Wanna be an academic? Embrace rejectionAn ode to rituals and resilience - and what the philosophers meant by authenticity
What are the ingredients of a successful academic career? Resilience is a fancy term for people who can navigate the incessant negativity of our age. But what makes you resilient? I think I may have promised a post on publishing strategy for a while, and that is nearly ready. Then I realised this post is going out on Good Friday, and whether you are of this religion or not, it is definitely a Bank Holiday in many places. So it feels a bit too much like work to write about publishing strategy. Instead, this is a bit of a reflection on rejections, rituals and authenticity as the important wayposts of academic life. Embrace rejectionOne of the best bosses I ever had (Nigel Driffield, now at Warwick) said one lunchtime, a long, long time ago: “If you are not getting rejected, what have you been doing?!” When I told one of our PR people, many years later, that yes, we all get rejected, it is not a problem, he went all charming and said, oh no, of course not, you do not get rejected! Well, I was genuinely nonplussed. Rejection is normal in academic work. It makes for good battle stories to share over a drink. After the jump, some more reflections on why rejection is one of the most important ingredients of an academic, or possibly any, career. ... Continue reading this post for free in the Substack app
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