By Michael Downing
DRAFT
I was naïve when I got started in the world of academic publishing and didn’t know my field would be so territorial–because the people are generally kind—but academic fields are quite territorial. Profs take ownership of their fields and they don’t like it when you come onto their turf; they feel threatened. So, point one in discussing my work is collaboration, not top-down attempts by people in ivory towers trying to keep competitors out of the field.
And the feedback I’ve gotten on academic submissions has been nearly useless. Most of it brief and not particularly helpful. My experience with MELUS, for example, was that they took a very long time to provide any feedback on an article I had written comparing August Wilson with Public Enemy (I had to beg them for feedback) and then when it came through, it was cursory.
One reviewer actually said I was “dishonest” because I claimed that music lyrics did not command the same respect on college campuses as poetry. I stand by that statement. First, the two are demonstrably different (poems can be read silently whereas songs must be sung). Second, the ratio of lyrics to poems in any literature anthology is going to be hugely in favor of poetry.
So my response to “dishonest” is WTF? You are now name calling in an academic setting, which I didn’t expect but I’ve learned goes on all the time. How about some constructive feedback or are you intent at simply keeping me down from a position of power?
So my angle with the blog is to dwell more in the business realm in terms of publishing my own work. I’m not going to beg any more. Then, as my writing grows, I want to work with a professional editor to see how I can sculpt the best pieces into something that lives beyond me.
In the professional world of writing, the intent is to get people into publication, not keep them out. In the academic world, it is about keeping people out. Of course, if you’re in the pipeline of a powerful institution, you can step into the pipeline in ways that scholars of other institutions cannot, so ultimately publishing in the academic world too often comes down to power.
Plus, PhD granting institutions have a huge advantage over smaller schools because most the research is being done by PhD students and is being shared with profs who can then draw upon that research (and draft after draft) to published under their powerful name. A strange hierarchy for institutions that overtly claim to subvert hierarchies.
It just makes me sad that so many English types enter the field just to see them go through the years and then maybe at the end they can finally publish their book. It shouldn’t be that hard. English professors should be heard from everywhere. We’ve read so much: Literature, history, politics, journalism, creative writing…and can bring so much to a conversation. But somehow the apparatus is designed to keep us down. It’s silly.
Not sure whether this is changing in the field or not. I hope so, but this has been my experience. You have to overcome other (I guess rival) academics in your field, all of whom are more or less fighting for recognition, tenure, and promotion.
This might also happen in the world of plastic arts; I have no experience with that. But as a Buddhist, this is foreign to me. Study is like music: there is an infinite amount of it available. There will always be questions. And there’s nothing preventing you from shifting gears in your research. I do so much reading of media, but also August Wilson, technical writing, journalism practice, music production. There’s always more.
But I have two points here:
1) I don’t care what others have to say about my work. I’m too old to worry about that. I’m gonna to do my art and that’s that. And please don’t try to clean up my grammar and stylistic choices. Those are my art, too. I know the rules and can break them as I wish.
2) I think it’s a tragedy that so many of my colleagues in the field of English don’t have an array of books in publication. I look around and see how everybody and their TV cousin has a book on makeup and travel and how to live your life and how to maintain the best diet.
And here we sit, all overqualified PhDs, with very few books between us. Maybe we got our dissertation published…great. But where is the other work? There are a couple of reasons: Collaboration has largely been discouraged in our field (even as articles in the sciences tend to have multiple authors), and for whatever reason, our work never seems to be “good enough” for our comrades. It’s a horrible situation and I’m hoping that blogs and other forms of direct-publishing media helps academic writers break through.
Don’t let our voices get buried any longer.
In the words of the great goddess Nike, Just do it. Paint your pictures, create your art, write your poems. Do it and publish, like my old friend Carl Seiple did (through Amazon), before he passed. I am so thankful to have his words on my bookshelf so I can hear his voice any time.
My Writing Wanderland 