Is attending a lower-ranked program worth it?

[psstein]

On 11/9/2019 at 9:15 AM, telkanuru said:

It's pretty easy to call this sort of answer "facile" if you haven't watched friend after brilliant friend struggle to make ends meet after graduating, or if you yourself have never had to live on poverty wages. Those of us who have tend to find any other answer shockingly privileged and naive.

For the record: I attend an Ivy. I love my program and doing what I do. I have an incredibly supportive department in all ways that matter. I would not do it again.

You know the full story, but this is a significant portion of why I left the PhD. I couldn't justify spending years (with a questionably supportive department) to obtain a degree, that, in all honesty, doesn't have a huge amount of application outside the academy. The "alt-ac" job push is a topic for another time, but I am not positive towards it. I think it's a ready made excuse to ignore structural problems of PhD training.

On 11/8/2019 at 3:27 PM, AP said:

I would still argue that ranking is not the same as placement, and that coming from higher ranked program doesn't mean a higher chance in getting a TT job. (All of my cohort (6 people from different subfields) got TT jobs and we are a program in the 40s). Furthermore, regarding English, there was a recent article in the Chronicle about how Columbia could not place any of their graduating PhDs in TT jobs (I have 3 friends in English that landed TT jobs). Although prestige can mean something, it is not an automatic ticket to anything. 

Unfortunately, there is no formula.... but I do think that looking at rankings alone it's just a very narrow point of view. 

I don't consider "rankings" the same as placement. Placement is, IMO, one of the few metrics that actually matters, if you want a TT career afterwards. I would submit that there are departments ranked in the top 20 on US News and World Report that are not in the top 30 in terms of placement. Moreover, if all 6 of your cohort found TT jobs, your placement ranks you much higher than the mid-40s, just IMO, of course.

Edited November 12, 2019 by psstein

[AP]

1 hour ago, psstein said:

Moreover, if all 6 of your cohort found TT jobs, your placement ranks you much higher than the mid-40s, just IMO, of course.

Wait, we were also incredibly lucky. Let's say it. 

[Warelin]

13 minutes ago, AP said:

Wait, we were also incredibly lucky. Let's say it. 

Or possibly exactly what the job market was looking for at the time. A top school does not mean you'll automatically get the job over someone else.

 

1 hour ago, psstein said:

I would submit that there are departments ranked in the top 20 on US News and World Report that are not in the top 30 in terms of placement.

This. Rankings do not equal placement rates. Rankings do not mean better funding. Rankings do not mean best professors. Rankings can also change based on certain fields. Placements can change based on what changes have been done to improve the department.

I'd also like to add that some people not at a top 20 are discouraged by their peers from even attempting to apply to tenure track positions. Others realize that they don't want to teach. Those outside the top 20 who take grad school seriously though often land very lucrative tt positions though. As such, it's hard to accurately measure placements especially in smaller cohorts.

 

1 hour ago, onerepublic96 said:

Isn’t US News kind of the default?

It depends on where you live. I've spoken to a fair number of graduates from outside countries. Certain schools might not even have programs in their field or might be ranked poorly for their field. Despite that, they say it is more valuable to go to that university because their country values it more.

[AP]

3 hours ago, Warelin said:

Or possibly exactly what the job market was looking for at the time. A top school does not mean you'll automatically get the job over someone else.

This. Rankings do not equal placement rates. Rankings do not mean better funding. Rankings do not mean best professors. Rankings can also change based on certain fields. Placements can change based on what changes have been done to improve the department.

I'd also like to add that some people not at a top 20 are discouraged by their peers from even attempting to apply to tenure track positions. Others realize that they don't want to teach. Those outside the top 20 who take grad school seriously though often land very lucrative tt positions though. As such, it's hard to accurately measure placements especially in smaller cohorts.

Yep, those were my first responses to the thread, ranking does not mean placement.

[dr. t]

23 minutes ago, AP said:

Yep, those were my first responses to the thread, ranking does not mean placement.

The distinction has some meaning, but it's also a lot easier to find a ranking list than it is to find a comparative list of placement rates for the past 5 years. 

I don't think a single metric is a good evaluation tool for anything, whether it's my program's rank or my GRE scores, but it counts as a warning sign.

[psstein]

5 hours ago, telkanuru said:

I don't think a single metric is a good evaluation tool for anything, whether it's my program's rank or my GRE scores, but it counts as a warning sign.

