What advice do you have for becoming a top English literature professor in a University?

Question

Do you need to produce a breakthrough thesis,that challenges even those working in the field for twenty years?What is your advice for reaching this particular summit?

Answer 1

Get a first class degree

Do amazing postgrad research

Produce an amazing Phd thesis

Get a job as a junior lecturer

Get tenure

Select an area of research that is unique and that is worth studying - become an expert on it

Produce books, papers and articles regularly

Go to all relevant conferences - presenting papers, speaking about your research, drinking lots of wine

Network furiously so that you become well known as an expert on your subject

Give good lectures and inspire your students

Keep on researching and producing the papers, books and articles

Get promoted through the department to senior lecturer/ reader/ other job within department or move to different university for promotion

Maybe after about 10-15+ years of this you will be promoted to a 'Chair' in the department and be able to call yourself professor (in UK the title Professor is much harder to get than in USA) (as others have said there is also a lot of politics involved)

Answer 2

The thesis is more of a milestone than a summit. If your PhD thesis is the summit of your career, then that doesn't sound promising for productivity as a professor.

So I guess I'd start by choosing my words more carefully.

Seriously, you've got it about right. There is going to be very little else for prospective employers to go on than your thesis. Of course it will certainly help if your ideas flatter the existing sensibilities of the professors already on the tenured faculty at the university to which you are applying.

Answer 3

Producing a breakthrough thesis or dissertation is one way, but getting published is another. Start submitting articles for publication to leading journals, magazines, and literary publications. The more publishing experience you have, the better off you will be. Also start getting some teaching experience, try applying for adjunct jobs.

Answer 4

well everything in the University is politics. I think the best thing would be to a) kiss up b) publish as many research papers as possible and c) go somewhere that has a smaller dept so you can rise to the top faster. Make sure you are on a tenure track position, and for those 7 years behave yourself, before you know it you will be the dept head...

Answer 5

Start by graduating with Highest Honors from one of the most elite Eastern schools.

If you go to the Faculty pages of the top schools and check where the current faculty got their degrees, the vast majority of them earned their BAs from top ten schools like the Ivies, Duke, Stanford or UChicago... or from very elite liberal arts colleges like Amherst, Williams, etc.

A lot of the political infighting for top jobs is done by networking... who has had the profs who have the best connections.... If you want to get to the top you have to be a good schmoozer. But of course, no one will pay attention unless you have the goods as well....

It is an interesting path to follow, but please don't imagine it as being mainly cerebral. That is a fantasy.

Answer 6

reading