celebrity gossip, academic style

The last time I posted — about a month ago on Charlie Sheen — I was completing the conclusion to my dissertation, gearing up for SCMS (film and media studies’ annual international conference) and feeling solid about the state of my dissertation. WHAT A DIFFERENCE A MONTH MAKES.

Since then, I have:

1.) Finished and handed in the completed draft of my dissertation, thinking it was (mostly) fine.

2.) Attended, reveled, and left completely exhausted from SCMS (in New Orleans), where I made several new friends who specialize in celebrity gossip, met scholars whose work has been fundamental and inspirational to my own, and presented on blogging, tweeting, and online networking as a media studies academic.

3.) Came home completely without a voice, which led to the very unfortunate cancellation of my presentation on Kanye and Twitter at SXSW.

4.) Took four separate plane trips in four weeks.

5.) Received the final editorial comments from my advisors on the diss…..and went into a five day flurry of final revisions that challenged me in a way (physically and intellectually) I haven’t felt since the beginning of grad school. (More on this below).

6.) Turned in the final final version of the dissertation just in time to allow readers four weeks before my defense….which will in turn allow me to graduate this May and receive my diploma on my 30th birthday.

7.) Accepted an unexpected dream job teaching film, media, cultural studies, and literature at The Putney School in Southern Vermont. More on this below as well.

8.) Received some exciting/unexpected/super promising emails related to the transformation of my dissertation into a book (if you’re ever wondering about the utility of a blog related to your research, THERE’S A GOOD REASON RIGHT THERE).

8.) Spent a ludicrous amount of time in the meantime catching up on sleep, reading fiction, doing yoga, and playing in the 80 degree Austin weather.

Before I return to regular celebrity gossip, academic style blogging, I do want to say a few words about completing the dissertation and my decision to take the job that I did. While most of the posts on this blog address celebrities and pop culture (the “celebrity gossip” in the blog title) it also approaches them from a perspective grounded in academia….and my relation to academia has always influenced my approach to blogging, my own blogging voice, and the type of topics I choose to cover. I also wish that there had been more descriptions of the dissertation process (and job market) in media studies in particular before I started my own journey, if only to make me feel just slightly more prepared.

FIRST, THE DISS.

I should begin with the caveat that I wrote my dissertation in nine months. I ostensibly began my research on June 1st and handed in the final copy in March. THIS IS NOT NORMAL, AND MIGHT EVEN BE RIDICULOUS. There were a few reasons for the brevity of my dissertating phase:

*I had a number of wise advisors at my master’s program who suggested that I try to use my seminars in my Ph.D. program to investigate and write initial drafts of chapters. So I did this, whenever possible. When I started writing my prospectus, I had already written drafts of three of my chapters. OR SO I THOUGHT. (More on this below).

*I was also lucky to have found a topic — even before I started my Ph.D. program — that I loved and that continued to fascinate me. The approach, scope, and argument concerning that topic (the production of celebrity gossip) has changed over the years, but the overarching topic has not.

*Because I needed to be officially ABD when I started my stint as a Visiting Instructor at Whitman College last Spring, I churned out a prospectus in the two months after I had finished my comprehensive exams (August 2009).

*When I was at Whitman, I was teaching three classes that I had never taught before — and knew that I needed to put the diss on the back burner during that time. I submitted and performed edits on articles during this time (at least one of which became a big chunk of the diss) but did not research or write on the diss from January through May of 2010.

*I am a fast writer and a slow reviser. As evidenced by the sheer length of my blog posts, sitting down and writing has never been a problem for me. Writing better — and with more concision and verve — sometimes has. When people ask how I managed to write over 400 pages so quickly, that seems like the easy part. The harder part was doing the initial research (many hours in the basement of the library on the microfiche machine and sifting through Lexis Nexus) and agonizing over revisions over the last two months.

*My dissertation advisor is phenomenally organized, which meant that I received feedback on my early drafts very quickly. Don’t underestimate how important this is.

My dissertation looks nothing like what I envisioned it as a first year Ph.D. student. It also looks very little like the dissertation I envisioned in my prospectus. Or, rather, the thrust of the argument is the same — but the organization, e.g. the way I went about proving my point, and the language I used in proving that point, has changed rather substantially. What started as a five-chapter consideration of five case studies between 1954 and the present ballooned into a ten chapter look at major shifts in the way that outlets within the gossip industry processed and mediated stars, basically starting at the beginning of the studio system.

