Exciting news, friends and hate-readers (whom I love equally, as I get equal ad revenue from your traffic).
Kafka and Wittgenstein, possibly the most talked-about and mocked academic tome about Kafka and Wittgenstein in the history of the world (also, the only academic tome, or book of any kind, about Kafka and Wittgenstein in the history of the world), has been officially accepted and is officially forthcoming at Northwestern University Press.
I am now a columnist, writing consultant–and author. I’ve wanted to be an author my entire life–literally my entire life. And I still have dreams of a commercial book once I actually get my shit together to finish my proposal (note to my agent: I’m working on it! I swear!), but for now, I’ll take this.
Kafka and Wittgenstein took six years to write, beginning to end (it started as my dissertation, which took three years, then another three years to turn into a book). I poured the entirety of my brain and a fairly large portion of my soul into it. And then, when the job market didn’t work out, K and W, and the ever-tenuous advance contract it was under for two years, was the subject of much derision and mockery.
That derision and mockery died down a bit when the readers’ reports came in, but not entirely. Now it is really happening. I understand that it will have a print run of like 12. That not even my parents or husband will read it. That is the way of academic publishing. But to have a book in print–at a SERIOUSLY legit university press–is no small achievement, and now I feel like I’m leaving academia in dignity rather than disgrace.
PAN KISSES KAFKA 
That’s incredible news! Congrats 😀
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Congratulations!
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Congratulations!
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Many, MANY congratulations! Nicely done!!!
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Seriously. You are chock full of awesome. Slaying dragons on so many fronts. Congratulations!
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You GO, Rebecca! You GO! You rock!
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Congrats! That’s a huge achievement. As someone who has left academia and is still wavering about converting my diss into a book, can I ask this:
was it worth it?
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I don’t know–I was still in it when I finished the manuscript.
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Excellent, congratulations!
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Congratulations! that is awesome.
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Congratulations! That is awesome. I WILL be reading it and I can’t wait!
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I’ll see if they will print an extra-tiny, floating copy for you.
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Congratulations!
Let us know when the book hits the shelves so we can put it on the library acquisitions list.
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Congratulations: I’m not in German and I’m no slavering member of team Schuman, but I’ll be checking this right out (I dig the logic article – presumably that’s part of the book?)…
As someone else who works on non-deconstructionist, non-ooh-get-me-I’m-‘radical’ philosophy and 20th century literature, I’m curious as to what role you think your unfashionable choice of approach to literature had on the ups and downs of your post-graduation academic career. Was much of the derision and mockery you mention from people within your discipline, or just from random internet loons? Did you get the impression that hiring committees, conference audiences, blind reviewers etc knew what to do with your work? That they had a sense of its strengths and weaknesses that matched your own conception? I’d be really interested in seeing you write about the role of research fads, fashions, and cliques in the whole long job market process…
Anyhow, congrats again.
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And another big “suck it” to the haters!
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