the academic process of writing books

[aryanhwy]

I've been thinking about a few things recently, relating to the process by which academics write, and are expected to write, books. (Caveat: What I have to say probably holds greater for the humanities than for the sciences).

First, badgersandjam was commenting on how unreadable many history books are, such that when you find one that is, it is such a relief -- but you do sort of wonder, why can't they all be like that? Wouldn't everyone want the book they write to be something that others will enjoy reading?

And then you read things like this article, "Academics are being hoodwinked into writing books nobody can buy". If nobody can by them, nobody can read them. Wouldn't everyone want the book to write to be something that others will at least read, even if they don't enjoy it?

We're in the process of hiring a new lecturer and two new chairs in my department, and this has involved the scrutiny of a lot of CVs over the summer. In the absence of other indicative marks, books are given significant weighting: Given two candidates with roughly equal educational and teaching profiles, the one who has a book published or forthcoming, but very few articles, generally seemed to trump the one with no book but lots of articles. Yesterday was the job talks for the two chairs, in which candidates were given ~45 min. to talk about their research, past, present, and future. A number of them naturally mentioned how their previous or current work has or will result in books, and I found myself looking at the CV of one and thinking "Gosh. 6 books. That's actually rather a lot. Not so much a lot to write, but a lot to read", and this lead me to another thought:

When was the last time I read a philosophical book, not an article, cover to cover? Of these books, how many did I read within 5 years of their being published? I.e., these books that everyone is writing, and that everyone is putting so much weight on on CVs -- who is reading them? For every 6 books you write, you'd hope that there are at least 12 people out there who read them (two per book, not 12 per book). But where are these people coming from? Certainly not me... I took stock and realized that the only recently-published books in my academic field that I have read cover-to-cover within the last 5 years or so are ones that I have been asked to review (it is, in fact, one reason why I like being invited to review books, because I get a chance to completely read something I want to read, but would otherwise likely not make the time for).

Wondering how typical I was, I went to twitter and asked philosophers, What was the most recent philosophy monograph you've read cover to cover within 5 years of its publication? The answers I've been getting are quite interesting (I've even gotten a few tips for books I may want to read myself!). Someone in the thread responded that, as a student, she mostly reads articles rather than books, which triggered another question: When was the last time you assigned a complete book, pub. in last 5 years, for a course? So far, NO ONE has responded to this one.

Why don't I read books? They're time consuming. They're often too niche for my interests -- they report on the results of someone else's research, rather than providing me with tools or questions that can direct my own research. Articles are more specific and focused, and are often directed at illuminating a particular issue or question, the results of which can then be more easily transferred to another realm. Articles are cheaper, and easier to obtain electronically. (So many books that I would be interested in reading the library doesn't have, and may or may not purchase.)

Should I be reading more books? I don't know.

Comments

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

How would it work in philosophy? First, you'd have a discussion of whether or not there are such things as facts. Regardless of how this question is resolved, it's important to also answer the question of whether or not facts are identical with states-of-affairs (and for this, we should also determine whether or not states-of-affairs exist, and whether they are the same thing or distinct from truth-makers). Suppose you DO manage to establish that facts exist. What, then is their ontology? But you can't answer that until you determine what their epistemology is. And by the time you find yourself sitting in your armchair pondering what the epistemology of facts is, you're a long way away from the real world.