Friday, October 31, 2014

This is just to say

Back in September, everyone was freaking the fuck out over the MLA Job List--so few jobs! OMG! Apocalypse!

At the time I said--on a million Facebook and Twitter threads--that it was too early to tell, that jobs post later now, that initially things looked equally bad last year, that the jobs that had appeared were good ones.

Now it's October 31st, and I gotta admit: at least in Early Modern, it is that bad. As of today there are thirty-two tenure-track jobs with pre-MLA deadlines (a number that includes a few jobs at the associate or full levels and a few jobs overseas). Each of the last three years, in descending order, the number of pre-MLA tenure-line openings was 47, 41, and 49. Those weren't good numbers, but the market appeared to have stabilized at "pretty fucking bleak."

But unless this year is a fluke or institutions are shifting toward spring listings, we might say, with Satan, "in the lowest deep a lower deep/Still threatning to devour me opens wide."

*

Language and lit peeps: are you seeing similar things in your subfields?

16 comments:

heu mihi said...

Almost nothing in medieval. I haven't counted, but I can't imagine that it's over 20, and that's including a few VAP positions that have posted already.

Also, I taught that line of Satan's *today*, which is actually my main reason for commenting. I so very much love teaching Satan's speeches in PL!

Sapience said...

It's even worse in other sub-fields, according to my fellow post-docs. There are two jobs in Children's Lit so far--and one is in Canada. My friends in 18th/19th C. are applying to 5-8 jobs so far. As a Ren person also applying for a few generalist and composition positions, I'm closer to 20 (This year has been rougher than normal for me because of how many specify they want someone who specializes in Shakespeare/Drama; though I can certainly teach Shakespeare and I've published on Shakespeare and Pop-Culture, I'm definitely not a drama person).

Sapience said...

heu mihi--the Wiki has a list of 28 in Medieval, plus VAPs, so it's not much different from Ren.

Jeff said...

Flavia, when you say there are 32 tenure-track job postings, are you also able to guesstimate, from your knowledge of your field, how many people might be competing for those jobs?

Susan said...

Well, when we searched in Ren (2010) we had close to 200 applications.

Flavia said...

Sapience: wow. We hired in CL/YA a couple of years ago, so I kept an eye on the competition. It's a smaller field (and some jobs are English Ed-focused more than lit focused), but I seem to recall at least 12-15 that seemed li focused.

Jeff: last year I believe both my department and my spouse's got somewhere on the order of 150 applicants. The overlap in the pools is only partial--one was a drama job and one a nondramatic job--and since neither of our institutions is a plum job we surely didn't get many of the applicants applying only selectively (those not yet done with their degree; those in long-term post-docs; those already on the TT looking to move up).

So I'd say the full pool is easily 250, maybe 300. Of course, not all candidates can apply (or want to apply) for all jobs--and some of those 32 are "Renaissance or Medieval," or "British, preferably before 1800"--so calculating odds is fairly inexact. But it's grim.

Anonymous said...

American Lit before 1900 has under 20. We had 40+ gigs w/pre-MLA deadlines last year, 35+ the year before. I do notice that we had 10 or so post-MLA gigs last year, so perhaps that has skewed things for us this year.

Yet . . . I know of at least 3 or 4 schools just locally that have either lost someone to retirement or parallel transfers who have gone 2 or more years without filling the position. Two of these are R1s.

Miriam said...

I counted approximately 20 jobs covering all fields in 19th-c. lit (including jobs that were only advertising for 19th c. as one possible option for the position). That includes positions in the UK and Canada.

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

Yep, it's a grim year. I really wonder what's going to come up in the spring.

I remember when I was heavily applying for everything that I applied to an east coast awesome job, and the rejection letter said that they had well over 700 applicants. For jobs like the Columbia job this year, I'm certain there will be that many, at least. Jobs like that don't come up regularly, so even people who are comfortably in TT positions will apply. I know a couple of people who are, actually, who would not consider moving for anything else.

When I applied for my current job, there were over 230 applications. That seems to be the going amount of applicants for non-rural jobs, even in the midwest.

Flavia said...

Fie: 700 for a Renaissance-specific job? Wow. I've only heard those numbers for broadly-worded Anericanist jobs.

I wouldn't expect 700 for the Columbia job, which is very specific in its wording: drama, and entry-level Assistant. That makes pretty clear they want, if not a recent PhD, then someone no more than a year or two (maybe three, at a stretch) into a TT job. You're right that lots of people who aren't otherwise on the market might take a flier just for that one, but I'd guesstimate 400, maybe 500 at most.

But who knows? I'm just glad not to be doing the application reviews!

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

I'm glad I'm not reading those applications, too. I honestly can't remember which school it was that had 700+ applicants. I'm going to have to go through my files to remember.

What's surprising to me this year is how many are asking for all the materials up front -- letters of rec, etc. I suppose that's an efficiency thing and saves a step when you've narrowed down some candidates. But it makes for less excitement on the wiki. :)

Fie upon this quiet life! said...

I think I found it -- maybe. There was a Ren lit (nonspecific) AND director of undergraduate studies at Catholic U. So possibly could have been the one. And then, Lehigh also had a 17th century job that same year. Maybe that was it. Other possibilities include a Stanford postdoc, but I could have sworn it was east coast. Anyway - the odds are bad no matter how you slice it.

Anonymous said...

On the other hand, my department hasn't yet posted it's job ads. We got funding really late and what with the endless bureaucracy, we haven't gotten them posted to JIL yet.

So ... there may still be a few jobs coming.

Flavia said...

Anon:

Thanks for checking in. I know there are always a few of those--and let's hope for more than a few!

Renaissance Girl said...

Poets = fewer than 10, really. And even fewer for advanced faculty (3?). And none near my homebase, which is--as you know--a matter of perpetual interest, and perpetual fruastration, to my commuter spouse.

random grad student said...

First official rejection came yesterday, from a tenure-track job--a 2-2, a good one, but in what's not generally considered a prime location--in early modern lit. The rejection note said that they received 250 applications. If what should be an 'average' job (if there is such a thing), received that many applications, this is going to be an interesting year...