I think placement is a fair (though obviously not perfect) evaluation tool for training quality, resources, and program reputation. Likewise, I see attrition rate as an indicator of departmental culture and support.

[Indecisive Poet]

On 11/12/2019 at 1:39 PM, alittlebitofthat said:

Which ranking are we talking about specifically? QS?

US News, I would think. Those are the rankings I was referring to in my original post.

[Glasperlenspieler]

15 hours ago, psstein said:

I think placement is a fair (though obviously not perfect) evaluation tool for training quality, resources, and program reputation. Likewise, I see attrition rate as an indicator of departmental culture and support.

I agree completely, though I would mention two caveats:

1. Placement is in many ways a backwards looking metric. If a program does a good job of placing its graduates in 2020, that means it was a good place to choose to attend in 2014. It's not a guarantee that the program will be as successful in 2026. Though one can usually assume that there will be at least some continuity here. 

2. Not all attrition is bad. In particular, attrition in the first couple years of a program is a better sign than attrition later on. If graduate school (or that specific program) doesn't make sense for a given student, it's good for both the program and the student to realize this and the earlier, the better. 0% attrition is not the ideal, but  high attrition is certainly concerning.

Neither of these points discredit placement and attrition as metrics, they should just be taken with the appropriate caution.

Edited November 13, 2019 by Glasperlenspieler

[Bumblebea]

I went to a "lower-ranked" program (I guess? It was ranked somewhere between #25-#35 in USNWR, with its exact placement shuffling around every few years). I have to say that I would not attend that specific program now, knowing what I know and what I've been through. 

I know people all over the place who didn't go to the world's greatest programs and still managed to find TT jobs. (Like anything, getting hired comes down to luck and nebulous ideas about "fit"--which are quirkier on the job market than in admissions). But yeah, it can be a lot harder to get a job. Or get into a conference. Or find the time to publish (since those who go to lower-ranked schools teach so much). And postdocs are extremely difficult to secure, because many of them are indeed "prestige obsessed."

But the worst thing about going to a low-ranking program is that you're always judged by where you got your PhD. Always. The obsessing over credentials and Ivies that goes on here? It doesn't go away after you start grad school, finish grad school, or get a job. 

There are a lot of people out there who believe quite strongly in Top Ten or Bust. Thing is, they don't believe it just for them. They believe it for the rest of us too. So when you bump into that person at a conference ... or during a fellowship ... or, worst of all, on a search committee, they are going to be holding you to the standard to which they held themselves. They are going to be thinking to themselves, "Why did this person decide to go to Fredericksburg State for their PhD? Didn't they understand that it's Top Ten or Bust? What were they thinking? Or maybe they just couldn't get into to a good school? Then why did they even bother to go? I would have applied a million times over so as not to go to Fredericksburg State."

The most demoralizing thing of all is when the faculty at your own program feel this way about you and your fellow grad students. I actually ran into that a lot at my program. Like most R1 schools, our faculty was recruited almost completely out of Ivies. And there were a lot of subtle and not-so-subtle digs about our prospects. One guy who served as our JPO went to Berkeley--without funding. And he really looked down at us because of the program we were attending. 

I know many people who went to the top programs and who hold varying attitudes about people who attend lower-ranked schools (or some of them are at least good about keeping their real feelings under wraps), but two of them stick out to me. One is a person who applied three times in order to go to a top program, actually "dropping out of life" completely while she was trying to get in and incurring a lot of debt in the process. She turned down solid and well-ranked programs on the way. I thought this was insane. In the time it took her just to get into grad school, I was already through coursework and exams at my lower-ranked program. But she did eventually get into her top choice, and she's by far the most ruthless person I know about all this. She'll definitely be on admissions committees and search committees in the future--IMO to the detriment of more "working class" or non-traditional people in the field. 

The other person looks down on all people who went to a program outside the top 5. She once referred to Princeton as "not a fab English program." I kinda didn't know what to say to that.

But anyway--that's what you'll encounter out there with a degree from a lower-ranked school. The people you bump up against at this stage who don't think there's life outside the top 10? They don't go away, and they don't learn, and they aren't disabused of their notions. They stick around and get the good jobs, and from that vantage point they continue to replicate the same kind of attitudes that make it difficult for low-ranked PhDs in the first place. 

