Exile at Small-Time U
Essays from the Trenches of Embattled Academia
Published on 28. July 2025
Book
Paperback/Softback
184 pages
978-1-4766-9572-3 (ISBN)
Description
This book is about what it's like to be a professor in the humanities at non-elite universities and colleges. In a series of autobiographical snapshots from 19 full-time professors from around the United States (and two foreign institutions), the present work explores the changes occurring at regional state universities and poorly endowed private colleges in the last several decades. These changes are a historical phenomenon as much as they are personally and professionally impactful. Through this set of first-person perspectives on these changes, readers will come to better understand the current state of the modern university. Current graduate students in the humanities, undergraduates contemplating graduate school, and their advisors will find their experiences and potential futures reflected in these essays.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Jefferson, NC
United States
Illustrations
Halftones, black and white
Dimensions
Height: 229 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 10 mm
Weight
279 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4766-9572-3 (9781476695723)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Douglas Higbee is a professor of English at the University of South Carolina, Aiken and the former editor of The Oswald Review.
Content
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Douglas Higbee
Part I: Beginnings
The Allegory of the Classroom: Platonic Ideals, Material Chaos, and My Initiation into the Regional Public University
Chene Richard Heady
"You are going to be fired, but I can't tell you why": Academic Politics in an Appalachian College
Wayne Wisher Combs
Exiled Before I Began
Matthew Boedy
Making the Most of the Rest of Your Career: Confessions of a Public Historian in Southwest Georgia
Evan A. Kutzler
Life on I-57: Place, Placelessness, and the Commuting Academic
Camden Burd
"Wherever You Go, There You Are": Finding Myself in Academia
Elizabeth Tacke
To the Fringes and Back: Academic Life in the Rural Midwest
Camilo Peralta
Becoming an Academic in Japan: Negotiating Age, Gender and Nationality
Suzanne Kamata
Academic Freedom in Erdogan's Turkey
Evren Altinkas
Part II: The Long
Seeking Grace: University Faculty in a Post-Covid, Anti-CRT, Anti-DEI, Anti-Tenure Environment
Derek Charles Catsam
A Chronicle of Exile
Douglas Higbee
At Your Service: Faculty Workload and Self-Advocacy
Erin B. Jensen
From Professor to Comedian and Back Again: A Case Study of Infusing Academics with Comedy
Matthew McKeague
The Whole Truth, Nothing But: Learning to Teach at a Small Rural University
Louis Young
I Quit: When the Tenure Track Is a Dead
Kathryn D. Blanchard
On Not Getting Tenure
G. Thomas Couser
Teaching Writing in Prison
Nancy Mack
Travels on the Prairie and Other Adventures in Academia
Edith Borchardt
The Not So Good Old Days? Happy in Hindsight
Eugene Stelzig
About the Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
Douglas Higbee
Part I: Beginnings
The Allegory of the Classroom: Platonic Ideals, Material Chaos, and My Initiation into the Regional Public University
Chene Richard Heady
"You are going to be fired, but I can't tell you why": Academic Politics in an Appalachian College
Wayne Wisher Combs
Exiled Before I Began
Matthew Boedy
Making the Most of the Rest of Your Career: Confessions of a Public Historian in Southwest Georgia
Evan A. Kutzler
Life on I-57: Place, Placelessness, and the Commuting Academic
Camden Burd
"Wherever You Go, There You Are": Finding Myself in Academia
Elizabeth Tacke
To the Fringes and Back: Academic Life in the Rural Midwest
Camilo Peralta
Becoming an Academic in Japan: Negotiating Age, Gender and Nationality
Suzanne Kamata
Academic Freedom in Erdogan's Turkey
Evren Altinkas
Part II: The Long
Seeking Grace: University Faculty in a Post-Covid, Anti-CRT, Anti-DEI, Anti-Tenure Environment
Derek Charles Catsam
A Chronicle of Exile
Douglas Higbee
At Your Service: Faculty Workload and Self-Advocacy
Erin B. Jensen
From Professor to Comedian and Back Again: A Case Study of Infusing Academics with Comedy
Matthew McKeague
The Whole Truth, Nothing But: Learning to Teach at a Small Rural University
Louis Young
I Quit: When the Tenure Track Is a Dead
Kathryn D. Blanchard
On Not Getting Tenure
G. Thomas Couser
Teaching Writing in Prison
Nancy Mack
Travels on the Prairie and Other Adventures in Academia
Edith Borchardt
The Not So Good Old Days? Happy in Hindsight
Eugene Stelzig
About the Contributors
Index