trashing the rest of the writing.

He also gave some information on timelines, like if you wait til year 4 in the tenure process to get the ball rolling, you'll be too late. He also warned against writing the book and then getting in touch with publishers - because again, then, if you have to change a lot, it will be too late. Get in touch with publishers with a book proposal in year 1 or 2, and then by the time the tenure hearing rolls around, you'll probably be in the clear. Then you can worry about those articles!

I'm not sure who in the department is behind all of this, but I hope they keep it going. Once Dr. Leach retires, with her experience goes our advantage. This kind of stuff is all they can do to ward that off.