On the topic of reading in the academy

Every academic laments how little they have time to read. It's a bitter irony of the corporate-white-tower: academics are supposed to produce endless quantities of "knowledge" but seldom have time to learn. This begs the question: 'produce knowledge for whom?' Certainly not the public--that's out. That would be beneath us, ahem, ahem.

Personally, I find that reading good theory best stimulates my own knowledge production.

And while I've vastly exceeded my meager goal of reading an article or chapter a week, I'm not sure that this is enough. The goal is falsely attained by dint of reading schlock for a particular article. Such scavenging and referencing hardly constitutes genuine reflection. Thus, I think my own goal has to recenter on more difficult, more powerful pieces of theory.

Assessing progress

Part of the task of a goal-directed writer is surely in knowing what, exactly, is progress. I can see that the third feminist-punk piece has given way to a fourth. Like a rhizome, this material keeps generating new lifeforms. There is merit, for sure, in multiplying my publications. This will load up the CV, and it will point me towards a manuscript.

There is the advice of several reasoned voices, however, which say that I ought to get one or two essays published in a premier journal: they argue that premium quality pieces lead to premium quality jobs. So I worry that these punk pieces are not getting me where I need to go. Still, I am determined to wrap them up and move on. The third grows close to completion, even as the fourth develops nicely. \

Filing continues apace, and it lends to some peace of mind as well. Everything else in life seems to be well organized and functioning smoothly.