Academic Publishing

-
I’m settling well in my fixed-term post of Teaching Fellow in Film and Visual Culture. The teaching load is heavy, the days will be manic, and I’m raring to get cracking. We’re covering some great material with which I am very comfortable, and am becoming happily reacquainted with Deleuze’s Cinema texts. The PhD has done something to my brain, reading Deleuze gives me such joy now – what a difference from the frustrated grappling during the MA. Hopefully I can help my second year undergraduates get a decent grasp of him.

With only four full-time staff (including brand new short-term me), teaching for the department this semester, we are stretched, but shaping up to be a crack team. There will be little time for our own research endeavours. The commissioning editor for my monograph is happy for me to push my deadline back and make producing the manuscript my summer project. I have major revisions to do on an article that came back from peer review due in March. Considering I threw it together in less than a week and was unable to research it beyond what I had already put together for the conference paper from which it is derived, I’m pleased. Previous posts should explain why that time could not be found. The reviewers’ comments are fair and appreciated, and I hope will guide me towards producing a worthy piece of work. An issue that arises consistently is a lack of confidence and authority in the writing. This is likely indicative of my state of mind at the time of writing at the beginning of November (kick-starting an attempt to join @PhD2Published’s #acwrimo (academinc writing month) challenge, which for me failed miserably as I succumbed to the pressures of the part-time shop job that wasn’t so part-time. Then, I was at my lowest ebb, professionally, personally, and in wellbeing. So, if when feeling so down, I can produce an article showing potential and is worthwhile revising for resubmission, imagine what I can do when the mojo is back. The major revisions in this case are welcome and only to be taken positively. And they must be done, and done well.

Although I do have one article in the bag, it was not peer-reviewed, or revised, just printed, and not because it was a stellar piece of work. I don’t even think it holds the argument well. As an early career researcher (#ECR) – who happens to be a pretty good teacher, that much I am confident of – I need to get a peer-reviewed article in the current REF cycle to be in with a sliver of a chance of any further job applications so much as being looked at.

And then there’s the article which actually is a good piece of work out there somewhere in the ether. I revised and resubmitted it last summer without so much as an acknowledgement. I must chase it up in order to be free to submit it elsewhere. I worked too long and too hard on it with too much support from others to let it go.

Coming back to the monograph, it is something I am having great difficulty with on a decision-making level. I approached someone I know well professionally who is a prolific author of academic books. As I said to him, ‘You knock them out like Billy-o,’ at which he laughed and said, ‘That doesn’t mean they’re any good.’ This exchange has niggled at me since. Sure, perhaps he’s just being modest. I proofread one of his books for him and nothing otherwise crossed my mind. So what makes a ‘good’ monograph? How do I protect myself against scathing reviews of my meaningless drivel? I doubt I can. Apart from anything, that’s just how it is anyway. As it stands, holes can easily be poked in some arguments and lots of ‘why this?’ questions could be asked – I need to redress those weaknesses. My case studies are strong, though. I know that my critical analysis is intelligent and well written. Engagements with some others’ texts can be improved. My problem is this: in the UK if publishing monographs carries much less weight than articles in peer-reviewed 4/5 star international journals, why should I worry? Just knock it out and don’t look back. I’m young in this game after all. But it’s my baby coming to life, my first book, from years of hard, life-changing toil. I want it to be impressive. I want to be proud of it. Realistically, I have no time or funding to improve it any more than a huge edit and partial rewrite, and now want to hold it back until the next REF cycle anyway. My head is swimming and I have no choice but to stay resolved to the tasks at hand. Priorities are the job and the article corrections. Then making an enquiry about the other article as that is the work of minutes. The rest is a problem for June when I am jobless.

(I wish I could get away with writing this loosely all the time!)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

You owe me twenty quid: Tyres in Spaced

-
Image
15 May 2020 Last week Becca Harrison tweeted about re-watching the turn-of-the-millennium Channel 4 sitcom, Spaced , and some of its most quotable lines (concerning jaffa cakes in coat pockets) and imitable actions (mimed shoot out). Being an Ulsterperson, my fondness for the show often homes in on Tyres played by Belfast-born, Holywood-bred actor Michael Smiley (if you're a Ben Wheatley fan, you ought to recognise him). This train of thought, not for the first time, got me thinking about the significance of Tyres. When Spaced first aired in September 1999, Northern Ireland was a year-and-a-half into its fragile official peacetime following (and not quite yet distinct from) the prior thirty years of conflict. I was in my mid-teens and it was only when I reached my early and mid-twenties that I fully understood the characters in the show, especially the oddities of being a grown-up but feeling not as mature as your age suggested, of feeling the ageing process but still being
Read more

Spirited Away

-
Image
22 May 2020 Back in what feels like the beforetimes in February, Netflix began a staggered release of Studio Ghibli films, which put me in the mood to revisit many of them as well as see the few I'd missed for the first time. As the Covid-19 crisis became more apparent and lockdown was (finally and suddenly) introduced in the UK, the desire in particular to find comfort in Sprited Away (dir. Hayao Miyazaki, 2001) grew all the more. It's a film I've watched a few times before, and I enjoy the experience of seeing the works in both the original Japanese and English dubs. When Channel 4 ran a Studio Ghibli season, oh goodness, 10 to 15 or perhaps more years ago, only the dubbed versions were shown. But Netflix gives fantastic options for audio and subtitle combinations, and this time round it has to be the Japanese. In early April my anxiety concerning the pandemic was overwhelming, and getting it under control led to fatigue. One afternoon I had to admit defeat and lie i
Read more

Shadow Dancer

-
*DISCLAIMER: I am writing about the film with an approach to critical analysis with only a hint of review, therefore there are spoilers within if you have not seen the film. This post serves as a line of thought that I am archiving for later development.* It appears that reviews of Shadow Dancer (Marsh, 2012) have not been entirely complimentary, as far as I am aware (I am deliberately avoiding them so feel free to correct me), and seem largely to have been written by men. The film is much more than critics and general commenters deem it to be (e.g. one I came across stated that this is yet another Troubles film making the IRA out to be scum). Shadow Dancer does not attempt to depict the Northern Ireland conflict through a microcosmic narrative, rather it draws out a suppressed individual struggle within patriarchal organizations, and in doing so attempts to reflect the hidden lives many were forced to lead. The most striking aspect of Shadow Dancer for me is its evocation
Read more