To CV, or not to CV….

by Alex

… That is the question. Should I include one on this site? Academic believe information should be free — unless it should be a deep, dark secret. I know people who hand out off prints left and right to all comers but then stonewall mightily when asked for CVs or even — secret of secret! — _syllabi_. Partially this is a reflex from the bad old days when all we had was treeware and information circulated differently. However, I sometimes feel it’s also the result of an astute appreciation of the Ivory Tower’s business model: publish stuff as wide as possible to drive up demand for teaching, which is what you actually make a living on. We’re kinda like Wilco that way — we give up the CD for free, but please _please_ come to our shows.

Anyway, there is really an art to the CV. You have the really, _really_ long one sitting on your hard drive, and then you appropriately edit for your audience depending on the occasion. So once again we encounter the old problem with living a world-readable life on the intarweb: the positive side is that you reach a huge audience because literally _everyone_ reads about your life. The negative side is that you reach a huge audience because literally _everyone_ reads about your life.

I suppose my feeling is putting a CV on the website would give people a chance to evaluate my writing (for instance, in the recent spate of postings on race) in the context of my career and professional authority. To the extent I’m proud of what I’ve done, this seems like a good idea. To the extent that I feel like I could be a harder worker and more successful person, then it seems like a bad idea.

What do you think, is the bio on my “about page”:http://alex.golub.name/log/?page_id=355 enough?