The Academic Class
A blog I read had a
posting today about class in America that got me thinking (again) about the Academic Class. These would be the families of university professors, who have their own insular little subculture -- my native tribe. I believe that the woman who writes Raising WEG is married to a college professor; I can't remember whether she also has a PhD herself.
Anyway, I've thought a few times that it would be entertaining to write a book (of the popular non-fiction variety) about the Academic Class. They all buy books by the truckload and read all the (limited) popular fiction set at universities so it ought to sell well.
I hesitate to just declare that the following traits exemplify the habits of the Academic Class, so I'll just say that these are traits I have noticed in my parents, that have caused friends of mine with professor parents to twitch and snicker and say, "oh yeah..."
1. A nervous suspicion of microwave ovens.
Okay, this is certainly more true of the older generation (e.g., my parents) than the current one, but I swear, in the 1980s, you were more likely to find two fully functional home computers in the home of a professor than a microwave oven. My parents got their first home computer in 1983 but didn't get a microwave until the mid-1990s. I think this is because many professors would like to be luddites; they can't be computer luddites, though, because computers are just so damn useful to them, so they express their disapproval towards the modern world by snubbing more easily dispensed-with items like microwave ovens.
Also, if you're a professor, you have fairly flexible hours, and can often work many of them at home. Which makes it fairly convenient to simmer spaghetti sauce for two hours -- you get it started, go work on your lecture notes, get up when you need a break to stir it, go back to work on lecture notes, etc.
2. Books in the living room.
Almost all members of the academic class have books in their living rooms. They will resort to brick-and-board shelving if they are broke graduate students, but given adequate discretionary income they will have upgraded to good quality, real wood bookcases.
This, of course, does not mean that books are limited to the living room.
This is one of the places that the Academic Class and SF fandom overlap even when the fans in question don't have PhDs. Here's one difference I've noticed, however: my parents (and many other professors) keep attractive-looking hardcovers in the living room, and hide their mass-market paperbacks away somewhere less visible. In fandom, the mass-market paperbacks are in the living room, probably stacked two deep on the shelves because it's the only way that they'll all fit. (Well, that implies that they fit if you stack them two deep. That's a bit of an assumption...but you get the general idea.)
3. Thrift that comes out in really bizarre ways.
Everyone with a PhD had to go through graduate school; for most, this meant several years of grinding poverty. Even years after receiving tenure, many still think of themselves as broke, or at least continue in certain habits of extreme thrift that they developed. Never replacing the hideously ugly hand-me-down sofa, for instance, or drinking the cheapest of cheap beer.
My parents drank cheap beer until I went to college, became a beer snob, and teased them about it. (I think my precise words were, "You're not grad students anymore! You can drink good beer now!") At which point my father immediately switched to better beer. I'm not sure if I inadvertantly took sides in some minor ongoing conflict, or if he'd just never thought about it, or what.
4. TV is embarrassing.
My parents had a tiny black and white TV for most of my childhood; they adamantly refused to buy a color one even once they were fairly inexpensive. They kept it in the dining room. When we had company, it was unplugged and stuffed into a closet.
This is not uncommon. Even if they're not exiled to a closet, TVs may be draped with a cloth or otherwise have their Malign Spiritual Influences barred in some physical way by members of the academic class.
6. A distinctive sense of style.
So there was this time that the MLA Convention was held in San Diego, and my whole family went. Well, my mother went to the MLA convention; the rest of us just went to San Diego. While we were there, we went to the zoo, and my mother pointed at this stranger near us and said, "He's here for the MLA." We looked: he had a neatly trimmed, slightly greying beard, and a tweed jacket with suede patches on the elbows.
What is up with those suede elbow patches? Does anyone wear those outside of academia?
With women, as well, there is a certain sort of outfit that is Academic Dressy. It's not tailored enough to wear to an office; it tends to be made from natural fibers, silk or linen or cotton. There are female academics who wear tailored suits and heels, but I think you may be taken more seriously in many fields if you wear exclusively flats.
7. A remarkable obliviousness to popular culture.
Maybe this is just my parents? My mother was directing a play a few years ago called The Art of Dining by Tina Howe. It's about a female chef who owns a restaurant; her husband waits tables and also eats all the food whenever her back is turned. Towards the end of the play, the husband, by way of apology, cooks something for the wife. When the play was performed, this guy went into a Swedish Chef routine (bork bork bork!) at one point during that scene. Everyone in the audience laughed. I found out later that my mother had NO IDEA what this was referring to; she knew it got a laugh but she figured it was the funny voice.
This is one of 8,000,000,000 examples of How My Parents Really Do Live In An Ivory Tower. American Idol? Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? The Superbowl? They have no clue.
8. Rootlessness.
Professors generally do not get to choose where they live: they go to where the job is. Once tenured, they usually stay put, so it's not that a professor's kid is constantly moving, but chances are pretty good that all relatives and so on live somewhere else. I always found it utterly bizarre that some people actually had families that all lived in the same area. Or that you might live your whole life in the town where you were born -- I had been born in North Carolina (where my father was going to graduate school) and then lived in Indiana for a year (one-year appointment) and then Texas for a couple of years before coming to Madison when I was four.
The experience of going to the town cemetery and seeing the plot where all your ancestors are buried is something that only happens for a child of the academic class when they have traveled to Grandma's house for the holidays or something.
9. Commuting marriages.
My father's job is in Madison, Wisconsin; my mother's is in St. Paul, Minnesota. They have two households and travel back and forth. This is extremely common in dual-PhD families. When explaining my parents' marriage to academics, all I have to say is, "two PhDs," and they either say, "oh yeah, been there, done that," with a look of deep sympathy, or, "thank God my spouse never wanted a PhD."
Outside of academic culture, commuting marriages are generally assumed to be a trial separation. When I was a year or two out of college and working for a legal publishing company near here, my mother got her job in St. Paul (she'd been unemployed) and I tried to explain to some of my coworkers there that my parents would commute back and forth, that they'd done this before and that it was fairly normal in academia. I swear I could see the thought balloons pop up over their heads: "Ah, denial. I remember feeling the same way when my parents split up."
My parents are still happily married. And still commuting. My father was on sabbatical this year -- the long vacations, flexible schedules, and periodic extended leaves help a lot with this sort of thing.
Anyway, I'd like to list a tenth item (lists are supposed to have ten items) but I'm tired and the other stuff I've come up with is either obvious (academics are obsessed with education!) or not all that unique (conspicuous consumption via travel). So I think I will post this, then post a reminder to nag people to come to my book signing, and then go to bed.
