Invisible Adjunct adjuncts (and blogs) no more…
I’m surprised by how much this post saddens me:
A few months ago, I made a vow to myself that this would be my last semester as an invisible adjunct. Since I’ve failed to secure a full-time position in my final attempt at the academic job market, what this means, of course, is that I made a vow to leave the academy. Six more weeks of teaching, and I head for the nearest exit.
Though I must inevitably feel a sense of loss and sadness, it’s thanks to this blog and its readers that I don’t feel the kind of life-twisting bitterness that I might otherwise have experienced. I’ll take with me, among other things, a knowledge of XHTML (which I never thought I could learn!), an undiminished passion for the Scottish Enlightenment, and a heightened sense of life’s possibilities.
In the meantime, I’ve decided to give up the blog.
If you’re not familiar with her site, Invisible Adjunct has created the single best resource for graduate students and young scholars concerned with the pragmatics of the academic job market, and a remarkable community has taken shape in her comments. Hers was one of the first blogs that I read regularly, and while I’m glad that she’s moving on from the limbo of the adjunct-track, hers is a voice that wil be missed.
In the comments of the post, Jeremy Hunsinger asks:
are you going to archive invisibleadjunct somewhere orther than archive.org? it would be a shame to lose this bit of history to netrot.
I’d actually go a step further, and encourage IA to pass the torch to another anonymous blogger, in essence transforming the “Invisible Adjunct” brand into something larger than one person. I don’t mean to say that IA herself is replaceable, but that someone else in the academic trenches might be able to pick up her themes and run with them in his or her own way. If it’s good enough for Gizmodo or Gawker, it might be worthwhile for this far more important site…
April 14th, 2004 at 2:48 pm
That also worked for the Dread Pirate Roberts, of course.