That is what I wish I had known. 

[kb88]

On 11/12/2019 at 11:32 AM, Warelin said:

Those outside the top 20 who take grad school seriously though often land very lucrative tt positions though.

This x1000

You can still do it but you have to be really excellent now.

It's just not going to be given to you on a silver platter anymore, like it was for past professors, and professors won't understand because they were handing out TT jobs like candy in the previous millennium. All of my letter writers had TT jobs lined up before they got their PhDs because it was a good job market back then. Now the job market is awful, and applicants -- you know -- actually have to publish articles, present at conferences, develop scholarly manuscripts or look like they're going to, etc.

I think we all know those associate professors who coasted to tenure, published little, and work half work weeks sipping martinis on the quad chatting up undergrads, but that is not a reality any longer. Those professors were a product of a good job market. I think we'd all love their lax lives, but it is just not available to us any longer.

Basically, it's worth attending a lower-ranking program if you intend to be good at your job.

[psstein]

1 hour ago, KennethBurked said:

This x1000

You can still do it but you have to be really excellent now.

It's just not going to be given to you on a silver platter anymore, like it was for past professors, and professors won't understand because they were handing out TT jobs like candy in the previous millennium. All of my letter writers had TT jobs lined up before they got their PhDs because it was a good job market back then. Now the job market is awful, and applicants -- you know -- actually have to publish articles, present at conferences, develop scholarly manuscripts or look like they're going to, etc.

I really, really disagree with this. Just speaking with my own emeriti who got their jobs in the 80s, it wasn't that easy. Two very well-known historians of science (both Harvard PhDs from the 80s) told me how they had a sheaf of rejection letters. The job market you're describing existed in the 1950s-1970s, where higher ed expanded to meet both a growing population and the needs of national defense. It hasn't really existed since the early 80s.

As for "have to be really excellent," I'm sorry, but that's also just not the case. There are many highly capable people with good publishing records/conference presentations/award winning books/etc. who have a lot of trouble finding full-time academic employment. Even speaking to younger faculty can show some real horror stories.

When I was still in Wisconsin, I was at an acceptance weekend event and speaking with a prospective student. She told me "I could go to X or Y Univ., and just outwork everyone into a job." I had to hold my tongue and tell her "it doesn't fucking work like that." It doesn't. Telling a student "if you're a superstar at Univ. of the Western Ozarks, of course you'll get a job!" is nothing short of negligence.

Edited November 20, 2019 by psstein

[AP]

On 11/19/2019 at 5:15 PM, KennethBurked said:

This x1000

You can still do it but you have to be really excellent now.

It's just not going to be given to you on a silver platter anymore, like it was for past professors, and professors won't understand because they were handing out TT jobs like candy in the previous millennium. All of my letter writers had TT jobs lined up before they got their PhDs because it was a good job market back then. Now the job market is awful, and applicants -- you know -- actually have to publish articles, present at conferences, develop scholarly manuscripts or look like they're going to, etc.

I think we all know those associate professors who coasted to tenure, published little, and work half work weeks sipping martinis on the quad chatting up undergrads, but that is not a reality any longer. Those professors were a product of a good job market. I think we'd all love their lax lives, but it is just not available to us any longer.

Basically, it's worth attending a lower-ranking program if you intend to be good at your job.

I reiterate the example I gave earlier: Columbia's English Department did not place any of their graduating cohort in 2019 a TT job. (see the Chronicle's article. This is a follow up of the original which is behind a paywall). The TT job market is bad regardless of the program you attend and no one can predict what it is going to be like in six years. Thinking that attending a Top 20 program (based on an arbitrary ranking system) will land you a job is naive and misinformed.

[Bumblebea]

On 11/19/2019 at 6:15 PM, KennethBurked said:

You can still do it but you have to be really excellent now.

How I wish this were true.

[Bumblebea]

Yup, English had a slight "boom" in the 2012-2013 hiring year. (I think people were feeling positive because of Obama's reelection [don't ask me why that makes a difference but apparently it does] and the Recession seemed behind us). 

Then things went back to sucking. Now not even rhet/comp is safe.

