Tenure

This spring I was awarded tenure at the Georgia Institute of Technology and leveled-up to Associate Professor in the School of Literature Communication and Culture.

As I tried to think about an appropriate way to announce this accomplishment to my readers here, the phrase that kept entering my head was the one reproduced in the subtitle above: the future lasts forever. It’s a nice phrase that reinforces the sense I have of all the things left to do.

Unfortunately, it also tips a hat to French Marxist philosopher Louis Althusser’s memoir of the same name (originally published as L’avenir Dure Longtemps, or “The Future Lasts a Long Time”). Althusser wrote the book while confined to a mental institution after strangling his wife. Not the best circumstances for epigraphy.

In evidence of my very different fate, I present the celebratory cake and fried chicken bouquet Abbey made after I got my tenure letter: