Oh for shame!

A sweet and well-intending graduate student, another Victorianist four years behind me in the PhD program who aims to finish her degree sometime this year and go on the dismal market this fall, recently congratulated me on "staying current" in the field. I think she was trying to make me a compliment regarding my TT job hunt stamina, along the lines of "Your persistence inspires, impresses, and frightens the hell out of us." It's something I hear occasionally, particularly from those graduate students at my alma mater who desperately fear my fate, but still, amazingly, seek my advice about going on the market (as well as copies of my application and campus visit materials).

Then I read Novel Readings' blog post *headdesk* and felt nothing but deep shame (shame is getting to be a theme in this blog, eh?). I? Current in the field? It's about all I can do to (afford to) attend (meaning *fund*) one conference in my field per year. And I tend to cram recent journal articles only in the nights leading up to this one conference, so that I will appear up-to-date on the hottest trends in Victorian studies. And even then, I tend to skip over articles that address texts I have not read (see my "Shame List") or articles that address genres or topics in which I lack interest or articles that have the word "digital" in them. Shame on me! I am not even living up to the hopeful compliments of my junior colleagues in the field!

So following Novel Readings' suggestion, yesterday I downloaded (uploaded?) a dozen recent articles and reviews from journals in my field onto my Kindle. This is partly a new test of my Kindle's professional uses, and partly a test of my capability to live up to the ways some folks generously perceive me. I can't promise that I'll report on my reading in this forum, though. I've got too many cake pictures lined up for the next post.