Lissette Lorenz_Querying Job Markets Transnationally_6S sketch group 2022

Job Posting:

“Virginia Wesleyan University invites applications for a part-time position beginning Fall 2022 to teach, in person, one or two sections of ENG 105. The appointment comes with the possibility of future teaching opportunities as well…Preference will be given to candidates who have several years of teaching experience at the college level with a diverse population.”

https://www.vwu.edu/about/campus-offices/human-resources/position-details.php?job=507

Questions:

• What aspects of the posting most attracted you?

• How do you relate with the geographic location of the posting on the level of familiarity? Talk about its political, social, institutional, material and cultural contexts that you are and are not familiar with.

• How does the location of the posting enable your research contexts or career trajectories?

I know. I am attracted to a precarious academic position: adjuncting. Yet it is within a 10-mile radius from my new home in Virginia Beach, Virginia. I shape my research/career based on where I live. I choose where I live based on my relationships with my loved ones. I live in multiple homes throughout the calendar year, depending on which loved ones need me/which loved ones I need in close proximity. So by “familiarity,” I relate to the geographical location of my work to my family (and by “family” I mean my loved ones, whether tied by most recent genealogical bloodlines or not). If I can’t work on my career within a 10-mile radius, than I work on it remotely. I work for pay or no pay. (If my labor is unpaid, does it still count as going towards my career? If my career makes very little money, is it still a career? Or am I speaking more of a vocation/calling/purpose? I wonder….) My research question (which is also the question that drives my life) is: how do we Earthlings live and die well together at the brink of mass extinction? I can explore this question collectively from any location on Earth. Paid, unpaid, professionally acknowledged or not, I will continue to do my research in loving communion with others.