I’ve tried, where I could, to present an amalgam of thoughts and ideas from a variety of sources; some of this is still, probably, idiosyncratic. Most of it is geared towards literature students; most of it comes out of conversations I had with colleagues following mock interviews we did for our graduate students.

Research

The first question in many interviews is, “Why don't you tell us about your research project?” Your response here needs to be teacherly—that is, you should remember that people aren't necessarily in your field, so explain not only what you do, but why it matters, how it interacts with other ideas in the field. Give specific dates and fields for your study. You'd do well, I think, to use at least one specific example (for instance, mention that Melville writes that “XXXXX,” which in its concern for YYYY exemplifies the trend you’re discussing... this could be even more impressive if you had two quotations, one relatively obscure, one from a canonical text).

For many schools this will be the only research question, though you may get some followups that are relatively unpredictable and depend on your answer.

You may also get a question asking you about your theoretical background: “What theoretical texts ground or inform your research project?” Or if you mention someone specifically in your letter: “I see here you're using Kristeva. May I ask which texts of hers you find most useful for your work?” Or, even more specifically, “Are you familiar with the section of Powers of Horror in which Kristeva discusses the criminal?” ... answer: yes... “How do you relate that to your research project?”

Let me add that the asking of research-related questions can be slightly odd. I was never asked one until I interviewed at a research I university; on the other hand, a friend told me his interview at a small liberal arts college consisted of nothing but research-related questions. In general, however, research will take up about one-third of the interview.

Later edit: A colleague offers the following disagreement:

Teaching

Most interviews involve questions about teaching. They consist generally of two types of questions: questions specifically about courses you would teach, and questions about the kind of teacher you are.

Syllabi and other specific course questions:

• How would you teach a survey course in your field (19th c, or 1600-1865)?

• How would you teach a general education course (this can be a thematic course for sophomores, fulfilling some generic “humanities” requirement)?

• How would you teach an advanced course in your field not on the subject of your dissertation (and here you have to be different... we had one person whose subject was “magic/gender/medieval” who said she could teach a course on women in medieval lit, or the “monstrous”—both interesting but much too close to what we already knew she could do).

• What's your position on the curricular place of non-canonical (ethnic/gender/sex/class/genre/region) literature in the American/British/medieval curriculum? Likewise, this can lead into a question about how you integrate noncanonical lit into your own teaching.

Also, if you seem too non-canonical, you will get a question that basically asks, “What about the canon?” You'd do well frequently to pair canonical and non-canonical texts, pointing out various kinds of connections that would make the students' reading of the canonical texts richer/more complex, etc.

The teaching questions are also an opportunity to show off your creativity as a scholar. Try to come up with a course idea that the committee has likely not thought of, whose creativity stems not from its content but from its theme.

• How would you teach text X? Usually text X is a text you've mentioned... once I said something about Ulysses during an interview. Sure enough, next question: “Well how exactly would you teach Ulysses?”

• What's your (graduate or undergraduate) dream course?

• How do you feel about teaching writing? How would you do it? (Likely at smaller schools)

• If you had to teach a course on XXXX (“genre,” “film noir,” “literary criticism”), what (“three” or “four” or sometimes no qualifier here) books would you use and why?

Other teaching questions I've heard:

• Name a good moment for you in the class that exemplifies what you are trying to do as a teacher. (Or “what do your students say about you or your class that makes you proud?”)
• Name a bad moment (unsuccessful assignment, lecture, etc) and tell me what you've learned from it.

I asked these questions jointly of one candidate who answered very well by claiming that the same moment was both good and bad. She went on to describe, in detail, a really interesting assignment she'd done, and talked about the ways in which it had worked really well and also about how it had failed to do as much as she'd wanted it to.

• Do you ever get angry in the classroom?

• What are you like as a teacher?

• What are your strengths/weaknesses as a teacher? Be sure to choose a “weakness” that isn’t terribly weak. But avoid being too sneaky: “My weakness is that my students love me too much” doesn’t fool anyone.

