Advice for academics

From Carl Cederström and Michael Marinetto, advice about “How to Live Less Anxiously in Academia” (The Chronicle of Higher Education ). The basics: “Kill your institutional aspirations.” “Be an amateur.” “Stop writing badly.” “Start teaching well.” All excellent advice, though unlikely to appeal to those whom Cederström and Marinetto call “micro-megalomaniacs.”

[Cederström and Marinetto borrow “micro-megalomaniac” from Christopher Hitchens. I found an explanation in Hitch-22: A Memoir (2010): “Later in life I came up with the term ‘micro-megalomaniac’ to describe those who are content to maintain absolute domination of a small sphere.” Cederström and Marinetto apply the word to certain research-centered types: “They have carved out a small and distinct place for themselves, over which they rule uninhibitedly.“]