Yay for me, I missed that "economic miracle" of a year went on the job market in 2014-2015 and then 2015-2016. And it's been a shit show ever since. According to some experts we haven't even "hit bottom" yet. I joked to a friend three years ago that one of these days there would be approximately one TT job advertised in my field. This year there were three, so I'm getting close. (And I specialized in a field that was at one time considered almost as robust as rhet/comp). 

I wish we lived in a world where talent and hard work prevailed, but that is really not the case. This is now a game of Russian roulette but backwards--instead of having one bullet in the cylinder, you've got all the cylinders filled except one. 

I loved grad school for its own sake, and I love academia for its own sake. Unfortunately, as much as you tell yourself "I will be happy just to spend five years studying something I love, even if it doesn't work out"--well, when you get to the other side of that, coming to terms with the loss is something of a grieving process. I try to remind myself of how lucky I have been to publish things that people cite and read, to present at conferences,  and to even have a book deal ... but on the inside it's actually really devastating. 

[Warelin]

I think there are a few things this thread ignores.

Yes, people from a "top 20" school might get a second glance at their resume, which might make it easier for them to land an interview.
No, it doesn't automatically mean that they'll get the job over someone else.
No school can guarantee you that you'll be viewed equally at every school you apply to.
Yes, some schools might make it easier to get published in certain journals.
Different countries have differing opinions on which schools are considered the best.
Schools rich in finances might be able to provide more resources.
Some schools are lowering cohort sizes by 1-2 spots in order to better provide resources for current students and to increase the percentage of students they place.
Advisers are important. Advisers can move from school to school which can impact placements.
Some advisers might have contacts at certain journals which might make it easier to get a piece looked at.
Not everyone wants to be placed in an R1 school. Some students would prefer teaching a 3-3, 4-4, or 5-5 rather than doing research. I don't think it's proper to say that one system is better than another.
Some schools are really good at "placing above their level" when it comes to fellowships. Sometimes, the connections from those fellowships are what allows them to move up the chain.
The majority of people on this forum will not land a tenure-track position no matter where they go.
There are schools currently outside the top 20 that have made dramatic changes in recent years which may or may not impact them. (Prior to these rankings, I think Chicago was previously ranked 10th? Indiana and UC Davis were not considered to be top 20 schools. And Michigan was outside the top 10.)
Rankings can change

According to the USNEWS:"
"Rankings of doctoral programs in the social sciences and humanities are based solely on the results of peer assessment surveys sent to academics in each discipline. Ipsos Public Affairs conducted the surveys in fall 2016. U.S. News conducted the survey of doctoral programs in criminology and criminal justice in fall 2017.

For the surveys conducted in fall 2016, Ipsos sent each school offering a doctoral program two surveys per discipline. Questionnaires were sent to department heads and directors of graduate studies in economics, English, history, political science, psychology and sociology – or, alternatively, a senior faculty member who teaches graduate students – at schools that had granted a total of five or more doctorates in each discipline during the five-year period from 2011 through 2015, as indicated by the National Center for Education Statistics' Completions survey. These rankings were published in 2017.

The questionnaires asked respondents to rate the academic quality of the programs at other institutions on a 5-point scale: outstanding (5), strong (4), good (3), adequate (2) or marginal (1). Individuals who were unfamiliar with a particular school's programs were asked to select "don't know."

Scores for each school were determined by computing a trimmed mean – eliminating the two highest and two lowest responses – of the ratings of all respondents who rated that school; average scores were then sorted in descending order.

These are the number of schools with doctoral programs surveyed in fall 2016: economics (138); English (155); history (151); political science (120); psychology (255); and sociology (118). And these were the response rates: economics (23 percent), English (14 percent), history (15 percent), political science (24 percent), psychology (14 percent) and sociology (33 percent)."

It is unlikely that every grad program is paying attention to every other grad program. Different schools excel at different areas. It's up to each individual to figure out whether a school can ultimately help them out in reaching a goal.

A student who excels at a "top 20" school does not necessarily mean they're more talented than someone who went to a school outside the top 20. It just means they were a better fit for that one school.

Some recent job postings have recently required applicants to have taught a certain amount of classes. Sometimes, that number isn't possible for someone whose only experience has been in a PHD program.

Some universities do better placing students at nearby universities or nearby states. Some students refuse to enter the national job market. Some people are open to the international job market. This number isn't the same at every university which further impacts numbers.

If you're purely interested in an R1 school, your chances increase if you go to top 10 school. However, there are no guarantees ever.

