December 27, 2008 It's been a busy trip back to the US. I got back to the US on November 11, and until about a week before Christmas I had an absolutely crazy schedule involving campus visits, conference presentations, and job interviews. All of this ended just before Christmas, which meant that all of my Christmas shopping was crammed into a few very eventful days. I've been relaxing a bit since Christmas, but there are still things to do. The final version of an article of mine needs to be sent off by January 1, and I'm doing my best to take advantage of my proximity to the University of Michigan library to catch up on some reading. For the most part, however, I'm trying to catch my breath. The job hunt has yielded a fair bit of interest this year, which I suppose is better than the alternative. I probably applied for 25-30 jobs and received some interest from about 18-20 places. I interviewed with probably twelve or thirteen schools, and so far have been a finalist for three positions. A couple more places might still get in touch with me for a campus visit (meaning I'd be a finalist), which would be nice. All of the places for which I'm a finalist are schools where I could see myself working happily. It's good to be in Ann Arbor again, but the job search can be a drag at times All the same, I must admit to being a bit fed up with the application process. I think that what bothers me about it most is the extent to which I feel like I'm being asked to fit into other people's ideas of what they need. Only rarely have people simply asked me during the course of an interview to explain to them what I could bring to their department and university. I guess that would have been too easy a question, but still. While some of the people I've met have seemed genuinely interested in listening to me explain, in my own terms, what I think I could bring to a department, in most cases I get the feeling that search committee members are mainly interested in having their doubts erased. The questions they ask reflect, I think, their own anxieties about making a mistake in the hire. Often, people seem a little put off by my interests in both Russia and the Middle East. Charged with the task of finding a Russianist or a historian of the Middle East, search committee members (who are usually Americanists and Europeanists) are mainly interested in not screwing things up by hiring someone who is not competent to teach the given field. This is understandable, of course, but for me it's obviously a bit of a drag, because it means that a lot of folks are going to be very concerned about whether I am a 'real' Russianist or historian of the Middle East. And, after all, I apply for both types of positions, so I guess that means I'm not a 'real' historian of either of these fields. On the Russian side, people are put off by the fact that I work on Muslims, which to an Americanist or Europeanist might not seem to be 'really' about Russia. Instead of asking me about my work or what I could do that most other Russianists can't do, I'm always asked to show that I can do everything that other Russianists ('real' Russianists) can do. Of the five jobs for which I've been a finalist in my three years on the market, three were for Russianist positions, while the other two were for Islamic World and the 'history of International Relations' (an unusual type of job, but one which was well suited to transnational topics like my own). My hunch is that, if I ever find a job in the US, it will probably not be for a straightforward geographical category like 'Russia,' but rather something more comparative. But the job I'm interviewing for in February is a Russianist one, so I suppose I should maintain a positive outlook on things. And if I don't find a job in the US? I guess I'll try to stay in Turkey somehow. If I could find a job at one of the universities in Istanbul, it would probably give me a platform from which I could move on to bigger and better things. While it's great spending the holidays in Ann Arbor, I'm looking forward to getting back to Istanbul. I'm returning to the US in February for yet another campus visit, which frankly is the last thing that I want to do. All I really want to do is get back to my research, and actually accomplish something this year other than finding a job. While I'm excited about the job for which I'll be interviewing, I really wish I'd had the time to just get it over with during this visit. All of the time and energy involved in applying for jobs feels like a lot of work and very little intellectual activity—a total contrast from the way I spent my summer. Indeed, this summer was awesome because—especially when I was in Ufa—I was able to work like a maniac. In Ufa I had a crappy little apartment that I was living in for free thanks to the friend of a friend, and there was little I felt like doing there other than work. I had no phone line, so there was no internet at home, and the TV only got a few channels. Since I'd never lived in Ufa before, I didn't know very many people and didn't feel like going out much anyway. I spent a great deal of time working on an article that I'd sent off to the Slavic Review. I'd wake up in the morning in the fold-out bed in my one room and grab my laptop from the coffee table, sometimes writing for a couple of hours before getting up for breakfast. It was by far the most insanely productive and enjoyable time I'd spent since I'd lived in Turkey in the 1990s—the last time I'd really lived without internet at home. After moving to Istanbul at the end of September, my life really changed. It was great to be in Istanbul again, but I basically stopped working on anything that wasn't directly related to finding a job. I don't regret knocking myself out for some places. However, I really wish I hadn't applied to a number of other schools—regional universities or small colleges with huge teaching loads and located in very uninteresting places. Applying to these schools just sucked up time that could have been spent doing more interesting things. And now I have still more of this waiting for me, but at least in January I'll be able to spend a little bit more time on my own work. After a nice layoff for the next week or so, it'll be a nice change to actually work on my research again for a little while.