On Being Postacademic

The last postacademic posting of the day. Kenny Mostern has an interesting piece "On Being Postacademic" (which I found via Long Pauses). It has some nice observations about academic life as seen from below:

The scariest thing a young faculty member experiences is not, as is conventionally supposed, the "need to produce"... [but] the fact that no one in the department is talking to each other about scholarship.... The one conversation everyone is having incessantly is the one about the micropolitical maneuvers within the department.

The essay's more substantive points-- that academic careers are highly disruptive to relationships; that location really does matter, even if you think you live mostly in the world of ideas; that academia doesn't provide the degree of community that generally idealistic people need-- are even more on-target and important.