Comments for Just TV

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Joel Burges

Joel Burges — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 14:26:16 +0000

It’s awesome that you are pursuing transparency: the ethics of doing so in a comparatively chaotic market is more of what we need in the academy!

Comment on Teaching Media Technology: A Roundup by allangering

allangering — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:38:04 +0000

Thanks for info. Others have shown that technology can provide the rich content and learning support that are considered to be critical elements of online learning

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Digital Culture Links: November 14th 2009 « Tama Leaver dot Net

Digital Culture Links: November 14th 2009 « Tama Leaver dot Net — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 06:09:28 +0000

[...] Moving forward with our media studies search [Just TV] – Jason Mittell is leading the search for a new comparative media studies faculty member at Middlebury College in the US. What's fantastic is that as the search leader, he's blogging the process and trying to explain how decisions are made – given the absolute paucity of jobs available today, these insights are remarkably valuable (and do turn an often opque process into a very human one: "But I think a key lesson for candidates to realize is that not making the cut is rarely a referendum of your worth as a scholar or teacher – it’s usually more about a sense of the position and internal needs that are hard to articulate, combined with the inevitable comparisons among the applicant pool." [...]

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Musa

Musa — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 01:15:35 +0000

Jason,

Thanks. This is very helpful and it gives me a lot of food for thought as I move forward in my job search. And no hard feelings, the game is the game.

Musa

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Brian Faucette

Brian Faucette — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:27:11 +0000

Thanks for the reply Jason. Thank you for providing advice and knowledge of this process as I finish up my dissertation. I really appreciate it and perhaps we will bump into one another at SCMS in March in Los Angeles.

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Rebecca

Rebecca — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 22:07:13 +0000

Dr. Mittell, As someone on the market who applied for this job and many others, I just want to thank you for humanizing this “opaque” (as you appropriately describe it) process. This and your wiki contributions have been both generous and helpful.

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:18:41 +0000

Emails were sent out by Tuesday this week, and almost everyone we’ve requested information from has sent in their information.

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Brian Faucette

Brian Faucette — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:14:35 +0000

Would it be possible for you to elaborate on when letters requesting further materials were mailed out?

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 12:49:54 +0000

Jim – I didn’t mean to suggest that direct SLAC experience was the only way to demonstrate that a candidate would be a good fit. I’d say that if you make your case compellingly in a letter and interview, then the “horrified” reaction you describe is completely unwarranted. But I have met many grad students and faculty whose education have never touched the SLAC model that simply do not get it, expecting large lectures with TAs and a culture that treats teaching as a “day job” to fund your research. I’ve met alums of SLACs who prefer teaching in large universities, but they at least understand what the SLAC experience is like. And certainly many products of large universities are hired and thrive at Middlebury, so past experience is only an asset, not a requirement.

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Jim

Jim — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 06:42:59 +0000

I’m also curious about a comment. You write, “Experience teaching or attending a small liberal arts college is also a strong asset.” I have to disagree that the experience of attending a small liberal arts school should be a strong asset in and of itself. If a candidate can articulate why they would like to teach in a liberal arts setting, should the fact they didn’t attend one more than 10 years ago be a weakness compared to someone who did? As someone on the job market, and more interested in teaching at a liberal arts school (although I didn’t apply to Middlebury), I find it quite immaterial to my liberal arts readiness that I attended one of the leading research institutions in the field and majored in Media Studies. I have many friends who experienced a liberal arts education and I know from their experiences and my own different experience at a research school why I want to teach in a liberal arts setting. Moreover, at this large research institution, I had everything from a 15-person class with the Chair of the College of Communications to a 700-person lecture. All of these experiences make me really hunger to teach at a liberal arts school. Sorry for my long reply, but I’ve actually had a phone interview with a liberal arts school where one search committee member followed your same reasoning and basically acted horrified that I could even comment on on a liberal arts school having never attended one. I find such reasoning crudely reductionist. Thank you though for your write-up, as you said on a subject that often remains “opaque”–even to someone as myself who has served on a search committee as a graduate student!

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:38:22 +0000

Joe – a humanist from communication & media studies certainly does fit the bill. That’s what I am and what many of our top candidates are. I guess what I meant was someone who views themselves primarily as a social scientist probably would not succeed in our department (nor would they be happy). I wasn’t trying to differentiate discipline and field, as I see that as a slippery & esoteric boundary.

As for the place of film within media studies, I believe the vast majority of film scholars do not situate themselves within media studies – certainly that’s true at SCMS, where cinema & media coexist in parallel with overlaps but neither as a subset of the other. Our department (as it now stands) is comparable to the SCMS model.

I hope that addresses your question…

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by Joe

Joe — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:28:45 +0000

I’m curious about this comment: “we were looking for faculty who clearly belong in a department like ours, rather than other fields like political science, sociology, anthropology, mass communications, etc. – bringing in somebody whose work is so disciplinarily divergent from our own can be a recipe for future problems, and probably not worth any gains that might be realized by going outside our discipline significantly.”

It seems as if you’ve conflated discipline” and “field.” Do you situate your department in a discipline or a field?

I interpret film as part of the “media studies” field: “film and media studies” sounds tautological. Why wouldn’t a humanist from communication and media studies fit the bill?

Thanks for posting this!

Comment on Moving forward with our media studies search by uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 15:26:37 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by jmittell: New Blog Post: Moving forward with our media studies search: Three months ago, I posted informati.. http://bit.ly/8QH7D...

Comment on Looking for a Comparative Media Scholar by Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:46:29 +0000

Just in case anybody's checking here, but not the full blog, I've posted an update on the search.

Comment on Looking for a Comparative Media Scholar by Jason Mittell

Jason Mittell — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:04:05 +0000

Alas, the actual deadline was 11/2 everywhere except the print Chronicle ad, which had a mistake in the submission (we changed it on the online Chronicle version). Any apps received after this week will get a cursory glance but not active consideration. But feel free to send it ASAP and if it stands out as a perfect fit, we’ll consider it.