Even so, I should admit that I use or that I used to use this titled somewhat euphemistically, covering up for a different title—less attractive and romantic, that of an Unemployed Scholar. The truth must be laid out: from the completion of the PhD dissertation throughout three postdoctoral fellowships right up to this very moment, I haven't been successful in what they call "securing a tenure (track) academic position" (primarily in Israel but also abroad). It's not that I'm literally unemployed. In fact, because I'm not employed in an academic position, I actually have to employ myself rather intensively in order to be able to be as prolific as are my colleagues who are working, researching and publishing from within academic institutions, backed with all that this factory can do in order to make its workers as productive as possible. Of course, I'm also a breadwinner (one of two), and there are therefore no "budgets" of "funds" that are mine personally, and on the yearly occasion of traveling abroad for an academic conference (I don’t travel abroad on any other circumstance), I'm well aware of the fact that these are family resources that I enjoy.
It took me quite some time to redefine my position in or in relation to the institutional world of academia, from "unemployed" to "independent." There where quite a number of job talks I had given and interviews conducted in different social science departments in Israeli universities. Unusually, the result of the "job talk" show were set in advance, and I simply didn’t know of this or was not aware of the fact that this is how it works (here, and perhaps elsewhere too): backstage politics around the positions determine much of the chances candidates have in getting the wanted job (about my naïveté and romanticism of academia see below). This did not prevent those professors who interviewed and examined my academic expertise from putting me down and placing the fault with me, suggesting one time that I "do not know anything" and other such accusations (all conducted during job talks and other public events). All this generally made me feel horrible and shameful for about three to four years. During this period there were also many promises made, some of them with austere seriousness and intentness on behalf of those who I must presume meant only good for me. All these promises eventually crashed against the institutions'—academic--bureaucracy. Some of them were simply manipulative maneuvers which were aimed at luring me to stay for another year or two in the exploitative position of "untenured lecturer" (locally called "outside teachers"). That is, someone who gets paid for per hour, with no additional rights whatsoever (this meant I got fired every year so I wouldn't be able to secure any rights, I had no funds for any academic or other activities, and no funds were directed at any kind of retirement or sabbatical program, etc.). What I really didn’t like in this specific matter was that if it wasn't me that was bad and ill-skilled, it was always agents whose identity was very vague, such as a "general recession," the "condition of Israeli academia," an anonymous (sometimes explicitly secretive) "faculty committee," and other such rhetoric. I realize that the academia as I know it is one of the places that excels at deferring responsibly, and I came to wonder what kind of knowledge can be created within an institution of this type.
So you can imagine that there were a few years with emotional implications for the author, usually in the form of melancholia. Bleak feelings of worthlessness that had a granite texture to them: they seem like they'll stay within me forever (I'm not saying this is not the case).
It's hard for me to point out when and therefore also why did the emotional barometer's needle started moving in a different direction. I guess that at one point I realized what my wife had been telling me all along (seeing how I suffer from up-close), which is that I was paying too dear of a personal price anyhow; and that regardless of what it was—what my dream was which I was pursuing, it wasn't worth it. What came in helpful was the fact that I was actually very prolific in my work, particularly with publications concerning the Commemorative Visitor Book Project. I also got some outstanding reviews and appraisals on other submissions and publications (book reviews and the like), and conference presentations. Also, my colleagues—the few I had managed to make and keep—were forthcoming (mefargenim, in Hebrew). So at some point, and in a gradual manner, I decided it’s the institution's blame and problem, and not my own. Very simple. Just like they said it was in those learned helplessness experiments in social psychology, where there's a question about responsibility and agency. I said (to myself and to anyone who would listen): SCREW THEM! And I decided that I'm not going to apply anymore to academic positions.
As this realization sunk in my feelings become lighter and more mobile. I realized that academia, at least Israeli universities and departments with which I am familiar, are very conservative and highly disciplined. While there's much talk about interdisciplinarity, when it comes to the moneys that lie in the deep pockets, i.e. moneys concerning tenure positions, every discipline, and I mean every single discipline, sniffs the candidate well to see if s/he is "from our kin or not": In anthropology they said I didn’t spend a number of years oversees somewhere; in sociology they argued that I was too qualitative; in communication they didn't like my "marginal interests" (i.e. not dealing with "mass media"); and in cultural studies I was boldly informed that "this is an academic field and not a wastebasket of cultural observations and observers"! So there you have it/I had it.
