How to Build a Life in the Humanities Meditations on the Academic Work-Life Balance

A follow-up to the popular Graduate Study for the 21st Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities, this book seeks to expand professional development to include the personal aspects of daily lives in the humanities. It does so in response to a conviction that the contemporary academy has given rise to a host of complex personal challenges which demand serious reflection due to their direct impact on us as scholars, pedagogues, and university citizens. A collection of 25 short essays by leading humanists in all stages of their careers, How to Build a Life in the Humanities will delve into such under-discussed academic "life" issues as: maternity leaves; tenure-track stress; adjunct exploitation; post-tenure depression; personal relationships; exercise and hobbies; managing ambition; administrative burdens; institutional politics; classism; racism; sexism; and identity politics, among others. These candid, illuminating essays combine practical wisdom with meditative reflections upon the challenges of academic life and will be of interest to humanists of all ranks, from potential or beginning graduate students to seasoned professionals.

Greg Colón Semenza is Associate Professor of English at the University of Connecticut, USA. He is the author of Graduate Study for the 21st Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities, The History of British Literature on Film, and books and articles on subjects ranging from Renaissance sport to punk. His blog for the Vitae section of The Chronicle of Higher Education, "This Academic Life," focuses on work-life issues in academe. Semenza is the recipient of the AAUP's Excellence Award for Teaching Promise and the 2005 University Teaching Fellows Award.

Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr. is Professor of English at Pennsylvania State University, USA. He is the author or co-editor of numerous books, including most recently Sleep, Romance and Human Embodiment: Vitality from Spenser to Milton and The Encyclopedia of English Renaissance Literature (with Alan Stewart). He has served as co-editor of Shakespeare Studies, a trustee for the Shakespeare Association of America, and is currently serving on the Shakespeare Division Executive Committee of the MLA. His work has been supported by the Newberry Library, the National Endowment of the Humanities, and the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Foreword; Anthony Grafton
Introduction; Greg Colón Semenza and Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr.
PART I: PROFESSIONAL LIFE
1. Life in a Liberal Arts College; William Pannapacker
2. Life in a Community College; Rob Jenkins
3. Life in a Research University; Barry V. Qualls
4. Teaching; Garrett A. Sullivan, Jr.
5. Grading; Karen J. Renner
6. Departmental and University Citizenship; Claire Bond Potter
7. Research and the Public; Brendan Kane
PART II: PERSONAL LIFE
8. Imposter Phenomenon; Natalie M. Houston
9. Academic Guilt; Giuseppina Iacono Lobo
10. Depression; Greg Colón Semenza
11. Downtime; Cristina M. Fitzgerald
12. Maternity; Kristen Ghodsee
13. Life with Children; Michael Bérubé
14. Life without Children; Sean Grass and Iris Rivero
15. Aging; Eric Lorentzen
PART III: DIVERSE LIVES
16. Class; Simon Yarrow
17. Religion; Kristin Poole
18. Race/Ethnicity; Cathy Schlund-Vials
19. Gender; Claudia Calhoun
20. Disability; Brenda Brueggemann and Stephanie Kerschbaum
21. Sexual Orientation; Margaret Breen
PART IV: LIFE OFF THE TENURE TRACK
22. Life as an Adjunct; Joe Fruscione
23. Life as a Graduate Student; Alex Galarza
24. Life after Retirement; Valerie Wayne and Linda Woodbridge
25. Life after Academe; Anne Trubek