I just applied for the job at comparative literature. Yeah, I know, when I mentioned it last night I didn’t really mean to apply, but after sleeping on it and having a chat with a colleague, I decided to do it. I think I’d really enjoy the opportunity to focus more narrowly on the literary aspects of networked literature, and I actually really like the fact that it’s got a time limit so I could come back here (or elsewhere) when I’d spent three and a half years buried in the literary and teaching poems and literary theory and gender studies. I’d have to get leave from my permanent position here, to be willing to accept the job, but there are people here who could easily step into my shoes for 3.5 years, so leave might work just fine.

I think it’s obvious that electronic literature should be in the curriculum for comparative literature students, so it’s a logical step for me to apply for a job at a comparative literature department. Of course, so far there hasn’t been any electronic literature at comp. lit. in Bergen, so I’m looking forward to reading the committee’s begrunnelse, their two page summary of what they think of the publications I sent in and of my suitedness to the job. I sent in my most literary publications for the selection committee: my PhD thesis, my piece for the AoIR annual on distributed narrative (the link is to an earlier version than the one in the Annual), the feral hypertext literature piece, my weblog definition, my essay on second person address and the old one on afternoon. My weakest point (assuming they don’t try to argue that electronic literature isn’t literature and so I’m not qualified) is that I haven’t done much work specificially within gender theory. Ah well, it will be interesting to see how it goes.

And my goodness there’s something so luxurious about handing in an application for an academic job less than 24 hours after first seeing the advertisement, while having spent most of the day doing completely different things. The joys of an updated CV and reasonably organised publications — and of course the lack of anxiety that without that particular job, one will starve. So much nicer than the anguish that went into my last job application!