Find a school that appreciates what you can do and that can help you excel in. A degree is useless if you have to drop out because you don't feel supported and/or are suffering from depression. Depression is very real in grad school.

Not all top students go or are admitted into a top school. Some do manage to work their way up but the cards are stacked against them.

Be prepared to work hard no matter where you go. But don't be discouraged if you don't get into a top 10 or top 20 school. There are a number of schools in the top 50 who are doing some pretty cool things.

Also: Find a school that has a stipend you can live on. Don't be afraid to ask how students live. (How far do they live from the university? Do they live alone or with roommates? Is it by choice? Do they need an additional job to survive? Do they need to take out loans?) You won't be rich by going to grad school but you shouldn't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from.

Don't go into debt for a degree which has no guarantee of a job at the end.

[Indecisive Poet]

Just want to drop in quickly to thank everyone who has responded. All of your perspectives have given me (and others, I hope) several things to think about.

Does anyone know if it's any "easier" to get jobs in certain periods over others? I'm currently in C18/19 but don't feel married to it by any means and would like to explore C20/21 if I get into a program. I've been told that it's a good idea to have some experience (be it in PhD or postdoc) in modern/contemporary literature since this is the period for which professors are most in demand (if any of the traditional periods can be said to be in demand). But I would've thought that since it's the most popular period for students to study at any level, it's also the most competitive for jobs since presumably there will be more graduates from PhD programs with degrees in C20/21 than in any other period.

[Bumblebea]

On 11/22/2019 at 3:47 AM, Indecisive Poet said:

Does anyone know if it's any "easier" to get jobs in certain periods over others?

I don't mean to sound glib, but ... honestly, you might as well just get out your Tarot cards and ask the universe. That's about the extent to which you can predict what the market will be doing 6-7 years from now. 

 

On 11/22/2019 at 3:47 AM, Indecisive Poet said:

I've been told that it's a good idea to have some experience (be it in PhD or postdoc) in modern/contemporary literature since this is the period for which professors are most in demand

I was told the exact opposite when I was applying 11 years ago. Modern/contemporary was so over-saturated that doing it was a suicide mission. I actually really wanted to do those fields ... but like I said, suicide mission.

I specialized in a field that was considered relatively "safe" back in those days and was told that "every English department will need someone who does ___________, so while it will still be extremely difficult to get a job, your chances are better." Well. ___________ went through a "hiring boom" (relatively speaking) about six or seven years ago before I was on the market. And now no one needs anyone who does ____________.

Right now multi-ethnic literatures are advertising a lot of positions (relatively speaking--I mean, no one's really advertising "a lot" of positions)--especially Latinx and Chicanx. But again, that's what the market is doing right now. Five years from now, who knows. DH was very promising a few years ago, but now I'm pretty sure it has peaked.

[Indecisive Poet]

Thanks, @Bumblebea – it's a good point that there's no way of knowing what the market will be doing 6–7 years from now. Presumably departments won't still be hiring loads of Latinx and Chicanx scholars then if they've just spent the past 6 years filling their departments with them.

My thought is that modern/contemporary would be oversaturated since so many students are applying to PhD programs to study those periods, which is why I was a bit taken aback when a professor told me that those positions are most in demand since the periods are so popular with students.

[onerepublic96]

I really don't think there's any way to work the system. I've been given a lot of (conflicting) advice about specialisation, all of which together makes me feel like choosing a specialty based on the market trends should probably be the least of anyone's concerns. 

[Bumblebea]

6 hours ago, Indecisive Poet said:

My thought is that modern/contemporary would be oversaturated since so many students are applying to PhD programs to study those periods, which is why I was a bit taken aback when a professor told me that those positions are most in demand since the periods are so popular with students.

Yes, there is some truth to this. English class enrollments are at an all-time low, so classes have had to get "trendier" to attract non-English major students. So you start to see a lot more classes these days in science fiction, Harry Potter, graphic novels, film adaptation, etc.  Anything to entice students who "hate to read" to sign up for an English class. 

The only students who take things like Chaucer and Shakespeare and Milton and 18th-century novels are English majors, and we don't have many English majors anymore. Truly, that's what's driving the slump in the job market. People aren't eager to drop $200k on a degree in a major they perceive (wrongly) as qualifying them only to teach high school or work at Starbucks. 

