It takes a highly-trained reader to make sense of the complex code of the AWP and MLA job listings. Fortunately, you’ve spent years in graduate school toning your interpretive muscles, reading your way through French literary theory, stacks of freshman composition papers, and the fine-print on your lifetime supply of student loan payment coupons. It’s clear that you’re up to the challenge, but allow us to help with this brief guide to the subtleties of the academic job announcement:
North Dakota Agricultural and Mechanical University ??? Gomorrah. Distinguished one-year non-tenure track Visiting Assistant Professor in Poetry with substantial publication record to teach part time in our new low-residency MFA program, as well as part time in our thriving school of Veterinary Medicine. We seek a colleague whose work engages ideas of time, place, and the infinite nature of the human soul, along with an ability to repair the copier. This position will offer 5 teaching opportunities per semester, including 3 opportunities for the teaching of composition, as well as extensive advising opportunities, opportunities to edit the campus literary weekly, deliver the mail, & assist with job placement for our graduate students entering the exciting world of professional poetry writing. Nonrenewable position. Two book minimum. North Dakota A&M University ??? Gomorrah is an affirmative action/equal opportunity employer consistent with applicable federal law, whatever that may be after the first Monday in October. All qualified applicants are encouraged to apply. Please send letter of application, c.v., transcripts, three letters of reference, and application fee of $20 per entry to: Dr. Alfredo Putz, Chair, Department of English, North Dakota Agricultural and Mechanical University — Gomorrah, Humanities Building, Devils Lake ND 58301. Review of applications will begin immediately & continue until the position is filled or the search committee is, well, committed.
Added 09/24/07
After the jump, an interpretation!
“North Dakota Agricultural and Mechanical University ??? Gomorrah.” Sounds scenic, no? With views of the badlands and all the major fast food outlets, the lovely town of Gomorrah takes its name from the Hebrew for “buried,” reflecting the annual tradition of celebrating the first snowfall each August and the festive “Great Cloud o’ Dust Days” celebration, commemorating the last sighting of the town’s founders as they fled up the on-ramp to the interstate. (But don’t worry. You can always write your way out.)
“Distinguished one-year non-tenure track Visiting Assistant Professor of Poetry with substantial publication record.” Their tenured poet is in the Dordogne on his third consecutive one-year leave, but you’ll run into him in the lobby of all the best MLA hotels. He’s got lots of interviews.
“This position will offer 5 teaching opportunities per semester.” They believe in teaching at NDA&M-Gomorrah, and so do you when you sit down to write the application letter. You’ll have lots of “opportunities” to perfect your pedagogy during your year without sunshine or potable water. But look at it this way, your grading speed will rise dramatically!
“Two book minimum.” And the thing is, they’ll get it. The successful candidate, you’ll learn on a job blog next spring, has won the Yale Series of Younger Poets and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. His New and Selected Poems will be coming out from Norton in the Spring. Poetry’s a tough game.
Did I mention that The Kenyon Review is searching for a Managing Editor?