Today I read The Crying of Lot 49 in preparation for a seminar. It took me 2h10m. My contract pays me for a half-hour's preparation time. Which means I get paid the princely sum of £2.13 (ish) for reading this book, which I am due to teach undergrads. @UCUGlasgow @USSbriefs
This is to say nothing of the time I have to spend planning the lesson, writing the plan, making a powerpoint and a handout, and uploading everything to Moodle. @UCUGlasgow @USSbriefs @Glasgowanticas #PhDChat #AcademicChatter
Yesterday, I read The Translator by Leila Aboulela. It took 3 hours: £1.42/h. Just to read it.

These are the two most contemporary and, frankly, simplest books on the syllabus. God only knows how long it'll take me to read Jane Eyre or Great Expectations.
The li'l orange stickers mark the portion of the reading for which I was paid (i.e., what I could read in the half-hour my contract allots me); I'm minded to do this for all the course books. @UCUGlasgow @USSbriefs @Glasgowanticas #PhDChat #AcademicChatter
The course isn't due to start until January but I'm racing to get as much of these books read as possible before we undertake Action Short of a Strike, which is to say, working to rule. Working to rule, I won't be able to _begin_ to plan a lesson. @UCUGlasgow @Glasgowanticas
Put simply, I'm in a bind: my contract is so pitiful that if I were to stick by it, I wouldn't be even be able to plan the lessons I'm contracted to give my students. And they deserve an education of some sort. #phdchat #AcademicChatter @UCUGlasgow @Glasgowanticas
None of this should be interpreted as a dig against @UCU or @UCUGlasgow: the decision to undertake a long period of ASOS is, imo, the right one. It's an issue with the contracts that GTAs are put on by the University as a matter of course. #PhDChat #AcademicChatter
Reading Orlando today, lads. Getting paid to read some 30 pages of it, and the rest of my labour, the uni gets for free.

(I’m using a big critical edition of the novel with a lengthy intro and notes — I get paid to read between the orange and the pink stickers...)
I’m nowhere near finishing (Orlando’s still a man right now) so can’t tell you my hourly rate yet.

Orlando’s one of my favourite novels ever, but I’m truly trying hard to enjoy it this time around, given the circumstances.
Update: Orlando's now a woman, some 3.5 hours in.

That means I'm being paid some £1.21 per hour just for the bit when Orlando was a man.

Not even half-way done yet.
Orlando. One of the high watermarks of modernist prose. Not that long but it makes up for it in baroque syntax, layer upon layer of irony, and references for days.

How much does the faculty see fit to pay me to prepare a seminar on it? £0.77 an hour.

77 pence. An hour.
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