• How do you integrate technology into your teaching?

• At university XX, we are working on developing distance learning programs on the world wide web. Is that something you'd be interested in doing?

• At university XX, we have an international/working class/ethnically diverse student body. How do you deal with those students in your classes?

You might also check out this article from the Chronicle of Higher Education, which had some interesting questions.

As a general rule, if someone asks you a question, it’s because they want you to say yes. So the proper answer to a question about distance learning is not, “no, I would never want to do that.” Even if you hate distance learning, something like “Well, I haven’t really had the opportunity to work on that, but I’m certainly interested in learning more about it, and in integrating technology more generally into my teaching approaches,” followed by a description of how you use email listservs, or something, is much much better.

Service

Usually questions here will pick up on something you say in your letter or is on your CV. For instance: “I noticed that you were involved in XXX. Can you tell us more about that?” Frequently this is a signal that they want you to do this for them. Because of that, never be negative about any of your service activities. If they’re asking because they’d like you to organize a conference, run a workshop, participate on committees, etc., then saying “I’ll never do that again” is a sure-fire way to hurt yourself in an interview.

You may also get specific kinds of questions:

• We see you were involved in your graduate student union. Our graduate students are unionizing at the moment, and some of us are very uncomfortable with the idea. What might you bring to the table to help us with this process? (Remember to answer this question as a faculty member, not a student).

• I noticed here that you organized a conference/worked at a journal/etc.. What did that experience teach you about the state of your field, or the profession?

What questions do you have for us?

Most interviews will end with this. The best question anyone came up with, partially because it forces the committee to narrate, out of sheer politeness, something that looks like you, is: “If your ideal candidate walked in the door right now, what would that person look like?” Two faculty here used that question; the rest of us thought it was a real stroke of genius.

Other good questions:

• Where do you see your department going over the next five years?
• I’m very interested in XXX. What kind of support structure do you offer that would help me do XXX (for ex: “integrate technology into my teaching,” “doing interdisciplinary work across departments in the humanities,” etc).
• While I'm fascinated by the subject of my dissertation, and am eager to teach courses in the field, I also anticipate developing new interests as I move past my dissertation—I want to grow as a teacher and as a scholar. What sorts of opportunities for growth are there at university XXX?
• What are your students like?
• What's your timeline for the job search?

Don't ask anything about salary, time off, research money, anything that makes you seem presumptuous or greedy or too focused on research and not enough on teaching. Save all specific questions of that genre for the campus interview.

Five words of general advice

One: The people being interviewed sometimes didn’t quite remember or realize that their letters and CVs could, and would, be used to frame questions asked of them. One of the things all candidates ought to do is go through their job letter and CV and make a list of all the things they’ve claimed to be able to do or to have done. You ought to be able to answer specific questions about any of those things.

Two: Use specific examples whenever possible. Quote from a text you refer to; mention a specific assignment or student or instance in the classroom; talk about an article you read recently, or a paper you heard at a conference you organized. All of the things that make you a good teacher (being clear, using examples to illustrate general principles, making eye contact) also make you a better interviewee.

Later edit: A colleague writes:

Three: Don’t always refer to your dissertation. Candidates who were able to move beyond their own work, to draw examples from texts or genres outside their own particular field, looked more impressive that those who kept returning to their own particular area of expertise. As you prepare imaginary course syllabi or answers to teaching questions, use that time to develop a facility with a language outside the narrow focus of your dissertation, and be willing and ready to use examples in your interview that don’t simply draw on your own work.

Four: Be positive. Don’t ever volunteer that you can’t do something; instead talk about how excited you are about the opportunity to do it, and maybe suggest a way that you might approach the task. If you must acknowledge a negative, do so in a way that makes it a challenge you are interested in or are willing to take on. Dourness doesn’t work well in interviews.

