Job Opening at Wheaton and Other Stuff

So, (as Seamus Heaney would say) this is apparently my 100th post on this blog and I've been thinking for a week about what brilliant thing I would write, which has, of course, blocked my attempts to write anything (except all the other stuff I've been writing). So instead I'll post some announcements and news and updates.

First, here at Wheaton (we're the Wheaton in Massachusetts) we are searching to fill an Assistant Professor position, tenure track, in Eighteenth-Century Literature. Teaching load is 5 courses per year (3/2), good research support, very collegial department. We're most interested in someone who can connect up the 18th C with earlier periods (rather than a 'long 18th Century' person who sneaks into Victorian). But the key thing is we want someone who loves to teach and is committed to teaching. Everybody in our dept, from the chair to the newest Assistant Prof, teaching first-year writing, and we actually enjoy it.

But I want to put out a word of warning, also: it would be a mistake to tailor your application to Wheaton based on what I've written in my blog. I'm on leave this semester and probably won't be reading applications, so it's important to research the department as a whole.

Also, for the duration of the search I'm not going to blog about job-searches or the job situation in academe. This is voluntary (I don't even know if my chair knows about my blog), but I think it's in the best interests of applicants and of the department.

Second: Anglo-Saxon England accepted my article on Anglo-Saxon medicine. My co-authors (bio prof. Barbara Brennessel and bio student Robyn Gravel) and I worked for over five years, testing Anglo-Saxon medical remedies in the laboratory. None of them worked. To find out why this is important, you'll have to read the article when it comes out. But I'm very excited because ASE is the best journal in our field and it's been a real pleasure working with them.

Third: I'll be speaking at the big Tolkien conference at Marquette University next weekend. My talk is on Saturday morning at 9 a.m. (so much for Friday night drinking). My talk is "The Rhetorical Evolution of J. R. R. Tolkien's "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" -- it should be spell-binding.

Fourth: I'll be speaking at the Wrentham Public Library here in Massachusetts on January 11, 2005.

More updates later about the horned Moses.