In Transit

It’s been a very crazy couple of weeks that I am just now starting to settle down and soak it in. My career is definitely shifting in new directions, although the long-term future is still pretty hazy. After six months on the job market with several interviews here and there, I finally landed somewhere for next year. Beyond that, I don’t know, but there’s no question things are looking up.

It wasn’t a bad year on the market, I suppose, at least for me. I interviewed for two tenure-track positions, one post-doctoral position, and one VAP spot (I was also offered an interview overseas that I politely declined). Ironically, in the end, my two offers came without any interviewing at all. About ten days ago, I was offered a VAP position in a very strong program at a Big Ten school, which I very nearly accepted. After several frustrating months on the market, it was a humbling honor to finally know that someone believed in me enough to offer me a spot on their faculty.

Several days later, as I was about to begin final discussions for that spot, the department of Radio/Television/Film at Northwestern University came somewhat out of left field to offer me a one-year lecturer position, teaching six courses (with a fair amount of room for my own course designs) over the course of three quarter semesters. It was a tough choice between two generous offers and outstanding programs, but given my residence in the Chicago area and the financial and logistical obligations involved in moving for a one-year position, it made more sense to accept NU’s offer for next year. In all, I am absolutely thrilled and overwhelmed—I can honestly, truly, say that—short of a tenure-track position somewhere, which will come in due time—I ended up exactly where I wanted to be all along, teaching what I want to teach.

Meanwhile, with PhD in hand and a position in place for next year, I offered my services to the journal, Film Criticism, a publication I have long had a good relationship with, and a certain personal affection for. I am proud to say that I was offered a spot on the Editorial Board, which I humbly accepted (I had honestly expected, at best, to be offered a more modest opportunity—like helping out with book reviews or something). Film Criticism was the first place to recognize my work on Stanley Kubrick, way back in 2004. While I am ambivalent about my larger work on that director today, I am still extremely proud of my research on his first film, Fear and Desire, which first appeared there. That article was a formative moment in my writing career. My initial submission was rejected, but they believed in the material enough to encourage me to try again. That wasn’t my first publication, but it was perhaps the first time I worked so hard for one, and in retrospect the process of revising that material for the journal was an important moment in my career, when I first began to understand what it meant to really “revise” something. Since then, I have also contributed an article on cinephilia and digital effects (in a sense, the Cinephilia collection began for me there too), and a review of D.N. Rodowick’s The Virtual Life of Film. So, for all the periodicals I have been fortunate to contribute to in the last six-plus years, I have always had a particularly strong relationship with Film Criticism, and am excited to be working so close with the journal as it moves into a new era.

The last two weeks have been too good to be true. It’s not exactly a dream, but I need to wake up all the same, and get back to work. You heard it here first--it is going to be an extremely productive eight to ten months.