Laura McGrath

Mellon Foundation The Mellon Foundation makes grants to actively unlock the power in the arts and humanities that helps connect us all.

“American Academy of Arts&Sciences reports 96.3% of humanities grads age 23-32 fully employed. Earnings in humanitiess comparable to social/life sciences, job satisfaction levels too. A serious mismatch bw actual employment for hum grads +general perception."
www.mellon.org/voices/human...

Thanks, Maris!

And I have it on good authority (YOURS) that it was excellent, too!

Have you listened to any audiobooks lately? I would love to hear your thoughts on audiobook narration via the link above.

Hi everyone,

As part of my dissertation, I am researching audiobook narration.

If you have listened to an audiobook within the last two years, or have previously been a frequent audiobook user, I would really appreciate your thoughts!

You can find the survey here:
docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...

I think different types of authors/readers have regrouped in different places. (I’ve got three main types of readers, and they’re in different spots!) I’m just meh about bsky specifically rather than socials in general, but I have also noticed a shift in the past year.

Just bsky! I’ve made my peace with my social media tolerance level, and my strengths/weaknesses on socials. I’ve never been able to crack (or honestly enjoy) bsky.

UGH ANNA. You had one job and it was to justify my disenchantment and departure but FINE give me some hope that this place works as it should.

I’m so glad that this is your experience! I miss old Lit Twitter, haven’t found the same vibe here. (I have a theory about my generation of assistant profs who started on the TT during covid…)

Is there *any* evidence that presence on bsky contributes in any way to book sales? I’ll take anecdotes! Who here has bought a book bc they heard about it on bsky *alone*? Because I’m ready to bounce.

Thanks, me too! Next spring!

Having failed (so far) to enjoy the bliss of putting a book into production, I’m going to start my own version of Summer Fridays, during which I will do nothing all day but read.

Yeah, I suspect that no amount of cozying up to FSG publicists will convince them to send me 25 galleys! But I'll try, and keep on fretting, and hope my lovely students are as punctual as ever.

Yes and yes! I'm mostly concerned about typical student delays- it comes out early November, but even if the bookstore has it on release day, will students go get it then? Will they have enough time to read? Etc etc. Fretting the things I cannot control.

Doing this in partnership with the Free Library of Philadelphia! My class will attend the author's talk there in conjunction with the book. Forever grateful to live and teach in a bustling literary city.

This fall, I'm assigning a book that has not yet been released and that I haven't yet read to my senior seminar. It's coming out in November. Anyone tried something similar, with recs? (I'm esp worried about book orders!)

make art! if it's the end of the world, you might as well make art! if it's not the end of the world, then the future will be better because people made art right now!

Saw my first academic job ad of the season yesterday, guess summer is officially over. *weeps*

Of trade publishing, too.

Anyway: I also want the future you describe! You’ve caught me in a pessimistic mood about the present, ha.

(I’ve also gotten stuck on subsidiary rights. There’s no precedent for taking out an option in a journal article. I imagine we’re in agreement that there could/should be!)

(Esp eager to hear bc becoming an agent for academics has been rattling around my brain for some time, but I’ve been stuck on the finances!)

Certainly doesn’t *have* to be, and yes, agree on the pipeline. But it takes a special agent to take 15% of very little to invest in training an academic. I’d love to know more about any nonprofit model you’ve got in mind. I admire what the OpEd Project and WashU are doing, for instance.

My thinking is that so few academic books involve money and so few academics can/do write crossover/trade books, but everyone can use the other things! But yes, wholeheartedly agree, if you want to write trade/crossover, get an agent. I’d be lost without mine!

I have many thoughts!! (But mostly I think academics need publicists and executive coaches, not agents.)

What

Stealing this!

I’ll take my reply to your DMs ;)

This isn’t to say that we can’t/don’t speak to and work with one another, or respect each others work sincerely. But that our motivations and interests and methods are not the same (even if spreadsheets are involved).

And I don’t want to speak for the colleagues and friends tagged below, but I suspect many of them (including noted critics of DH and lit sociology!) were surprised to hear their work lumped together in this way.

I’m a literary scholar. I teach digital humanities. Last week, I wrote peer reviews for a sociology journal. Tomorrow, I’m headed to a book history conference. Another reason why the “spreadsheet men” framing is unhelpful is that it collapses distinct fields with distinct intellectual traditions.