1. Gosh, I thought I was so clever to call my chapter on Arendt, "Women in Dark Times" (after her book, Men in Dark Times). Alas, I'm never the first one to think of anything...
2. I have begun signing my emails to my students with my initials to avoid the problem of what they should call me (and to avoid the stuffiness of signing them, "Professor Hale").
3. Biking home yesterday over the key bridge, a kind man passing me on his bike said, "You have a flat tire, huh?," probably because he knew I had no idea. Of course I responded, "Huh? Oh, yeah." But of course, I did have no idea. Both of them are flat. I had just assumed that I was terrifically out of shape since riding that bike had been getting harder and harder...
4. Amusingly, when I'm getting ready to teach, I find myself picking the most boring, neutral, non-descript clothes that I own. I really like flowers prints and pink and big earrings, but I'm cutting all of those things out for teaching. Probably I am going to end up in pantsuits and a crew cut as one of my professor friends imagined. This is what I get for teaching feminism.
That's 30.
P.S. I am so incredibly curious about where the journalist habit of ending their pieces with "that's 30" or "#30#" comes from and what it means.
3 comments:
#2 has caused me no end of confusion my ENTIRE LIFE. It's too bad people don't just know to call you Miss Hale. And then you can sing your full name and not worry about what they call you. I think that's how it used to be done.
Rant: Traditionally, people without PhDs (or a terminal degree of some kind) are not to be addressed as "professor." That's why graduate students teaching courses have the title "Lecturer" and are listed in official university publications as Mr. or Ms. or Mrs. I spent the entirety of my time at Ms. Hale's university correcting people on this.
Traditional, perhaps, though definitely not at, for example, the University of Chicago.
More generally, "doctor" seems to me to be an honorific based on accomplishment, whereas "professor" (or its equivalents) is a job title; hence assistant professors who are still abd being called 'professor,' or PhD-holding but non-tenure track lecturers at places with unionized faculty.
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