For my new postdoctoral area of research specialization, I have embraced the field of "Sellout Studies." After earning my Ph.D. in English from the University of Cincinnati in 1996, I have walked away from the academy to a gainful career as a marketing writer.
I have walked away from poor job prospects, subhuman wages without benefits as a member of the adjunct faculty force, and continuous anxiety about, well, everything. I have walked toward strong job opportunities, good pay and benefits, and, well, less anxiety.
Even though my employment prospects within academe remain dismal, I have not walked away entirely from what motivated me to become an English professor -- a love of literature and a desire to engage literature at a deep level. I may be a scholar without title, but I am a working scholar nonetheless.
Therefore, in true scholarly fashion, I must at once acknowledge and critique the work of my colleagues in the field of Sellout Studies. The writings of two English Ph.D.'s now working in the business world -- Mark Johnson of Sellout and Kay Peterson of the Escape Pod for Humanities Ph.D.'s -- to say nothing of countless articles on The Chronicle's Web site, have been enormously valuable to me in moving out of the academy.
Yet I've never read anything in their work -- or anywhere else -- about how to maintain one's identity as a scholar once one finds gainful employment outside academe. It's as if earning a decent salary with benefits requires one to completely renounce the scholarly conversations that nourished the mind (if not the stomach) for so many years.
It's not true.
Even though I now work 40 to 50 hours a week in the business world, and don't have the benefit of summers and long winter breaks to read and write, I can't bear the thought of completely abandoning the work I did in graduate school. My scholarship matters, if only to me.
So I'd like to share a little bit about what I've done since entering the business world, how I've done it, and how you might be able to tailor my example to your own work.
My main field is American poetry, in both its scholarly and creative aspects. While in graduate school, I wrote a creative doctoral dissertation -- a collection of my own poems -- and published a book of them, Living in Cincinnati (Cincinnati Writers' Project, 1995). I wrote reviews and articles that grew into a larger research project on a group of contemporary American poets called the Expansive, or New Formalist/New Narrative, poets. And I co-edited an anthology of new and previously published essays about the poet John Haines, The Wilderness of Vision: On the Poetry of John Haines, edited with Kevin Bezner (Story Line Press, 1996).
Since joining the business world, I've managed to continue publishing, albeit at a slower pace. In 1998, I published The Ghost of Tradition: Expansive Poetry and Postmodernism (Story Line Press), which won a Choice Journal outstanding book award. Two years later, I helped found a poetry-book publisher called Word Press. And this year, I published The Resurgence of Traditional Poetic Form and the Current Status of Poetry's Place in American Culture (Edwin Mellen Press).
Where did I find the time? I did much of my work on The Ghost of Tradition while working full-time in retail and teaching as an adjunct instructor. In my retail job, where I worked as a greeter, I would carry around a clipboard and legal pad, on which I would draft portions of chapters for the book. I was much older and more reliable than most of the other employees (I actually showed up for work on time), so I was not supervised closely. The task of actually typing and revising the workday jottings happened on nights and weekends.
By contrast, The Resurgence of Traditional Poetic Form, was completed exclusively at night and on weekends after I began working in higher-level business jobs (and while my wife was pregnant with our son). Here, though, I had the advantage of working mostly with material that had already been published. Resurgence is more of an essay collection than a study of a single topic, so it required less revision than Ghost.
I think it's possible for any newly minted Ph.D. to bring his or her work to fruition, even if one is working long hours in the business world. Here are the strategies that proved successful for me:
Build on what you've already done.
As a new Ph.D., you already have a massive research project: a dissertation. You need to use your judgment as to whether it's ready for submission to publishers as is, or needs additional work. But even if you need to spend more time revising it, you're still very close to having something ready to submit for publication. In my case, both of the books I've published since leaving academe were derived extensively from work I did in graduate school -- seminar papers, conference papers, articles, and reviews. Both books needed more work to become ready for publication, but in neither case was I starting from scratch.
Maintain your academic network.
For me, the connections that I developed in graduate school -- especially the network of writers and scholars I met outside my department -- have nourished my work in critical ways. These colleagues have provided feedback, conversation, and support to what can be a very lonely task -- scholarly writing. In one case, this network helped me secure a book contract. But even if my colleagues provided me with nothing but moral support, that's still essential. With such support, I still feel connected to my field, even though I no longer discuss my favorite texts in the classroom every day nor attend scholarly meetings.
Commit to your writing.
This sounds obvious, but it's easy to become discouraged by the lack of time and disconnection from the university that you may face. Many young Ph.D.s, hoping to break back into academe from the business world, might choose to teach part-time rather than continue their own writing. This is a valid choice, but it may preclude any real progress with your scholarly work. Teaching is demanding, and when done on nights and weekends after working a full-time job, it's exhausting. I know. This is why I've given up teaching entirely.
Understand why you're doing it.
I continue to work as a scholar, as time allows, because it's in my blood. I have no illusions about re-entering academe. Not only are my teaching skills rusty, not only does the job market remain terrible, but for me, becoming a professor would probably mean a pay cut. With a young and growing family, this is simply out of the question. But this is also liberating in a way. In terms of scholarship, I have the same security and freedom that a tenured professor has; there are no consequences if I'm not able to publish an article, a poem, or a book, because I'm not watching the tenure clock. This frees me to focus only on what I love, without regard to fashion or marketability. If you decide to remain active as a scholar, the work should be its own reward.
Be patient.
You have very little time available to you, so any large-scale project is going to take a long time to finish -- more time than it would take were you in academe. Your progress will be measured in small steps. Understanding that these small steps do add up will make the waiting easier.
Be creative and flexible.
The chief disadvantage of not working at a university is losing access to its specialized resources -- lab facilities, libraries, support for travel. I was able to work around this problem because the city where I live, Cincinnati, has an excellent public library system with full interlibrary loan access. For others, it might not be so simple a proposition. (Scientists, of course, have access to positions in industry that make direct use of their training, unlike Ph.D.'s in English.) But scholars are nothing if not resourceful, and they may find solutions that surprise even them.
It's increasingly clear that an entire generation of young scholars is being disenfranchised from full-time academic employment. (At 32, I count myself a member of Generation X, and most of my Sellout Studies colleagues seem close to my age.) If young Ph.D.'s don't choose to remain active as scholars, the development of new knowledge -- in all fields -- will miss their contributions.
Of course, avoiding these consequences shouldn't be the primary motivator to remain active as a scholar. From my standpoint, I owe it to myself to complete the work I began in graduate school. It's not my fault that the seismic economic changes in the academy have forced me to seek (more prosperous) work elsewhere.
But part of me is also committed, in an idealistic sense, to the scholarly pursuit of knowledge. And if my example can persuade a few other scholars without title to continue their work, however limited that work may be, then perhaps the future of new knowledge isn't as bleak as I imagine.
