Bloodless Coup

Was it [hushed pause] the blog?

The Chronicle of Higher education, in a response to the decision not to hire Juan Cole at Yale, has a series of articles (look in the right sidebar) about blogging and its impact on academic careers. Michael Berube has a roundup and some reflections in the usual fine style. He also has links, my favorite of which is this one:

This evening, while on a break from executing Anne Boleyn, it occurred to me that we could save future writers for the CoHE considerable time and effort by supplying an easy-to-follow guide.  For example:

1.  I am
___ writing under a clever pseudonym
___ writing under an uninspired pseudonym
___ using my own name

2.  At present, I am
___ tenured, unfortunately, at a wonderful college
___ tenured, unfortunately, at the campus from hell
___ tenured, unfortunately, at an institution that fails to appreciate my scintillating qualities
___ untenured, unfortunately, at a wonderful college
___ untenured, unfortunately, at the campus from hell
___ untenured, unfortunately, at an institution that fails to appreciate my scintillating qualities
___ a much put-upon administrator
___ a recently-fired (without cause!) administrator

3.  I'm terribly, terribly unhappy, because
___ I thought life after tenure would be bliss, and it's just the same-old, same-old
___ my colleagues fail to appreciate my scintillating qualities
___ there's a poststructuralist/Marxist/cultural materialist/New Historicist/Lacanian/ deconstructionist/other in my department
___ there isn't a poststructuralist/Marxist/cultural materialist/New Historicist/Lacanian/ deconstructionist/other in my department
___ there are politics! in academia!
___ if I had been born fifty years ago, there would have been no politics! in academia!
___ if I had been born fifty years ago, there would have been my kind of politics! in academia!
___ academic work isn't all about Twoo Wuv for your subject
___ people are so mean to me
___ students don't appreciate all the effort I put into teaching them

Talk about inside baseball. Check out the whole thing.