I'm noticing that I'm getting more snubs and snippery from institutional academia, and am treated even more dismissively than when I was a graduate student, even though I'm doing more and better work now.
(Maybe at that point in your life-cycle there's an understanding that you **might** become someone, so people are nice to you, whereas there's no such expectation now, so people feel more free to treat you like you're nobody.)
Like, I had 3 major areas I was dipping my toes in this fall:
1) There was this one major one that I really wanted, where I'd get paid to live in the EU for a time and complete a major project. And, even though I had good emails with the one PI and he loved my project -- as did a prof from the local university in town who I had coffee with, who said it was interesting and he hadn't seen anything on it, and about which I wrote to an Ivy professor who I knew from years ago, where he was also interested and hadn't seen anything, and I could tell he ended up googling me afterwards because he seemed a bit offput and confused in his email that I somehow don't have a position somewhere, given my ability to put my finger on that major topic and gap! -- and, even though me and that PI had ballparked which 2 cycles of applicants that I might fit into, and he said to write a CV from scratch because I don't have one and to include my popular writing, as soon as I did that, radio silence, and when I sent a follow-up email, a cold email with no mention of the next cycle or anything, just *totally* different from the emails we had exchanged.
(Some institutional academics can hate anything fun, so if you not only write something popular but make it fun and it's on a quirky topic, it instantly makes them draw back and resent you, or worry how it might be judged by the small-minded people that they're around. I tried to minimize that, but on some level, what can you do, that's where you've been putting your energy, and enough of it is academic that you have to include at least some of it.)
2) Another major one I wanted, where this field-shifting project that I was preparing anyways and was SUPER sexy and accessible happened to fit into a call for proposals that would get me a free flight and hotel on an international trip that I could maybe have extended and taken a vacation around, I wrote and submitted, and the organizer assured me that proposals were considered on "merit" and that proposals from independent scholars would be fully considered, but then later it's turned down and there's this smarmy email about the number of proposals (okay, fine) and a wish for "continued success" (f*ck you, Mr. Tone Deaf), and then later later on a professional listhost the final conference line-up comes out...
And, my proposal is as least as good as the top half, and better than the bottom half, but the thing to note is that it's all scholars with current institutional affiliations.
(Isn't it refreshing to note how "merit" perfectly aligns with the people who got those jobs? Ah, the system works!)
3) Because I had my materials like the CV and writing sample together and a job ad for an Ivy came across my desk, and because my one article that I've staked out and is undergoing peer review changes MAJOR MAJOR stuff across every language level and affects material taught on the very first day of classes and in later grammar units and also has implications where I finally explain a script quirk and do so by re-reading some cr*p that had been implausibly interpreted in the first lines of a super-famous text that everyone reads, I decided to take a few hours and write a letter and statement and whatever and submit, because, why not, it just costs you the time, and the writing sample might catch someone on the committee's eye who had a clue.
And, not even a Google of me from everything I can tell, I probably didn't even make the initial cut.
(The job seems miserable anyways, but if I could somehow make it and negotiate a fat salary and no course duties, that could be awesome.)
. . .
It's really like you're frozen out of the system. You can find places to present and publish, but other than that, nada, even though you're doing better sh*t than tenured profs at major programs, and even though you point out those accomplishments in guarded and considerate ways to minimize p*ssing people off, it's like you're just ignored.
I think I'm not going to pull any punches any more, like omitting flagrant mistakes from major scholars and lightly passing over major inadequacies in the field. Like, I won't be a d*ck about it, but if being delicate about that stuff and effectively not broaching it doesn't get you anything, why not just say it.
I also wonder how much I have to do **before** they have to pay attention to me. Like, it's increasingly seeming that just multiple, multiple aspects of the one ancient language that I've been researching are askew, so how much do I have to make progress on it and straighten it out, before people start to take me seriously and give me some respect and maybe some resources?
My guess is that they can always just collectively ignore me, though, and many will try to.
