Yes, I play virtual brass instruments.
Also, I have a job. I got the contract in the mail yesterday and signed it last night in one of my favorite dive bars. While signing the contract felt great, we had another distinct hint of a doubled “reaching/deferring objet petit a” moment (the plan for this event was to get, well, ridiculously lit, but that was not possible due to the fact that I have a lot of writing to do this weekend). So the “lighting” will have to wait a few more days. Still, I slept great last night (a job and a few beers/shots help tremendously in the nightly effort to forget the fact that I haven’t slept in a real bed for over five years now–aaah, the crazy luxuries of the gainfully employed).
But, to get to the job: it’s a tenure track, assistant professor position at Saint Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, Canada. It’s a great job and my final decision to go there was incredibly easy to make. It’s a beautiful university with an excellent commitment to both teaching and research (their site contains info about their impressive past rankings), the teaching load is relatively low, which means that I will have time to write and publish, the students are extraordinarily bright, and the department is very young, energetic and exceptionally friendly. The English department has recently hired (and will be hiring) a lot of young, promising faculty (last year they hired a 19th century American scholar from Hopkins, this year they hired a 20th century British scholar from Cornell and they are looking to add two new people in two additional fields next year). In addition to this, the established faculty members I met are very welcoming, collegial and do really interesting work (the fact that I feel a strong ideological connection doesn’t hurt either). They flew me in for three days in early February and, despite the fact that the schedule for the campus visit (teaching demonstration, job talk, interview, …) was packed, it immediately struck me how pleasant this department made this visit, which, as you know if you’ve ever done campus visits/job talks, is a quite remarkable feat and thus immediately signaled to me that this department would be a terrific fit. Ok, now I guess it’s back to writing for me. Oh, I forgot: I’ll be teaching 20th/21st century American literature (and occasionally courses in literary theory and cultural studies). Oh, and something else: Nova Scotia is gorgeous!!! Nature! I’m so happy!
Cerebral Jetsam 