"It's hard on a fella, when he don't know his way around ~"
As I mentioned, the search for full-time work is not a romp. But to be fair to myself, I am in the middle of a couple contract jobs: The first is research in gerontology. See, when writing grant proposals, history museums are forever claiming the cognitive importance of public programming for elderly folk. “Please give us money and we will better community members’ lives by helping them keep their brains active.” I estimate that approximately .003% of history museums support this claim with actual research that relates specifically to history. The truth is we have no fucking clue if thinking about history/historical objects is scientifically any more or less useful than say, personal-memory exercises or going to an art exhibit. So, on behalf of history museums, I’m scouring a bunch of cognitive science books for anything we’ve overlooked.
The second contract job is with the Mellon Foundation via the local university system, including U. of Massachusetts. Mellon gave the university money to hold a two-week workshop for undergrads interested in the applied humanities - so museums, non profits, literacy type things (the types of things no one’s hiring young people to do right now). The director brought in me and a couple others to facilitate. The workshop is over but the students are still doing semester-long group projects that will wrap up with an exhibition soon. It’s an ambitious semester-long program, but the best part is I keep getting easy hours added on to my contract because apparently no one in the humanities knows how to build - nay, MAINTAIN even - a website.
The second contract job is with the Mellon Foundation via the local university system, including U. of Massachusetts. Mellon gave the university money to hold a two-week workshop for undergrads interested in the applied humanities - so museums, non profits, literacy type things (the types of things no one’s hiring young people to do right now). The director brought in me and a couple others to facilitate. The workshop is over but the students are still doing semester-long group projects that will wrap up with an exhibition soon. It’s an ambitious semester-long program, but the best part is I keep getting easy hours added on to my contract because apparently no one in the humanities knows how to build - nay, MAINTAIN even - a website.