Bob at Unfogged has an idea for a new reality tv show called "PhD Island". So confident is he of its success that he is already planning the "equally cutthroat sequel, 'Tenure Island'" and is even looking forward to "Lots of Big Grants Island," "Full Professor Island," "More Prestigious Institution Island," and "Avoiding Intellectual Stagnation Island." The contest rules sound even more daunting than the now-standard practice of being judged by a jury of one's students: "To win, each preens and performs before panels of disdainful judges whose own talents are ambiguous but unchallenged." As we learned last week, students give higher evaluations to better-looking faculty; I think we can safely assume that any panel of disdainful judges would be inclined to do the same. The real question (which I raised in "Adjunct Survivor: Big City"): Are there enough academics with enough of the right kind of sex appeal to keep viewers glued to the set?
ADDENDUM:
In the comments to this entry, KF of Planned Obsolescence posts a brilliant scheme for a television show modelled after "Fifth Wheel":
I'm kind of thinking of an academic version of 'Fifth Wheel' -- two recent PhDs and two search committees meet up for interviews and a drunken ride around town in a weird disco bus. After the first segment, the PhDs switch search committees; after the second segment, each candidate (and committee) confides in the audience about how they think it's going. Then, in the third segment, the 'fifth wheel' is introduced, an academic hottie of massive proportions. Will it be a recent Yale PhD with a Cambridge UP book contract, seeking to lure the attentions of both search committees? Or will it be a third search committee from a well-heeled Major U., seeking to poach the other committees' candidates? And who goes home alone?Posted by Invisible Adjunct at August 4, 2003 05:21 PM
Sex appeal is nice, but suffering will always do.
Posted by: ogged at August 4, 2003 05:38 PMThe formula requires that none of the participants be notably sympathetic, save for the one who is either a doormat or so radically out of place that s/he cannot keep up with the pack. I wonder how that would play out in these versions?
Posted by: Chris at August 4, 2003 07:59 PMLooking at the state of non-TV reality, where people pay next to no attention to academics, I doubt that sex appeal would make much of a difference. People are generally interested in profs in so far as they pose an obstacle to the "good job" in that ever-popular game called Middle Class Social Reproduction. (Like those pop-up bogeyman in a house of horrors) Once the kids have eluded them, the profs are forgotten.
I suppose there's the "Hot for Teacher" demographic, but I doubt that's very big.
Great satire, though.
Posted by: che at August 4, 2003 10:48 PMI dunno. I'm kind of thinking of an academic version of "Fifth Wheel" -- two recent PhDs and two search committees meet up for interviews and a drunken ride around town in a weird disco bus. After the first segment, the PhDs switch search committees; after the second segment, each candidate (and committee) confides in the audience about how they think it's going. Then, in the third segment, the "fifth wheel" is introduced, an academic hottie of massive proportions. Will it be a recent Yale PhD with a Cambridge UP book contract, seeking to lure the attentions of both search committees? Or will it be a third search committee from a well-heeled Major U., seeking to poach the other committees' candidates? And who goes home alone?
Posted by: KF at August 4, 2003 11:00 PMKF: I love it! I think this one might fly.
Posted by: Invisible Adjunct at August 4, 2003 11:05 PMI was thinking of more of a Robinson Crusoe kind of thing...a group of academics on a charter flight (or cruise) meets with a mishap and is marooned on an uninhabited island, possibly forever. The suspense: will they descend into barbarism (like "Lord of the Flies"), or will they create a viable new society (like "Tunnel in the Sky")?
Posted by: David Foster at August 4, 2003 11:36 PMWhat about "The Real World: Graduate School"? Drop a bunch of Ph.D. students together in a house, give them a group project to work on (like, say, a seminar), encourage the most drama-prone to get into fights over methodology, take them out drinking on a regular basis, make sure they all spend time tearfully talking about their insecurities to the "confessional" camera, and watch the fur fly!
And then there's the spinoff: "The Real World: Junior Faculty." And maybe "Adjunct Road Rules," in which a group of Ph.Ds travel from campus to campus across the country in a van...
Posted by: Amanda at August 5, 2003 01:04 AMMan. You guys are just scary.
You do realize that none of these scenarios is complete unless some of the students/profs/adjuncts are married and others not?
Oh, no. I can't believe I'm participating in this. I'm so ashamed...
Posted by: Dorothea Salo at August 5, 2003 09:33 AMI bitterly regret now never having seen the real "The Fifth Wheel." And as for the "Adjunct Road Rules," it can't be a van -- it has to be a 1987 Honda Civic with the radio permanently stuck on the New Haven NPR station's frequency.
Posted by: Bob at August 5, 2003 10:04 AMAnd then there's "Frontier University", where a group of academics have to build a department using only the texts and theories known in 1883....
Posted by: Castiron at August 5, 2003 11:12 AMHow about some scenarios for "Academic Fear Factor":
You are a second-year grad student in English. There's only one TA job available: "Advanced Sanscrit." Get high student evaluations or be eliminated.
You are about to defend your dissertation. Who will be the outraged wild-card committee member? H. Milton Bowers, the 96-year-old Medievalist, Jean-Paul Metier, the postmodern theorist, or Barbie Clitoris, the feminist performance artist.
The department is pleased to offer you a tenure-track position, but first you must eat . . .
Posted by: TH Benton at August 5, 2003 11:39 AM