Five: This is probably the most important thing: speak with passion. We know you are all passionate in various ways about your teaching, about your research, about your life as scholars and teachers (otherwise why would you be willing to take $13,000 a year to do it?). You need to communicate that in your interview, and many of the interviewees this week were unable to do so (out of nervousness, or a sense that it wasn’t appropriate, perhaps; I don’t know). What you need to realize is that you are selling yourself as a colleague. People—even professors—want to be surrounded by people who love what they’re doing, who discuss it with verve and vigor, and who inspire not only students but their peers on the faculty to think smarter thoughts, to feel better about their profession, and to build together a department that matters. Try to be someone who others can imagine doing those things for them; they may have to live with you for the next 30 years.

That the Arizona Cardinal’s recent decision to change their logo has met with a tepid reaction (at best) is probably not all their fault. After all, anyone who might take an interest in such a change – football fans, graphic designers and brand managers, fans of the actual bird species, maybe – have seen it all before. As team vice president Michael Bidwill describes the change, “We've made the beak much more predatory and much more aggressive.”

If you hear there’s going to be a new sports mascot announced in your town, see if you can get someone to bet you it won’t be more aggressive. You’ll win the bet. At least over the past few decades (with a few exceptions, some charming, some disturbing) a new mascot, or a new representation of that mascot is going to be more aggressive than whatever preceded it.

The Arizona Cardinals new logo captures two of the main trends in the aggressivification of mascots.

1. Make the mascot look like it’s flying from left to right.

For now, though, shooting from left to right by and large carries the day.

2. More Pointy.

In some cases, as with the Cardinals, this is partly an effect of element 1 above. So great, however, is the value of pointiness that even mere letters can be made more aggressive if it seems like it might hurt to touch them. If an S and U can be more aggressive, it’s not hard to see why the newly aggressive Cardinal might not stir much interest.

Tired though it may be, the incessant push toward more aggressive mascots raises a few questions.

In the wake of the Pacers – Pistons brawl earlier this year, yesterday’s front page Yahoo! News story about a fight at an Alabama high school girls basketball game sounded a note of warning:

Have aggressive mascots contributed to this culture of violence? Are they to blame for a world in which girls lose their cell phones? In which keys get lost –- possibly by some of the girls who have already lost a cell phone? When one considers that the Prattville High Mascot is a pretty non-aggressive Lion that’s not even facing right let alone moving quickly from left to right it’s hard not to feel that the worst is yet to come.

At this moment, then, one might ask: How aggressive can mascots get? Is there a limit beyond which mascots will have become too aggressive? When we reach that limit, will we know when to pull back? The answers to these questions are: Exactly as aggressive as Mandrake the Oregon nightmare Duck, oh my god yes, and (encouragingly) yes, at least in Oregon.

It’s clear that the second-nature inevitability of the “more aggressive” mascot is an amenable companion of the other unfolding inevitabilities of American culture – progress, profit, the march of freedom, etc. in which there could never be too much. It’s a commonplace (if still a fascinating and complicated one, at least to me) that America’s future is conceived as open-ended in these ways, and inasmuch as sports teams are a part of the story Americans tell about themselves, it makes sense that mascot-making is caught up in that structure. Which brings us to the case of the Oregon Duck.

In 2002, the cartoonish Duck mascot

was supplemented by the appearance of “Mandrake” a mascot whose aggression was so great that it became truly frightening not only to opponents, but to the very people who were to be served by the mascot. The Oregon Daily Emerald quoted Junior Ashley Brodie as noting, “I think he's incredibly scary looking, as does half of this campus.”

Was it simply that we prefer our movement toward greater progress and aggression to be gradual, or was it that for one moment a college campus stood up and said, “No, I think we’re aggressive enough for now”? Perhaps the ultimately aggressive mascot eluded us then, but no matter – tomorrow we will make our mascot shoot faster to the right, make the edges more pointy . . . and one fine morning --