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a career in academia - the process

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The Orientalist

Hi, I was thinking of becoming a researcher later on, that is I got to logically do phD, postdoc, publish etc. This may seem like a dumn question but I don't know where I can get an answer so I'll ask this question here: can you be a full time researcher without having to teach students and become a lecturer. I'm not that keen on teaching, but research really interests me. I ask this question because all the researchers in my department I think are, to a certain extent, involved in teaching (may it be undergrads or postgrads). Nobody seems to be just doing research. Thanks.

Yes, you can work in a research institute. However, I am told that whilst just concentrating on research is a nice position to be in, the job security is not that good (funding) and the money is less than you could get if you worked your way up within a university.

Reply 21

fundamentally

The Orientalist

can you be a full time researcher without having to teach students and become a lecturer. I'm not that keen on teaching, but research really interests me.

Like you, most would-be academics are not excited about teaching and jobs that don't require teaching are usually sought after. These jobs exist but are probably not easy to come by.

All Souls has some postions like that :biggrin:

. "All Souls is unique among Oxford colleges because it has no junior members: all are Fellows (except the Warden)." http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/index.php "It has no undergraduate members. Every year, the top finalists of the University are invited to sit the examination for fellowship of the College. About two are elected to fellowship each year."

Of course, it is harder to get a position at All Souls than it is to get a job at Harvard. :eek:

They elect two Fellows each year based on the results of examinations. http://www.all-souls.ox.ac.uk/elections/prize.php Additional members are added from the ranks of the most distinguished academics in the world.

Reply 22

Fazorme

fundamentally

Tolkien was a well know writer. Do he actually contribute anything worthwhile to scholarship while he was Professor of Anglo-Saxon at Oxford ? :confused:

Yeah, he published some still-famed-today articles, especially a series of essays now known as 'The Monsters and the Critics' which completley changed Old English criticism (Beowulf for instance). Pretty much all literary appreciation of the poem is based on his arguments. Also translated Sir Gawain, an edition which is still used today in a few unis

Reply 23

hobnob

Prize fellowships at All Souls aren't really "jobs" as such, though, are they? I suppose you might argue that the senior research fellowships are, but those aren't really open to people who don't have considerable academic standing already...

Reply 24

ChemistBoy

Erm, there is a difference between prize fellowships and other fellowships at all souls (the former are purely honourific). All souls have three postdoctoral research fellowships which look no different to most others (except that you can only get one if your research is in certain disciplines, not experimental science, sadly). The pay is crap however, even by postdoc standards. You have a 'viva voce' exam, which is actually just the oxford way of saying panel interview. Of course, anyone at postdoc level is not going to be of massive standing in the academic community.

Reply 25

the_alba

It's not All Souls or nothing when it comes to postdoc research fellowships, there are a few more dotted around different colleges, but it is pretty much Oxbridge or nothing for them. There's so much hysteria over them too - for instance, if you suggest leaving Oxford to do a PhD elsewhere, people look at you in horror ( :eek:

) and say, 'But you'll throw away your chance of a research fellowship!!!'

This is actually (like Foucault, in my opinion, the Boosh!) so much bull. They are highly competitive but not, as the myth goes, generally reserved for Oxbridgeans. It helps to be super hot **** though.

Reply 26

the_alba

how I asterisk those pesky asterisks

Reply 27

hobnob

ChemistBoy

Sure. I wasn't actually thinking of those, though, but of yet another type of fellowship. (Which just goes to show it would really help if the college didn't insist on calling such different groups "fellows",just for the sake of the "all fellows" line. :rolleyes:

)

Reply 28

ChemistBoy

the_alba

) and say, 'But you'll throw away your chance of a research fellowship!!!'

There are tons of post-doctoral research fellowships all over the country! In science the term associate and fellow seem to be interchangeable though which is confusing.

This is actually (like Foucault, in my opinion, the Boosh!) so much bull. They are highly competitive but not, as the myth goes, generally reserved for Oxbridgeans. It helps to be super hot **** though.

I'm sure you have to be the cat's whiskers.

Reply 29

the_alba

ChemistBoy

There are tons of post-doctoral research fellowships all over the country! In science the term associate and fellow seem to be interchangeable though which is confusing.

Very very few universities offer these in English outside Oxbridge. Sorry, I'm always speaking from an English-centric viewpoint, since I know nothing about anything else!

Reply 30

The Boosh

im so confused.

as chemistboy says - postdoc opportunities come thick and fast, perhaps more so in those fields with a heavier empirical base, but given the 130 or so HE institutes in the UK ( & the independent research institutions) usually its a case of waiting until they crop up. in terms of oxford phds - they will not be valued over and above departments of equal or better standing when it comes to applying for academic jobs, anybody that believes that should not be doing a phd.

im really confused about the foucault comment too - i didnt claim i liked foucault, rather, i doubted the calibre of applicant who challenges the interview panel on such a superficial point rather than attempting to answer the question in order to get the job.

i would like to know what is wrong with literary theory and why reading a text from the gaze of others (yes foucault's notion of 'gaze'...) is a negative thing. i fail to see the problem with using different philosophies to appreciate the text on different levels and explore meaning in different ways (after all, literature is about symbolic representation) or are you more concerned with spelling and grammar?

