For readers with an interest in Scandy archaeology and academic gossip, here and here are two brand new evaluation reports (in Scandy) on the applicants to an assistant professor job (forskarassistent) in Stockholm. According to the evaluation verdict, the job is likely to be given either to a 43-y-o theoretician or a 39-y-o Mayanist. Both are older than me and far more in tune than myself with the ideals of the post-processual generation of scholars to which the evaluators belong.
As for myself, the evaluators gave me a pretty low grade. Both correctly describe me as strongly empiricist, hostile to general theoretical discussion and wary of far-reaching interpretations. As usual, the decision has come down to personal preferences: they intend those words about my work as criticism, I accept them as ideals. In fact, one of the papers I submitted for evaluation was an opinion piece forming an aggressive attack on theoretical archaeology, and it pleases me in a grim sort of way to see that one of the evaluators was clearly quite irked by it. (She isn't the first colleague to display ruffled feathers over that particular piece.)
They don't like my archaeology. I not only don't like theirs, I question whether much of it is archaeology at all.
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You're not a real "Dr" are you? Just another PhD flake?
That was an interesting read, though. I wouldn't have thought you needed administrative and teaching experience as a foass, I mean, where are you supposed to get that following a normal academic path? Isn't the foass when you are supposed to get just that kind of experience after having done only research until then? Or is it just my prejudice because I'm in the natural sciences?
Academic jobs in Scandy archaeology are so scarce that the median age of people who get them is 41. Fo-ass jobs are not a first step on a career for us: they are a hotly contested reward for middle-aged scholars with long CVs -- and often the apex of their careers.
This means that it's worse than worthless to finish your PhD early in my subject. You can only apply for fo-ass for 5 years after graduation, and a scholar's number of publications is roughly proportional to his age. Thus someone who completed their PhD at 40 will always beat someone who did theirs at 30.
Oh, I forgot: the median is 41, and the distribution forms an extremely tight bell curve: quartiles at 39.5 and 43. So, counting those five years, you need to complete your PhD at age 38-43 or you're fucked. I did mine at 31.
"Theoretical archaeology", wonderful term, sounds to me like "practical astronomy"... Or perhaps it's the same natural science-prejudice as Richard thought he felt.
Ouch!
Oh, kiss my hairy you-know-what!! "Wary of far-reaching interpretations". Is that supposed to be a negative?? Let me get this straight: What they are really looking for is some person who jumps to flaky far-reaching conclusions that come fresh out of their brains as opposed to fresh out of the ground. Right? Now, why didn't Bob Lind apply? He'd be a shoe in... Grrrrrrrrrrr.
Honestly Martin, you seem hell bent on making yourself persona non grata in the scandy community. I know the evaluation is a public document, but have you considered that there are several of your co-applicants who might not appreciate having their evaluation spread over the internet, for anyone to google now and forever? You could have just excised the part about yourself. Or at least only the top 7 group you belong to.
I know you are a man of high principles, but it is not a weakness to consider the feelings of others ahead of yourself - it is a special form of greatness.
What baffles me most about those evaluation reports is that neither one even _mentions_ your record of unearthing new and unexpected source material, a.k.a. `making discoveries'.
Ãsa, I'll reply in e-mail.
Tor, making discoveries is naive scientism!
It is interesting to note how similar the final shortlist ratings are, in spite of disagreements over particulars in the reviews themselves. This could of course mean that the ratings were adequately done on two separate levels, but a friend of mine who did his Ph.D. in the Uppsala dpt of history and who has since applied for several fo.ass. positions has surmised that the evaluators/evaluatrices often take in the 'wish' of the home department, which effectually sets the independency and impartiality of the reviewing process out of play. Has that suspicion ever been raised also in scandy archeology?
I've never heard tell about any explicit wishes being made by a department head. But as a colleague remarked the other day, a head of department can pretty much decide who will get a job simply by influencing who is given the task of evaluating the applications. Scandy archaeology is strongly polarised between mods and pomos, and no member of one camp is likely to favour a member of the other. In this case, both evaluators grudgingly accept that Rundkvist has to go in the top group, and then immediately explain why he is the least likely member of that group.