Subject
Fw: Droves of Academe
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EDNOTE. Since "thank yous" seem to be the order of the day, NABOKV-L and the
International Vladimir Nabokov Society take the opportunity to thank Mary
Bellino, a professional editor, who volunteers to help put out our journal
NABOKOV STUDIES.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (35
lines) ------------------
> The article mentioned by Arthur Glass, 'Droves of Academe',
> by Tom McGervan and Rebecca Traister, may be read online at
>
> http://www.english.upenn.edu/~traister/mla.htm
>
> and it is bleak, bleak, bleak. Certainly anyone who expects
> to get a raw dissertation published is just courting
> rejection, and the situation for monographs in general isn't
> much better. While at the MLA I had to attend a panel for
> people working on books in the "Blackwell Companion" series
> (unfortunately held at the same time as the first Nabokov
> panel), at which Andrew McNeillie from Blackwell's glumly
> explained that a few years ago Blackwell realized it would
> go bankrupt if it continued to publish scholarly monographs,
> so they abandoned them entirely and went over to publishing
> Companions, Guides, Concise Companions etc. There seems to
> be an awful lot of competition in the Companion market these
> days, so this may be a trend across all of scholarly
> publishing. And since the typical Companion
> editor/contributor is a senior scholar in his or her field,
> the net percentage of in-print pages by younger folk has got
> to be shrinking.
>
> OK, on to more cheerful topics--
> Mary
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Arthur Glass" <goliard@worldnet.att.net>
>
> > > Anyone who thinks that publishing with an eye toward the promotions
committee is a practical life-startegy in the humanities ought to get hold
of and pour over 'Droves of Academe', by Tom McGervan and Rebecca Traister,
a piece about the recent MLA convention in New York. which appeared on the
front page of the Jan 6 issue of the __New York Observer__ . All the sad,
hang-dog about-to-be docs and post-docs leaving off piles of raw
dissertations in front of publishers booths.
> > >
> So if you want to write about imaginative literature, you
> might as well 'follow your bliss' (or your flutterby) an
> activity to which reading and discussing the works of the
> Bird of Paradise makes a significant contribution.
International Vladimir Nabokov Society take the opportunity to thank Mary
Bellino, a professional editor, who volunteers to help put out our journal
NABOKOV STUDIES.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mary Bellino" <iambe@rcn.com>
> ----------------- Message requiring your approval (35
lines) ------------------
> The article mentioned by Arthur Glass, 'Droves of Academe',
> by Tom McGervan and Rebecca Traister, may be read online at
>
> http://www.english.upenn.edu/~traister/mla.htm
>
> and it is bleak, bleak, bleak. Certainly anyone who expects
> to get a raw dissertation published is just courting
> rejection, and the situation for monographs in general isn't
> much better. While at the MLA I had to attend a panel for
> people working on books in the "Blackwell Companion" series
> (unfortunately held at the same time as the first Nabokov
> panel), at which Andrew McNeillie from Blackwell's glumly
> explained that a few years ago Blackwell realized it would
> go bankrupt if it continued to publish scholarly monographs,
> so they abandoned them entirely and went over to publishing
> Companions, Guides, Concise Companions etc. There seems to
> be an awful lot of competition in the Companion market these
> days, so this may be a trend across all of scholarly
> publishing. And since the typical Companion
> editor/contributor is a senior scholar in his or her field,
> the net percentage of in-print pages by younger folk has got
> to be shrinking.
>
> OK, on to more cheerful topics--
> Mary
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Arthur Glass" <goliard@worldnet.att.net>
>
> > > Anyone who thinks that publishing with an eye toward the promotions
committee is a practical life-startegy in the humanities ought to get hold
of and pour over 'Droves of Academe', by Tom McGervan and Rebecca Traister,
a piece about the recent MLA convention in New York. which appeared on the
front page of the Jan 6 issue of the __New York Observer__ . All the sad,
hang-dog about-to-be docs and post-docs leaving off piles of raw
dissertations in front of publishers booths.
> > >
> So if you want to write about imaginative literature, you
> might as well 'follow your bliss' (or your flutterby) an
> activity to which reading and discussing the works of the
> Bird of Paradise makes a significant contribution.