[There are various philosophies about how the timeline of researching/writing a prospectus/proceeding through the diss should work. Mine had to be a certain way because of my job at Whitman. If I had to do it over again, it'd be awesome to have had a more thorough grasp of what I'd end up arguing -- in other words, have actually performed more of the initial nitty-gritty primary research. Granted, I had done a fair amount of that nitty-gritty during previous seminars, which saved a lot of time when it came to writing about People, The National Enquirer, Confidential, Entertainment Tonight, Perez, and TMZ. In the end, the way that I did it worked out -- and also helped me keep some momentum, which again cannot be underestimated.]

Even once I figured out how I’d organize the chapters, the diss was constantly transforming before my eyes — especially since I do most specific industrial research for a chapter right before I write it (rather than doing all the research upfront). I didn’t realize that I would be making the arguments about Entertainment Weekly/E!/Extra and their relation to Time Warner that I did, in part because I simply didn’t know as much about them as I thought I did.

Oh, did I mention the fact that only about two or three academics have written about my topic EVER?!? That makes it so much easier to research! Obviously I read just about everything ever written (academically) on Hollywood stars/star theory, but there was very little theorization of the way that these stars were mediated and how the industry that profits from that mediation works/relates to the rest of Hollywood. At times, this lack was painful, as I basically felt like I was connecting dots and forging arguments in the academic wilderness. But then again, I rarely had to pussyfoot around other scholars’ arguments or try to focus on refining a slight argument already made by another scholar. Virgin scholastic territory has its benefits.

My dissertation committee was made of five members, each with specific expertise in an area related to a section of the dissertation (industry, television, 1960s/70s stardom, 1950s stardom, etc.) As such, my chief advisor read every chapter, but an additional committee member also read the chapters that dealt with his/her expertise. Not only did this really help to refine my arguments in subsequent drafts, but also (somewhat) ensures that I won’t have any surprise or major objections when I defend in two weeks.

When I turned in the COMPLETE WHOLE THING at the very beginning of March, I thought things were pretty great. It was done; I would receive a few additional suggestions; I would perform final revisions; there we go. But after returning from Spring Break, both my chief advisor and my other chief reader/editor (who, for those of you who know the person I’m referencing, is famous for his incisive and incredibly editing skills…..that also require a fair amount of work) both basically told me that I had done a very nice job of doing a lot of researching, treading new ground, and forging an argument…..but that the diss, as it was, was merely good when it could be really great. What followed was a whirlwind (read: FIVE DAYS) final editing process in which I cut nearly 50 pages, added 15, and turned the “okay” into something much tighter, compelling, and, hopefully, great. It hurt like a bitch, and I nearly pulled the first all-nighter of my life, but I couldn’t be more grateful that they pushed me to make it better.

You may be asking, “why didn’t this silly girl just take more time?” Economic realities. Last year, the UT RTF program announced that they could not guarantee any funding past the fourth year. Several of my friends in their fifth year were forced to hodgepodge teaching-intensive appointments outside of the department during their fifth years. And while my leave of absence last year (to teach at Whitman) ensured at least another semester of funding, friends, I am sick and tired of accruing loans. I did not go to graduate school in the humanities to amass a loan load similar to that of law and med students who will go on to massive salaries. Yet the realities of living in Austin on our salary have forced continued accumulation of debt, even with my (temporary) Whitman salary to defer costs. What’s more, if the job market this year has taught me anything, it’s that ABDs (people without a completed degree next to their name) are put on the very bottom of the pile, if not entirely discarded, when it comes to job searches. And, as my very sage MA advisor Mike Aronson told me during my second quarter at Oregon, “a good dissertation is a done dissertation.”

And so, it will be done — dependent, of course, upon the committee’s approval on April 22nd.

SECOND, THE JOB.

I’m not going to go into super detail about the media studies job search. Suffice to say that I applied for around fifty jobs — with varying degrees of fit — and received several “bites” (request for additional materials, phone interviews, MLA interviews) but nothing past the first round. From speaking with others in my situation, my lot seems to be very typical. The jobs that used to go to ABDs are now going to those at visitings/postdocs/those fleeing the California schools and downsizing departments. UT has no opportunities for adjuncting or postdocs. In other words, around the end of February, the future was looking very dim. Would I delay the dissertation? Would I defend and try to make ends meet by returning to nannying? (Which, JUST SAYIN’, paid three times what I make as a grad student — at least when I lived in Seattle). How in the world would I get health insurance? On a whim, I Googled a school that had long resided in my recesses of my mind, where rigorous academics met with a dedication to the experience of the natural world. Over the years, I’ve met a handful of people who’ve attended this school, each of which were remarkable, unique, and intellectually confident in a way I cannot quite put in words.

