Dividing Knowledge:
My New Job at Lawrence University

February 22, 2006

The year was a dramatic one for us, beginning with an evacuation of New Orleans with Katrina bearing down. The drama did not end there, as this was our year for the academic job search. Thankfully, this search ended with an unexpected burst of drama. We needed to decide between two different schools. Our choice—settled fairly quickly—was Lawrence University in Appleton, Wisconsin. Beginning this coming September I will be Assistant Professor in Religious Studies, my focus being Islam.

I approached graduate studies with a somewhat cavalier attitude. More than one professor felt called to warn me about possible difficulties on the job market with my academic profile. The issue was never my work, but rather how my work might appear. I never heeded these questions, although I do see I was running a risk. When I came to Emory I had promised myself that I would study what I loved and not make choices based on professional “necessities.”

Before this year I had never looked at academic job postings, such as are listed on the websites for various academic associations such as the American Academy of Religion or the Modern Language Association. At the beginning of this year.. shortly after our return to Atlanta from New Orleans.. I started filing through the postings, deciding where I could apply. I have always thought my best fit would be with a liberal arts college, both for teaching philosophy and for the obvious need for breadth when teaching in a small department. That assumption turned out to be exactly correct (see some basic facts about Lawrence here).

Looking over the postings set me musing about the way knowledge is divvied up in the academic system. Every scholarly interest must find a home in an actual department, and every department is associated with a larger group of distinctive questions. I started asking myself hypothetical questions.

Say someone had written a dissertation on “The Tale of Sinuhe”? Well, forget working in a Classics department, that department is bolted exclusively to teaching Greek and Latin. What about a Religion department? Well, “Sinuhe” is a literary work. What about an Art History department? Well, “Sinuhe” is not a work of visual art, and the more one’s study has settled on literary or philological questions, the more distant one gets from questions central to an Art History department. A Comparative Literature department should be a place for this made-up scholar of “The Tale of Sinuhe”, but today it is an outpost for “Theory" with a capital T.

Many scholarly interests suffer from odd placement. For example, a student could be writing about Hebrew scripture, and then be surprised to find that this necessitates work in a Religion department.. even though much Hebrew scripture was written at the same time as some Greek Classics, shares a common Mediterranean setting, and might even survive in ancient Greek translations.. It is nonetheless by definition material for a Religion department and not a Classics department. And how about a student who wants to write on a classic author from, say, the classical Japanese literary tradition? Be careful! To get hired into a Japanese department will likely involve language teaching and the push will be for knowledge of contemporary works that could serve as texts in an upper level course. This departmental need for language instruction—a requirement at many universities these days—will also push hiring practices toward native speakers. On the other hand, perhaps this interest in the Japanese literary tradition could lend itself to a Religion department? Right there you can see how departments act as gravitational pulls for scholarly work.

Works that fall outside this departmental purview are in danger of simply not being studied. It is stunning sometimes to realize how bunched-up academic interests can be. Is Tristram Shandy really a more important work than the “Tale of Sinuhe”? Yet I would bet that dissertations touching on Tristram Shandy outnumber those touching on “The Tale of Sinuhe” by about 1,000 to 1. The reason? Most English departments have an 18th century scholar, and writing a dissertation on Tristram Shandy is one way to qualify for that specific position. You qualify for nothing if you write on “The Tale of Sinuhe.” Just a big "congratulations Dr. So and So."