MLA

This will be the first in a series of posts on MLA, so here goes.

I recently attended MLA for the first time, and my experience was good and bad. First, I didn't attend a single session or here a single paper given, so I can't speak to that aspect of the conference. I attended the conference as the graduate student representative on my department's hiring committee. My knowledge of MLA as a conference is limited to a very nice suite in a very nice Philadelphia hotel, where I sat with 4 other people for 2 days interviewing a total of 14 candidates. Much of the time I was wondering whether C, who was 7 floors below me with S, was having any luck getting S to take a bottle and if I'd have enough time to run downstairs and nurse S between interviews. That said, I learned a lot about the job market and the interview process. I hope that the process will be much less stressful when I am on the market. Here are a few things I learned:

1. Don't be boring.
2. Answer the question--much like a Presidential campaign, if you don't answer the question asked, you will just piss off potential voters.
3. Be prepared to answer the obvious question--for example, if you've applied for a position in 19th-century American lit, be prepared to answer questions regarding your teaching and research in that area.