This school — The Putney School — happened to be advertising an opening in English. My undergraduate and M.A. degrees qualify me to teach English; my five years of teaching experience qualify me to teach; my two summers teaching gifted and talented high school students qualified me to teach high school students. I also thought my upbringing in history with the natural world (hiking, mountaineering, climbing, alpine and cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing, gardening, horseback riding) as a child and student in the Pacific Northwest might make me an even more attractive candidate. But high school? Did I really want to do this? Didn’t I pursue a Ph.D. so that I could teach college level kids?

Fear for my future led me to apply. Two weeks later, I received a request for an initial phone interview, which later turned into a Skype interview and an on-campus interview in Vermont. The school flat out bewitched me. There were three feet of snow on the ground — a reality with which I knew I would have to grow accustomed, if I was offered the job — but the students, the campus (on a beautiful farm on dozens of acres atop a hill, just a few miles from Brattleboro, Vermont), the landscape, the confidence and intelligence and overarching energy of the place……I fell in love. I had the opportunity to teach a class of seven students, and they were, no joking, more engaged, engaging, insightful, and straight-out *hungry* to learn than any other students I have encountered, whether at Whitman, Texas, or Oregon. Putney was founded as a progressive school, which means that it builds on the philosophy of John Dewey — who believed, as Putney and its community does, that education is all that you do. Whether waking up at 6 a.m. to milk cows, participating in a small seminar on Existentialism, or learning how to blacksmith, it’s all part of education and the subsequent cultivation of character and intellect.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the reason I had decided to get into academia was not to get a job, but to teach — and to teach at a small liberal arts college where I could help reproduce the type of education that I myself had received at Whitman. The publishing, the networking — all of that was done in service of that greater goal. But when I stepped back, I realized that Putney was a liberal arts college in a smaller package, with even more of the philosophy and adaptability (and lack of red tape) that could create an invigorating and sustaining learning environment for both teachers and students. Did I mention that I get ridiculous breaks? That it’s gorgeous? That I’ll use about a tank of gas a year? The yoga studio looking out into the mountains? There’s a second breakfast built into the day called “MILK LUNCH,” complete with fresh baked bread! The lack of grades and subsequent lack of grade-grubbing? The small (read: 5-10) class size?

But will I end up teaching English? No, or at least not traditionally. Part of the reason Putney was drawn to my application was, indeed, my background in media studies. (And, I’m guessing, the fact of the Ph.D. — they received over 300 applications (a testament to the trickle-down from the academic market). Yet the English Department had recently decided to perform a dramatic overhaul of their 11th grade curriculum, transforming a course that had previously focused on American literature into one more broadly concerned with American culture — essentially an American Studies/Cultural Studies course. Which is exactly what I do: even when I teach Film History, it’s part industrial history, part cultural history. Star/celebrity studies would not exist without movies and television and other forms of media, but the disciplines are not about the texts in which stars/celebrity appear so much as the ways in which those texts contribute to the star or celebrity’s cultural reception and significance. In other words, this is perfect. For next year, I’ll also be teaching “elective” courses (for upperclassman) in Post-Katrina Media (Treme, When the Levees Broke, Zeitoun, etc.) and Modernism and Modernity, both of which I designed myself.

I received the job offer half-way through SCMS, which was both discombobulating and incredibly fortunate. I was able to talk through the possibility with basically all of the scholars/friends that I admire and who have provided guidance in the past, and the overarching consensus was that taking the job at Putney did not mean forever foreclosing my future as an academic. Sure, I’ll probably never get a job at an Research-1 university. But that was never the goal. So long as I continue to publish, get my diss out in book form, choose my applications carefully, and concentrate on teaching, I could potentially parlay my time at Putney into a job at a liberal arts school. Who knows: maybe I’ll stay at Putney for 20 years, maybe I’ll stay for 3.

If you asked me a year ago if I would’ve ever considered taking a job at the high school level, I would’ve said absolutely not. But opportunities sometimes do not arrive as advertised, and embracing this opportunity took a significant amount of paradigm shifting — and thinking about what I really wanted and needed to be happy and stimulated, whether intellectually, psychologically, or academically. Miles and miles of running/hiking/cross-country trails out my backdoor! Fresh milk and organic vegetables at every meal! MOUNTAINS! Kids who LIKE LEARNING! Those things might not make you happy, but few things make me happier.

To conclude, I’m thrilled to be back on the blogging train and rest assured have no plans to discontinue Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style when I begin at Putney in the Fall. I do hope that I’ve in some way shed light on my own journey through the dissertation and job search process, and would be happy to answer any questions you might have, either in the comments, on Twitter, or via email.

(If you haven’t hopped on the bandwagon, I encourage you to join the Celebrity Gossip, Academic Style Facebook page, where I post the MVP gossip/celebrity/star bits on a daily basis — at least check it out. Not spammy, just awesome.)