Edited November 22, 2019 by Bumblebea

[psstein]

9 hours ago, Bumblebea said:

I specialized in a field that was considered relatively "safe" back in those days and was told that "every English department will need someone who does ___________, so while it will still be extremely difficult to get a job, your chances are better." Well. ___________ went through a "hiring boom" (relatively speaking) about six or seven years ago before I was on the market. And now no one needs anyone who does ____________.

Right now multi-ethnic literatures are advertising a lot of positions (relatively speaking--I mean, no one's really advertising "a lot" of positions)--especially Latinx and Chicanx. But again, that's what the market is doing right now. Five years from now, who knows. DH was very promising a few years ago, but now I'm pretty sure it has peaked.

Just from the history side, a few years ago, African history (and non-European/American more generally) was very trendy. African history went through a significant hiring boom, and now the market is just about as bad as everything else. History of science, also, has had some growth in the last few years, but the market has very rapidly cooled.

[Warelin]

1 hour ago, Bumblebea said:

People aren't eager to drop $200k on a degree in a major they perceive (wrongly) as qualifying them only to teach high school or work at Starbucks. 

I think it's also important to state that some elite private high schools now require you to have a Master's degree or higher to teach at their institution.

 

7 hours ago, Indecisive Poet said:

My thought is that modern/contemporary would be oversaturated since so many students are applying to PhD programs to study those periods, which is why I was a bit taken aback when a professor told me that those positions are most in demand since the periods are so popular with students.

I think the best advice one can take is to study the period that they're most interested in. Don't try to game the market; it most likely wouldn't work. If you study what your most interested in, you're more likely to stay committed and take an interest in wanting to do more research on your dissertation.

[Bumblebea]

55 minutes ago, psstein said:

Just from the history side, a few years ago, African history (and non-European/American more generally) was very trendy. African history went through a significant hiring boom, and now the market is just about as bad as everything else. History of science, also, has had some growth in the last few years, but the market has very rapidly cooled.

English went through an "eco-criticism" thing a couple years ago. Now I hardly see any advertisements for eco-criticism jobs. "Medical humanities" has also rapidly cooled.

The job market is just extremely quirky. I can't even enumerate how many times I've said to myself, "Oh, I wish I'd done That Thing!" ... only to see that next year's job market has moved on and is no longer into That Thing anymore. 

Just ... don't even bother gaming the market. Certain things will always *help* you, to some extent--if you are a literature person and can work as a WPA or in a writing center ... that might help you land a generalist job that's looking for someone who can run a writing center or train other writing teachers. These days schools look to kill as many birds as possible with one stone.

[psstein]

4 hours ago, Bumblebea said:

English went through an "eco-criticism" thing a couple years ago. Now I hardly see any advertisements for eco-criticism jobs. "Medical humanities" has also rapidly cooled.

The job market is just extremely quirky. I can't even enumerate how many times I've said to myself, "Oh, I wish I'd done That Thing!" ... only to see that next year's job market has moved on and is no longer into That Thing anymore. 

Just ... don't even bother gaming the market. Certain things will always *help* you, to some extent--if you are a literature person and can work as a WPA or in a writing center ... that might help you land a generalist job that's looking for someone who can run a writing center or train other writing teachers. These days schools look to kill as many birds as possible with one stone.

"Medical humanities" was one of the ways history of medicine tried to interact with other fields, but I agree, the job postings are much rarer now than even a few years ago. One of the problems with "medical humanities," from my view, was that a lot of the work was frequently anthropology with medicine grafted on, or history of medicine with sociology pasted on.

History of science is in the midst of an environmental turn, but I don't see that continuing forever.

I completely agree that one shouldn't try to do "trendy things" for dissertations, because trends move quickly. That said, there are other fields I wouldn't recommend students going into. For example, US Diplomatic History or Naval History are very dead fields. The same is true with most traditional approaches to intellectual history.

[Indecisive Poet]

@Bumblebea @Warelin Thanks both for the advice. I would never dream of choosing to study an area I'm not interested in to play the market, but I'm already torn between periods at the moment so if there were a huge pull in either direction, that could possibly have swayed my decision. It very much sounds like that's not the case, though.

FWIW, the only jobs I ever see advertised on the Romanticist listserv are ecocriticism jobs – but I'm also not actively looking anywhere else.