This article in the Chronicle by Mark Bauerlein is just the sort of article that leaves me feeling unsettled and insecure. Bauerlein, an English professor himself, takes a hard look at the uses and costs of publishing in the humanities. Three decades ago, if you produced a monograph, it was a huge deal. Almost no one published an article while still in graduate school. In the last three decades, there has been a vast proliferation of publication in the humanities. Bauerlein asks the question, "To what good?" He cites some sample data, like seeing how much a typical state-school English department published in a certain period of time, and then roughly looking at how much these publications get cited. In the natural and social sciences, citation tracking is a big deal (and it is much easier to quantify) than in the humanities. Being cited is supposed to help determine if someone's research is considered useful by others. (This is a highly problematic position to take however. As colleagues of mine in the sciences have pointed out, if you publish something on a popular topic that is not necessarily innovative, or if you get anything into a major journal like Nature, your citation rate skyrockets, regardless of how useful the research actually is.)
Bauerlein points out that most humanities publications are either not cited, or are cited very little. (Again, this is a bit of a canard, as the numbers in the sciences are not actually much different than the stats he gives for the humanities.) I definitely fall into the seldom-cited category. I remember a few years ago an article that appeared which focused on a particular episode in one of Rabelais's books. In the past thirty years, I was the only person to publish a whole article dedicated to that particular episode before this person published his piece. I confess that I felt the sting as I read the article and my work had not been cited anywhere. My one chance at a citation lost!
But beyond such pettiness, there is a bigger question: are all these publications really a good use of our time and resources? At a place like KU, publishing these articles and monographs accounts for 40% of our job description and is in many respects the only factor of any serious consideration when promoting or tenuring people. (Sorry, but you can be a mediocre teacher and can be downright lousy at giving service to your department and the university, and as long as your research is deemed acceptable, you will be just fine and will receive the lion's share of accolades.) Like other similar institutions, KU has continued to raise the bar over the years on the number of publications they require. Has this enhanced our understanding of humanistic fields? I would say that the results are mixed. For starters, as a scholar, how do you manage such a proliferation of publications? It is a full-time job unto itself, but instead, you have to skim constantly, plotting out your next speedy article, your next quick book. Ignore the system at your peril. And if no one else either reads your work or considers it useful, who cares? The system is self-perpetuating and frankly will not change until, as Bauerlein emphasizes, both big-name schools and the MLA instigate real reforms.
Bauerlein points out that most humanities publications are either not cited, or are cited very little. (Again, this is a bit of a canard, as the numbers in the sciences are not actually much different than the stats he gives for the humanities.) I definitely fall into the seldom-cited category. I remember a few years ago an article that appeared which focused on a particular episode in one of Rabelais's books. In the past thirty years, I was the only person to publish a whole article dedicated to that particular episode before this person published his piece. I confess that I felt the sting as I read the article and my work had not been cited anywhere. My one chance at a citation lost!
But beyond such pettiness, there is a bigger question: are all these publications really a good use of our time and resources? At a place like KU, publishing these articles and monographs accounts for 40% of our job description and is in many respects the only factor of any serious consideration when promoting or tenuring people. (Sorry, but you can be a mediocre teacher and can be downright lousy at giving service to your department and the university, and as long as your research is deemed acceptable, you will be just fine and will receive the lion's share of accolades.) Like other similar institutions, KU has continued to raise the bar over the years on the number of publications they require. Has this enhanced our understanding of humanistic fields? I would say that the results are mixed. For starters, as a scholar, how do you manage such a proliferation of publications? It is a full-time job unto itself, but instead, you have to skim constantly, plotting out your next speedy article, your next quick book. Ignore the system at your peril. And if no one else either reads your work or considers it useful, who cares? The system is self-perpetuating and frankly will not change until, as Bauerlein emphasizes, both big-name schools and the MLA instigate real reforms.