The Wayward Professor

by Joel J. Gold

Overview

This wry portrayal of academic life will delight anyone who has ever spent time on a college campus. Writing with lightly satirical, self-deprecating charm, Joel Gold covers topics ranging from academic conventions to motivating recalcitrant students, from grantsmanship to the I.R.S., from the follies and foibles of academics to sabbaticals and living overseas. Twenty-six tales are illustrated with caricatures that capture perfectly the diffident, bemused, often befuddled wayward professor.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780700636754
Publisher:	University Press of Kansas
Publication date:	04/01/1999
Pages:	200
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Joel J. Gold was a professor of English at the University of Kansas from 1962 until his retirement in 1999.

Table of Contents

Storytelling

The Classroom and Its Pitfalls

-The Paper Shredder

-Kneecapped in the Art Museum

-The Beast in the Champaign Jungle

-Fear and Trembling in the English Novel

-Satire a la Sartre

-The Hazards of Humor

Research Capers

-The Two Cultures and Dr. Franklin’s Fly

-Seduced by Scholarship

-The Shorthand Man

-Memoirs of a Library Collector

Professional Business

-The University of ______ Requests the Honor of Your Presence

-Academic Conventions

-The Ph.D. and the IRS: Innocence and Experience

-Ingenuity and the Grant Application

After Hours Amusements

-Party Time in Academe

-Rum Running in Kansas

-Revenge of the Kanji

Travelers’ Tales

-Wheeling and Dealing at the Luxembourg Airport

-My Italian Fiaasco: Arrivederci, Trezzo

-The V Sign and Other Old-World Driving Hazards

-Peril on the Sea

An Alien in London

-Sabbatical Projects: Learning the Language and Reading the Natives

-Alien Registration and Other Formalities

-Sixteen Minutes to the British Museum

Endnote

-September Song

Editorial Reviews

"A refreshing delight! Gold has the knack. His comedy rings true. . . . It’s good-humored wit."—Robert Manson Myers, winner of the National Book Award for The Children of Pride, and author of From Beowulf to Virginia Woolf

"This is wry, self-deprecating, lightly satiric writing. The Wayward Professor is a persona whom we come to like and upon whom we come to depend. Gold has that peculiarly academic blend of innocence and sophistication . . . [and writes with] engaging charm."—Paul Strohm, editor of Academe

"I couldn’t put it down. Genial, reflective, and witty, Horace seems to have been reborn in Joel Gold. As for an academic life in the late 20th century, this must be the best version we're likely to have of the career, the rituals, the students, the classes, the meetings, the parties, the sabbaticals. I found more in these stories than in ten books on The American Mind and Higher Education. Reading The Wayward Professor is even better than living the academic life!"—R. G. Peterson, Executive Secretary, American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies

From the Publisher

Many of these essays are revised versions of pieces that appeared earlier--many in the Chronicle of higher education. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Booknews