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[merce]

I am, as my Israel Uni query suggests, looking for positions that will help expand my unconventional job search.

It is late for the TT jobs for me this year so what is left are strange, bottom of the sales bin, discards.

It has also been a while since I´ve lived abroad and I´m itching for it.

So, I am wondering how to go about getting a position of almost any kind a literature person can do in almost any place in the world.

Top choices are:

where I speak the languages well

Southern France, rest of France, Catalunya, Valencia, Andalucia, Italy

where I don´t speak the languages well but want to learn

Lebanon, Israel, Dubai, American Universities of various places if they have them and I´m eligible.



I´d like to go ahead and accept for a year or two that I am not making much progress in my VAP position and that next year i will have either more of the VAP which seems to get more heavy and monotonous than or a lectureship which will add to my teaching load and cut my salary.

So I want to try my hand at finding other possibilities with other attractions.

Teach World Literature classes at a University in Lebanon or Israel. Texts in facing page translation books. I could rock those. I could do antiquity to present day surveys or thematics with those.


Or maybe someone here has great suggestions for a job that I could really get wihtout difficulty but would be totally different'--- write for a history tv program when they need researching done.

I´m thinking 2 years and see how it is. Stay on if they like me and i like them. Or try to re'enter academia here in the US as TT  or do lecturing non tt here or even somewhere else.



I´m lost. I need some major help with guidance, brainstorming, seeing the long view.

Wise forumites, wise and worldly folk. Please help if you know of anything that might assist me.

je vous prie de croire, mesdames messieurs, à mes sentiments les plus sincères et les plus doux

[hegemony]

There was a thread about writing for TV history programs recently.  I can't find a link, but basically what I said on it there was that getting a gig like that is harder than getting a t-t job -- much harder.  Strange that everyone thinks it would be easy.  Maybe it's like all the retired lawyers saying, "I've always liked books -- I think I'll get a job teaching literature for a while."

Anyway, I'm afraid you'll have to cross that one off your list unless you're prepared to spend years preparing, angling for it, working for nothing in related fields to get lines on your CV, etc.

About the rest, I don't know, I'm afraid.

[totoro]

I'm a graduate of one of those universities and curious about your concept here: "Teach World Literature classes at a University in Lebanon or Israel. Texts in facing page translation books. I could rock those. I could do antiquity to present day surveys or thematics with those. "

What exactly do you mean here?

[merce]

Thanks for your interest totoro.

My background prepared me to be a member of a program like this one at AUB. I would LOVE to be in a Humanities, Great Books, or Civilizations, or World Literature, or Comparative Literature program.

Now, I think I've got a slight preference for being in Israel simply because I feel like I can slip into Hebrew a little more easily. It may be also that my field is slowly becoming more populated by Arabic and Hebrew speakers but for the moment there are more Arabic speakers than Hebrew and I'd like to ensure my uniqueness. I also know, or hope that in Israel I could improve my Arabic while I don't know how much I could improve my Hebrew in Lebanon.


I have no idea how to find out if they'd be interested in hiring someone full time. Oman and Dubai and such have ads for me but I'm not as interested in going to those places.  It's not the same idea. Of course, I've never been to any of these places so I shouldn't act as though I know the difference. It's just a suspicion on my part.

[totoro]

Thanks for your interest totoro.

My background prepared me to be a member of a program like this one at AUB. I would LOVE to be in a Humanities, Great Books, or Civilizations, or World Literature, or Comparative Literature program.

Now, I think I've got a slight preference for being in Israel simply because I feel like I can slip into Hebrew a little more easily. It may be also that my field is slowly becoming more populated by Arabic and Hebrew speakers but for the moment there are more Arabic speakers than Hebrew and I'd like to ensure my uniqueness. I also know, or hope that in Israel I could improve my Arabic while I don't know how much I could improve my Hebrew in Lebanon.


I have no idea how to find out if they'd be interested in hiring someone full time. Oman and Dubai and such have ads for me but I'm not as interested in going to those places.  It's not the same idea. Of course, I've never been to any of these places so I shouldn't act as though I know the difference. It's just a suspicion on my part.

Yes you could certainly improve your Arabic in Israel as well as your Hebrew. One of my room-mates while I was there came to study Arabic specifically for a half a year from his program in the US. I remember he bought a copy of the New Testament in Arabic and Hebrew, if I remember correctly. I'm thinking though that Israeli students studying Greek for example will want the translation in Hebrew and would have a hard time with someone teaching them in English presumably about another foreign language? At Hebrew U there is/was a big program for American students visiting for a year but doubt they are interested in these topics? There are foreign lecturers teaching stuff like economics occasionally in English, I also took a math class taught by a Korean guy in Hebrew. I found him perfectly OK to understand but the Israeli students complained so much they fired him in the middle of the semester and replaced him with an Israeli. I was upset that this guy had been making such an effort to teach in a foreign language and it wasn't appreciated. This is all a long time ago though and things may have changed. I know though that my sister in law (did a masters in PT) and her sister too (medical doctor) have some/a lot of struggle dealing with texts in English. Other students I knew when I was a student had to drop out of university because they didn't pass the English proficiency exam (I had to pass a Hebrew proficiency exam).

[merce]

I believe the American Univ. in Beyrouth has classes that cover the great works of literature that are taught with an instructor who does not know very much Arabic but who will know a few of the languages of the works.  The classes are taught in English. Even the Arabic authors have English translations. There are even some lectures posted online. This is a class I could do in my sleep! And it would be pure and extreme jouissance for me.

If there were a straight up French class then I think my lack of  Hebrew would be less of an issue since teaching in the target language and reading in the target language is part of the deal of such a department/course.

PooPooPoo! I want to go and do a program like the AUB one. But in Israel. Poo!
Though Beyrouth would be pretty darned cool too I guess.

[totoro]

If there were a straight up French class then I think my lack of  Hebrew would be less of an issue since teaching in the target language and reading in the target language is part of the deal of such a department/course.

Though I do have a French grammar book published by Hebrew University in Hebrew. I bought it after trying to study Arabic and then deciding it would be better to improve the languages I already supposedly knew some of. Now I'm looking at it it's almost all in French with relatively little Hebrew. So maybe you could manage. But that's a pretty small niche.

PooPooPoo! I want to go and do a program like the AUB one. But in Israel. Poo!
Though Beyrouth would be pretty darned cool too I guess.

You should still check out what opportunities there are. I'm going to guess though that there are more in other Arab countries than in either Israel or Lebanon.

[merce]

Ha!

"small niche"

!

That´s my niche here too! Yes, the Romance Languages except for Spanish are dying. Thanks for reminding me.
Snif Snif.


Seriously, thank you.

[catherder]

There are two organizations you might check out: Professors without Borders (if you are in the US) and Academics without Borders (in Canada). Google them by those names. You can sign up for job notifications and see what comes of that.

[snowbound]

Just noticed this thread.  If you're still interested in the Middle East, PM me.  I'd be happy to give you some practical info and advice

[alpha_bet]

Feel free to PM me, too.
But, short answer: you "do it" just like you'd "do" finding a job anywhere - apply for the job (and/or network).
Short disclaimer: in some Middle Eastern countries, the rules of not applying for jobs that haven't officially been announced are suspended. Which doesn't actually increase your chances, but if you can get together a list of universities where you might like to work, and send out informal queries, that might be a start, if all else fails. That said, it depends on the country, see line one of my post.