Time for Black Women to Leave Academia?
It’s academic job season, and I have mixed feelings about going back on the market
Thirteen years ago, when I walked on stage to receive my doctorate in Russian literature at Princeton University, I felt like the world was opening before me. I wore my flowing black regalia with its broad orange velvet stripes, my sash from the pan-African graduation ceremony, and my puffy eight-cornered cap with its gold tassel. My doctoral hood hung down my back like a cape, its royal blue trim striking against orange and black satin. It was so heavy that it kept sliding down my back and against my throat. No matter, I was proud that day. My pan-African sash proclaimed my triumph: Class of 2007.
Six grueling years seemed to have paid off, and I was exactly where I wanted to be. I had presented papers at national conferences, published a peer-reviewed paper, organized graduate student events, even written a book review. My curriculum vitae was polished to a spit shine, and I had three strong recommendations in my pocket. My dissertation on Russian poetics was deemed to have “enlarged the knowledge of the field” and I had high hopes for expanding it into a tenure-worthy monograph.
Even better, I had been awarded a two-year postdoctoral fellowship — a rarity in the humanities — as an Andrew…
