Ivory towers are feeling the economic pinch

Israel Sanz, who is finishing his doctorate at UC Berkeley in Spanish and linguistics, applied for 29 jobs before the convention and learned that five of those searches had been canceled and others had more than 200 applicants each. "This is something people this year are very aware of, that the economic situation is affecting universities, both public universities and private universities," he said.

Still, Sanz, 29, was able to land six interviews at the meeting and said he was "feeling optimistic because I've gotten positive feedback." Yet given the economic crisis, "you never know," he added.

With more than 800 seminars on such topics as "Psychoanalysis and Science Fiction," "Putting Feminism Back into Queer Studies" and "Ecosystemic Shakespeares," the MLA convention has been praised as a showcase of American intellectual life and ridiculed as a hotbed of political correctness and academic obscurities.

Yet behind that veneer, it also is a job market not much different from computer sales conventions, for instance, although more white wine may be consumed at the language association's social functions.

The tight job market has proved to be a boon for campuses that are hiring.

John Holland, the director of USC's writing program, said he was interviewing more candidates altogether and more highly qualified ones for the one or two openings he expects, even though those are for three-year renewable contracts, not for tenured spots.

"We are blown away by the quality of the people we are talking to," Holland said as he sat behind a table in a massive ballroom, where about 60 universities and colleges conducted interviews.

In a quieter meeting room, Alan Liu, chairman of UC Santa Barbara's English department, interviewed applicants for two openings, one in British romantic literature and the other in media history. He had received about 180 applications for each before the convention and had anticipated that he would talk to about a dozen for each, with finalists later invited to campus for more meetings, he said.

But Liu said he was very much aware that the state budget deficit could lead to UC cutbacks in hiring. "In that case, all bets are off," he said.

Liu urged young job-seekers not to give up and said he tries to impart the intellectual and social joys of being a professor. "What I say to them is you have to look at this in a comparative picture," he said.