The reluctant memoirist exposes the academy

 

At a time when Palestine activism and free expression at U.S. universities are under attack, Steven Salaita's new memoir disabuses us of the notion that these universities are anything other than hedge funds with a campus.

AN HONEST LIVING

A Memoir of Peculiar Itineraries

by Steven Salaita

166 pp. Fordham University Press, $24.95

Steven Salaita opens his moving and powerful memoir with a preface in which he shares with readers his aversion to the genre. He argues that for a memoir to be satisfying, the author should “become a character in the reader’s universe” as a way to “appeal to an audience’s desire for relief in a hostile world”. Consequently, Salaita shares that “the successful memoir becomes a shared project,” which he generously calls “our memoir.” That process of cohesion comes across seamlessly in An Honest Living. It’s a welcome invitation that I wholeheartedly felt as I read “our memoir.”

Salaita’s dabbling in the art of sharing personal sketches from his life seems to have begun with his first blog post in February 2019, which comprises the first chapter of this memoir. Several other pieces from his blog over the last five years also appear in An Honest Living, with minor alternations, even though I had read them previously, as individual pieces, reading them in one volume creates a deeply resonant experience precisely because it allows his story to meld into my universe by fusing all of the anecdotes together.

His first chapter, “An Honest Living,” is particularly immersive. I recall a similar feeling when I read it on his website. Perhaps it’s because I share many of his observations about academia as a recovering academic myself. Although I chose to leave the profession, like Salaita, I know that “[a]cademe is a scar impervious to cosmetic surgery”. It made me eager to glimpse how someone else has navigated a post-academic life. From Salaita’s description of northern Virginia’s suburbs to the procedural aspects of driving a bus, he brought me along for the sometimes bumpy ride (pun intended) in his characteristically absorbing style. 

Throughout the book, each chapter moves back and forth in time as he shares snippets from his life and intersperses his life stories with a trenchant critique of the economic system that structures all of our lives. More particularly, Salaita’s analysis of the role that academia plays in the economy is plainly laid out in all its egotistical glory. For anyone who wasn’t paying much attention to college life until Congress subpoenaed university presidents or until Gaza encampments made headlines, his portrayal of academe may seem jarring; “for all its self-congratulation, the academy’s loftiest mission is a fierce compulsion to eliminate any impediment to donations”. Indeed, watching the events unfold over the past few months makes it crystal clear that Harvard isn’t the only hedge fund that happens to have a campus.  (more...)

The reluctant memoirist exposes the academy