The 4 words with the best predictive value for understanding all academic dynamics are: 'the rich get richer.'

Mindbogglingly good research support for a humanities job. I don't think I've ever seen anything like this. Over half a million USD in startup research funding and a 2/1 load.

Volume 48 of Social Science History SSHA is now published, containing my Presidential Address “Reverberations of Empire,” a book forum on Steinmetz’s “The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought” & other delicious reads. cambridge.org/core/journals/…

Guess what else is happening on November 5, 2024?

On the House floor next week:

My most erroneous belief when I was on the academic job market was thinking that an institution’s Carnegie classification corresponded to the availability of resources for scholarship. I should just have been thinking in terms of endowment size.

Some great colleagues are listed here- folks I like and respect. But there is almost no external funding anywhere left for junior people, much less those of us who are non-TT. Hard not to be depressed by more resources going to those who have the most and need them least.

days like this remind one of the vast resource differentials in the academy. I like to think of it as the distance between UMass Amherst and Amherst College - 1 mile and a couple billion dollars.

Absolute madness that Guggenheim, Mellon, etc continue to give the most lucrative grants to scholars at Yale and Harvard and Princeton etc. These should be reserved for scholars at public institutions. gf.org/announcements/

congrats to everyone but my god this is such a lame example of the people who already have the most resources to do their work getting even more resources gf.org/announcements/

Sam Haselby The Foundation assumes that, because the grants are so prestigious, home institutions will 'top them off' so the winners can take leave at full salary. But, of course, poor public institutions often can't afford to do this. /end

Sam Haselby The situation is a bit more complicated--and arguably worse. The Guggenheim grants are relatively small--well below salary+benefits of senior academics, even at relatively poor public institutions. /1

Caffe Latte Academia Global Jet Set

Important to recognize that arguments among people who went to Yale have no broad, large-scale cultural significance.