Conferences...

So I've attended plenty of conferences in my career as professional student, scholar, and professor, but I've never spoken or presented before. That's about to change, however, as I recently heard that I'll be presenting on the subject of rhetorical pleasure--think to teach (docere), to delight (delectare) and move (movere)--this fall. This is great news and I'm pleased as punch, but I'm also starting to get nervous. I mean, it's one of the principle elements of the profession to "profess" your beliefs about your subject, but I've been part of the audience so long that I'm concerned about my ability to present my own ideas. This is just nervousness, of course, but I still feel it acutely.

On the subject of the job hunt, I've had some interest at a few different schools, but I get the feeling some institutions might think me overqualified or disinterested. In fact, I heard directly from one school that interviewed me that one reason why they didn't hire me was because I had a PhD and they assumed I would only stay with their program until I had a better offer. As I know I'm writing for myself, I don't have to explain that this simply isn't true, but if you ever read this post B.R. you should know I would have done a lot to work at your school. Meh...I'm not going to get sour grapes, but I may start posting my rejection letters here (at least the form letters!)