Gordon Haber

These things, kids, are what we called “books.” Photo: Theodor Horydczak, via Library of Congress.

Welcome, wilkommen, bienvenue, come on in!

Last week, to my surprise, my Writer’s Manifesto went modestly viral (more like a slight cold than Ebola). So while I have your attention, I want to do some awareness-raising about the plight of adjuncts. Not that I really like the idea of “raising awareness,” because said raising is one of those ways that people confuse feeling better about themselves with actually doing something; and let’s face it, I am aware of many, many problems that I do absolutely nothing about.

Anyway. This year I did a few things to promote Adjunctivitis, my novella about an adjunct desperately seeking health insurance in Los Angeles. Months later, we have one of those rare occasions in which it is nice to look back: what seemed to me like shameless shilling at the time (a) helped me inform some folks about the Wal-Marting of American higher education and (b) led me to  a community of motivated and supportive colleagues.

Here we go:

• For the Adjunct Project Blog, I wrote a piece on the adjunct commute.
• For the Jewish Daily Forward, I blogged about the ethics of using adjuncts at religious institutions.
• For Vitae’s How I Get By series, I was interviewed by the great Stacey Patton.
• Alex Kudera and I interviewed each other for Inside Higher Ed.

And from this blog:

• The Adjunct Survival Guide
• Adjunct Horror Stories
• More Adjunct Horror Stories
• Even More Adjunct Horror Stories

This has been a really important year for higher ed, a year when adjuncts, who in the end had nothing left to lose, started fighting back. I really hope that the enthusiasm continues with other forms of contingent labor. And no, people who have been tweeting and messaging me, not because I hate America. I just want to see people get paid a living wage.

I never thought I’d see the day when that was considered a radical pronouncement.