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The Academic Self: An Owner's Manual 1st Edition

by DONALD HALL (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 11 ratings
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Donald E. Hall offers a self-help book designed for academics, from graduate students to tenured faculty. He helps readers engage in an active process of career management, goal setting, prioritization, and reflection on the norms that constitute what he calls “academic selfhood.” Drawing broadly on the insights of Anthony Giddens’ notions of reflexivity and self-identity, Hall encourages new and seasoned scholars to “own up to” the behaviors, attitudes, and complicities that compromise their professional identities. This book couples all its exhortations with clear, concrete, and practical strategies for responding productively to the many uncertainties of academic life.

Separate chapters of the book examine the textuality of the academic self, profession, academic processes and collegiality. Among the topics candidly discussed are careerism, burnout, procrastination, and insecurity. Throughout the book readers will find anecdotes, real-life examples, and concrete tips for constructing and maintaining a successful career defined on their own terms.

The Academic Self: An Owner’s Manual opens up a new and frank discussion on academic life and academics’ basic responsibility for their own actions and attitudes.

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  1. ISBN-10
    0814250998
  2. ISBN-13
    978-0814250990
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    Ohio State University Press
  5. Publication date
    September 1, 2002
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
  8. Print length
    136 pages
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

“Hall’s advice is courageous and sensible. It is about time that someone applied the insights of the self-help movement, as American as Emerson, to the fluctuations and uncertainties of the academic career. Hall is a wise guide to overcoming the accidents and dysfunctions of professional life, and an inspiring advocate for being true to oneself as the way to find genuine happiness and success.” —Elaine Showalter, Princeton University

About the Author

Donald E. Hall is professor and Associate Chair of English, California State University, Northridge, and author of The Academic Community: A Manual for Change.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Ohio State University Press; 1st edition (September 1, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 136 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0814250998
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0814250990
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.4 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 11 ratings

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Donald E. Hall

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
11 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

NYHoya
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly recommended
Reviewed in the United States on September 30, 2018
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This provides great ideas and insights into the role of a faculty member in the academic community. I highly recommend this to anyone within a college or university who wants to be a better member of their department.
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A&W3
4.0 out of 5 stars Good book
Reviewed in the United States on July 21, 2013
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Good book with good suggestions, but the first part read like a literature review - so it was a bit slow. But overall, good ideas for new professionals.
One person found this helpful
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Angeline I. Olliff
5.0 out of 5 stars Beneficial!
Reviewed in the United States on February 21, 2015
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Anyone interested in pursuing a career in academia should read this. Although much of it seems common-sense, it needs articulation and reinforcing in an ever-competitive and often alienating profession.
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Roben Torosyan
3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful If Excessively Polysyllabic; Deep, However
Reviewed in the United States on August 14, 2009
Verified Purchase
Hall makes the fascinating observation that it is our very competency as critical scholars that makes us quite incompetent at making positive, creative connections with other people, across specialties and collaborating between faculty, administrators and students. As he posits, we are always already scripting ourselves just as we write narratives. But we can practice close readerly self-criticism with a more forgiving, positive, and community-oriented approach than "criticism" usually implies, writing, "In order to be a good colleague, we have to admit and remember our own limitations. Furthermore, we also have to forgive ourselves for them, for not meeting some impossible ideal of perfect professional mastery" (73).
He asks broadly, "Why are we drawn to this profession and what do we expect from it?" are questions too infrequently asked of ourselves, students, and each other. Furthermore, he comes from the cultural studies tradition, where scholars refer to "reflexivity"--our "reflection upon the nature of reflection itself." Hall says "a `meta'-reflective move... has enormous transformative potential, if we recognize our own limitations and our need for the perspectives and commentary of others." Further, "self-aware reflexivity" requires that we "reflect critically upon self-reflexivity" itself. Doing so, we do not simply criticize problems from outside but question our own complicity in creating problems in the first place. Then we actively suggest solutions and alternatives, all the more responsibly.
Acknowledging the tension we're in, Hall observes, "We academics are fully subject to broad social and paradigmatic changes, even as we act often as very adept commentators upon those changes." To illustrate, he points out, "discrete theories--queer, feminist, materialist, post-structuralist--are useful tools, but only partial truths." Every disciplinary shift in knowledge framework helps us acknowledge the prominence of the observer in creating aspects of reality. In all, while the book's writing style was a little excessively polysyllabic, its ideas help with a similar message (see Be The Hero for a more direct guide): We make ourselves all the time by how we tell ourselves our stories. Grade: B.
6 people found this helpful
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Rebecca M
4.0 out of 5 stars Not so much a manual...
Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2007
This is an excellent and brief investigation of the psychology of the academic self. It is a self-help book designed for those who set the bar very high and try to be all things to all people. Most helpful is the first chapter on "self" wherein the author calls academics to examine their own insecurities.
7 people found this helpful
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Vital information
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2017
must read for anyone who has or is contemplating a career in academia
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Art
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent resource for junior university faculty
Reviewed in the United States on September 8, 2008
This book is an excellent primer for junior university faculty in institutions with a teaching focus. Chapter 4 is especially helpful in understanding a young professor's place in the institution and among colleagues and how this relates to advancing one's career.  ACADEMIC SELF: AN OWNER'S MANUAL
3 people found this helpful
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Cat
3.0 out of 5 stars Useful but pretentious
Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2013
This book is an interesting primer for anyone who might want to pursue a career in academia and perhaps best serves as a warning that a different career path might be best. However, it's a bit precious. Hall continually refers to himself and other academics as "intellectuals" and discusses intellectual "labor." Yes, sure, a career as a college professor requires brainwork, but a year or two doing actual manual labor would cure the whining, self-indulgence, and sense of entitlement that Hall seems to buy into. We're talking about a job with more vacation time in a year than most folks get in a lifetime, from which one cannot be fired once tenure is achieved. It seems to me that gratitude and awe are more appropriate responses than stuffiness and superiority. If you have the time and money to attend grad school through a PhD program and are fortunate enough to land a tenure-track gig afterwards, then it is prudent to be armed with knowledge of the realities of the profession, but for heaven's sake try not to make it sound like everyone else is just too rock-stupid to do the work you do. The reality may be quite the opposite.
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