Reply 31

ChemistBoy

the_alba

Very very few universities offer these in English outside Oxbridge. Sorry, I'm always speaking from an English-centric viewpoint, since I know nothing about anything else!

There seems to be a lot more temporary lecturships and teaching fellowships though than in science (these having very similar criteria to scientific postdoc research positions). Perhaps the route to academia is somewhat different in the arts than in the sciences. Teaching positions in the sciences are harder to come by for recent PhD graduates whereas in the arts it appears that it is the research positions that are harder to come by - publication rates may have a bearing on this.

I loved the teaching experience I gained when I was a PhD student and I wish I could get some more although my chances are probably limited at the moment, considering I am a chemist in a physics department. I know quite a lot of academics do like teaching, they just find it stressful because it does take time away from administering their research.

Reply 32

the_alba

The Boosh

im really confused about the foucault comment too - i didnt claim i liked foucault, rather, i doubted the calibre of applicant who challenges the interview panel on such a superficial point rather than attempting to answer the question in order to get the job.

i would like to know what is wrong with literary theory and why reading a text from the gaze of others (yes foucault's notion of 'gaze'...) is a negative thing. i fail to see the problem with using different philosophies to appreciate the text on different levels and explore meaning in different ways (after all, literature is about symbolic representation) or are you more concerned with spelling and grammar?

Sorry, my illustration of stupid pseudy interviewer v. good literary interviewee may have suggested I only cared about good grammar. My point was merely that English departments are swimming with non-book-readers, and people I know, who are full of brilliant ideas and intertextual comparisons and discoveries, have lost out for failing to offer an anal Baudrillardian analysis of Carol Ann Duffy, or something.

I think that theory is too often a device used by not very bright students and academics to cover for the fact that they don't have any ideas of their own about texts and authors. It's very easy to process Joyce or whoever through the battery farm of pre-packaged theory without having to think about the subject. Too many people who take this approach have no opinion to offer about the writers they are supposed to be experts on, and if you asked them 'Why do you like X's work?' or even gave them a poem by an author they knew and said, just talk about this, compare it to whatever you want, Langland, Bob Dylan, anything, just don't drag Foucault into it - they would draw a blank. The result, really, is that bad writing becomes as 'valid' a topic as Flaubert, Yeats, Elizabeth Bishop, whoever, because the theorist doesn't stop to ask 'Is this writing any good? Does it stand up on its own without Deleuze coming to its rescue?' When this starts happening, theory starts to eat away at the subject, to the despair of good, intelligent literary scholars.

Not that I think ALL theory is bad - I'm not some stuffy biographical reader / liberal humanist, etc. I enjoy Adorno, Gramsci, Benjamin. I apply philosophical ideas to readings when necessary - a splash of Kierkegaard is always good! It's a specific gripe I have with theory in general, and of course there are exceptions. Sorry for this dissertation of a post! :wink:

Reply 33

ChemistBoy

It's amazing how in every discipline theoriticians get it in the neck!

Reply 34

the_alba

ChemistBoy

It's amazing how in every discipline theoriticians get it in the neck!

Don't worry, in English at least I'm in the minority! :tumble:

I hope us postgrads aren't too old for emoticons too.

Reply 35

shady lane

There is this fellowship at Harvard that Steven Levitt (author of Freakonomics) did.
http://www.socfell.fas.harvard.edu/about.html

Reply 36

The Boosh

the_alba

that's an explanation i can appreciate. i thought you were going to spew out grotesque globules of atheoretical bile at me amounting to some warped sense objectivism but what you actually said is something i whole heartedly agree with. i love philosophy, but as an undergrad i found the process of offering marxist criticisms of bronte novels somewhat superficial. learning how vulgar marxists sniper at classical marxists who in turn are burning the feet of neomarxists usually left me with a feeling of emptiness where my motivation had drained away. there has to be a point to theory, some way in which the texts spring to life and suggest something different, but ultimately the literature should be at the heart of a literature degree. interestingly, in social science fields you often find practitioners who have not been through the theoretical mill are rather unreflective and uncritical. a mutual relationship is needed between theory and practice: theory informs practice which in turn informs theory. in terms of literature, i think theory makes your readings and criticisms stronger, but as you pointed out, without the right scaffolding you are simply rehearsing age old arguments and you critical abilities start lagging behind.

Reply 37

apotoftea

Think for the likes of History - posts don't come up as often as the sciences but I may well wrong

Only going on what I've been told at university

Reply 38

ChemistBoy

vickytoria77

Think for the likes of History - posts don't come up as often as the sciences but I may well wrong

No you are right, science posts are much more plentiful simply because of the amount of research money given to the sciences compared to the arts (even factoring in that science is a much more expensive business for the most part).