But I also acknowledge the fact that there are other reasons that can interestingly account for the repeated lack of success I had endured in this matter. There are other reasons that also played a role in the story of not being permitted a ticket to the inside of the institution. These points have, so some been, to some degree, already hinted at above.
First, I'm a lousy schmoozer. But I mean seriously, on an existential level. I don’t know to talk the (little) talk. I'm bad at it on particular social occasions, and more generally and more importantly, in all matters of socialization. Having to admit to this social fact is weird for me, because my self-image, at least up to a few years ago, was that of someone very cheerful and talkative, who really likes to socialize; a buddy, or as we say in Hebrew, "one of the guys" (ehad meha'hevre). In high school I had a close circle of really good friends and we used to give our teachers at school a headache and have a lot of fun together. So all was (socially at least) in place. So it took me a long time to realize that things are different in the forth decade of my life. When I look at it now, I cannot miss the fact that it's really hard for me to socialize. It is often that I feel very shy and alienated and that I find it extremely hard to "make a conversation" (as they say in American) or to maintain one. On almost every public occasion, even with my closest friends and family, you'll find me to be one of the quietest persons around the table. It's as though I don’t have much to say, and indeed, if people ask me directly as to what I think or why am I quite, I would reply the same: I have nothing in particular to say. I really don’t. I usually don’t have anything to say or don’t know what to say. I feel that I really need extremely comfortable conditions to be able to engage freely in interaction, and that these beneficial conditions rarely exist on natural everyday interactions. I've been laying all of this down simply to say that all kinds ("orders") of schmoozing are difficult for me and that in academia, and in Israeli academia in particular, schmoosing is a necessity. Schmoosing here is a different word for making connections and social ties (those famous "weak social ties" that are said to be so helpful in getting jobs), and that it's hard for me to flatter people or tell them I like what they are doing when in fact I don’t know what they are doing and don’t care either.
So now for the third (and last) explanation I can—and must—supply. I mentioned that my friends and I would give our teachers hard time in school. This is true but an understatement, a tip of an iceberg. We were indeed "yeladim shovavim" (mischievous kids), but if look back at it, this tells me something about how I got along with and in institutions, and with figures of institutional authority even back then in elementary school, and later in high school (and later during my military service). From elementary school I remember endless and painful disagreements with my teachers, wherein I took the position of the "defender of the weak" in my class. I am actually not sure whether these "weak" students of lower socioeconomic background liked what I'm doing, but I surely didn't like the kind of attitude they were getting. Once, one kid (Shlomi Shrieky), told me, after yet another bitter argument with the teacher, "Chaim, your right (ata tsodek), but there's no one who would acknowledge you (lehatsdik otcha)". I found it revealing that a fifth grader would already have humor (an ironical and sad type of humor) at the understanding that if you are right and there's no institutional power to back you up on what you say, it eventually means very little.
In high school things were worse, and I got thrown out of the esteemed Gymnasia High School at the end of the tenth grade. There were no warnings given to me or to my family in advance as to my condition, and actually they kicked me out at the party at the end of the year, when my parents were abroad. You can imagine how many stories lie behind (and I guess that also in front) of this traumatic event—most of which are actually hilarious stories, and some are disturbing because I really took the institution's decision to my heart. As one of my teachers later told me (her name was Edna Poles, and she was my Hebrew grammar teacher, which I relatively liked), after I returned to school with many promises, tears, and a lot of pressure exerted by my parents: "school is shitty but it [therefore] prepares you for real life"!
I'm indicating all this just to say that rather earlier on, we—institutions and myself—weren't reacting really well: I was very critical and I misbehaved, and they—well they kicked me out (or didn’t let me in if I had already infiltrated their lines).
And so I'm nearing the end now, and I think that I've managed to exhaust the accounts I can supply for being an Independent Scholar and for not being inside—an "insider" in the Promised Land of institutional (Israeli) Academia. I grew up in a house where my father—Dov Noy—was an academic: a renowned folklore professor. So you see wherefrom I got ("inherited") my interests in academia and worse, wherefrom I got my (wrong) ideas of how the institution works. I guess I had in mind romanticist images that were relevant to the seventies (if not to an earlier decades, my father having got his PhD in Indiana, USA, in 1952).
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- There are plenty of references to ISs and organization of ISs on the web
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