Resource Guides

When I am stressed or angry or concerned, I try to get my hands on every single sliver of available information about what’s on my mind. And then I shove every piece of information into a category and reorganize them until I’ve made sense of them all in my head. This process has resulted in the guides on this page. I hope you find them helpful. Please browse with care for your well-being.

The (Very) Unofficial Guide to the Academic Job Market

The academic job market started to loom over my head (as it does for most of us) from the moment I started graduate school, but I had a hard time getting a complete picture of the steps I would need to take to get a job—the overall process, the documents I would need, the questions I should be prepared to answer, the toll the process would take on me, etc. After asking endless questions of everyone I knew and gathering all the materials and advice that I could, I decided to compile everything I learned into a single place so that no one coming behind me would need to reinvent the wheel. That document is posted below, in whole and in its various parts. If you, like me, want to know everything all at once, I would recommend downloading the whole document. If thinking about the entire job market at once makes you want to break out in hives (...also kind of like me), you might consider checking out whichever piece is most relevant to you right now.

I made this resource when I was just entering the job market myself. Therefore, this is not a presentation of advice on how to be successful. Instead, it’s primarily a compilation of resources I found helpful, with some sympathy thrown in for good measure. Best of luck, and may the gods of academia and a kindly Reviewer 2 be with you!

• The Duck of Minerva Post

• The Complete Job Market Guide

  • Part 1: General Information

  • Part 2: Application Materials

  • Part 3: Phone and Video Interviews

  • Part 4: Flyout Interviews

  • Part 5: Practice Interview Questions

Racism and Racial Inequalities in the United States

In 2020, I was teaching a class on American Government when the protests over George Floyd’s murder began. When our class reached its unit on civil rights and civil liberties, I included a version of this guide for everyone who was trying to understand what was happening (and how we got there).

• A Resource Guide for Learning About Racism and Racial Inequalities in the United States

Abortion in the United States

On June 24, 2022, the Supreme Court announced that it had struck down Roe v. Wade (1973) and Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992), the two cases that established national-level protections for abortion in the United States. This is a guide to understanding this decision and its implications.

• A Guide to Understanding the Supreme Court Ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson (and Its Implications)