You May Be in an Academic Relationship

By Daniel Rigney

Here are ten signs that you may be an academician in significant relationship with a fellow academician:

1.       Sentences begin with phrases like “I would argue that …” and “There is a certain sense in which ….”

2.      The macaroni and cheese is described as “undistinguished” or “not properly nuanced.”

3.       You can’t see each other over the pile of books in the middle of the dining room table.

4.       Your greatest fear is that your child will turn out to be Republican.

5.       The most common single adjective in conversation is “appalling.” The most common noun is “critique.”

6.       You agree that faculty parking is one of the major social issues of our time.

7.       You think interdisciplinary dialogue is when a Chaucer scholar talks to a Milton scholar.

8.       You have “discourses” with your children about bedtime.

9.       Interpersonal conflict arises mainly from competing narratives.

10.   The grocery list has footnotes.

My wife might argue that this is a carnivalesque caricature of academic culture, and there is a certain sense in which she would be right. Though playfully whimsical, it is appalling in its lack of nuance and thus deserves serious and critical interrogation.