Pop Culture Profs and the Profs Who Love Them @chronicle

Images of pop culture professors: do real life academics see themselves on the screen? On tv? In novels? More here from Suhuana Hussain in The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Who Ya Gonna Call?

What is the rebooted Ghostbusters about? In a review for The Scholarly Kitchen, Joseph Esposito views it as actually about academic peer review, the Kristen Wiig character's attempt at rehabilitating her scientific reputation, and digs at academic publishing. Unusual fare for Hollywood, but intriguing. Color me interested. But then, I'm the one who interpreted the original version as a metaphor for environmental regulation.

Via @lisambayer, @mobabb3700

Yoon on Academic Tenure

Albert Yoon, University of Toronto Faculty of Law, has published Academic Tenure at 13 Journal of Empirical Legal Studies 428 (2016). Here is the abstract.

In academia, a subset of faculty has tenure, which allows its beneficiaries to retain their professorships without mandatory retirement and with only limited grounds for revocation. Proponents of tenure argue it protects intellectual freedom and encourages investment in human capital. Detractors contend it discourages effort and distorts the academic labor market. This article develops a framework for examining academic tenure in the context of U.S. law schools. We construct a unique data set of tenured U.S. law professors who began their careers between 1993 through 2002, and follow their employment and scholarship for the first 10 years of their career. Across all journal publications, tenured faculty publish more frequently, are cited with roughly the same frequency, and place in comparable caliber of journal. These productivity gains, however, largely disappear when excluding solicited publications. These results suggest that legal academics continue to produce after tenure, but channel more of their efforts toward less competitive outlets.

The full text is not available from SSRN.

If You Need...

To take a break from grading, check out Anatasia Salter's post "Researching In Public On Tumblr." Professor Salter suggests a number of Tumblr sites for time-wasting refreshing thought while you rejuvenate your overloaded brain and shake out the snowflakes. My favorite: Academic Tim Gunn. Make it work.

Comical Classrooms

The Chronicle of Higher Education's ProfHacker ventures into pop culture territory here, with a look at the uses of that underused resource for getting one's scholarly message across. ProfHackers, you had me at the cat picture. Here's one of my favorites from the Lolcats website.

Grade(d) Books

From the Chronicle of Higher Education: Ms. Mentor (Emily Toth) provides her annual list of "Ackies" (academic novels) for your consideration. Top of the list is Isaac Asimov's "Foundation." In all of the entries--lots of legal issues. Ms. Mentor challenges you to evaluate the entries, or come up with your own candidates, and to send her suggestions for next year's list.

As an alternative, write your own "Ackie." A journey can begin with a single step, and a novel can begin with a single sentence. 

Rudolph P. Byrd, Paul Fussell Pass From the Scene

Two recent losses in academe. Rudolph P. Byrd of Emory University passed away in October 2011. Audrey Williams focuses on the impact his work and teaching had on students, colleagues, and the larger world here. On May 23, Paul Fussell died. Jay Winter pays tribute here.

Selected Byrd Bibliography

I Call Myself an Artist: Writings By and About Charles Johnson (1999).
Jean Toomer's Years With Gurdjieff: Portrait of an Artist (2010).
Traps: African-American Men on Gender and Sexuality (2001).
The World Has Changed: Conversations With Alice Walker (2011).

Selected Fussell Bibliography

Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars (1982).
Class: A Guide Through the American Status System (1992).
The Great War and Modern Memory: 25th anniversary edition (2000).
Wartime: Understanding and Behavior in the Second World War (1990).