But what about Stalin? Interviews & making (unexpected) links
Dr Steve Joy A few years ago, a friend told me a story about an academic interview. After she had given her research presentation, things inevitably moved to a Q&A, where, eventually, someone piped up with this question: ‘Why do you work on Mussolini? Surely, Stalin killed many more people.’ Well, erm... quite. My friend was professional & stoical about the whole experience – just another story from the job market – whereas I have often reflected unhappily on it during my work with researchers. I mean, how could anbody ask something so fatuous & obviously designed to trip someone up? How does that question help the panel to assess the calibre of my friend’s research? No one could be expected to prepare for that. Yet, recently, I’ve been wondering whether the question was really so unreasonable. Granted, there are better & worse ways of asking such a question, just as there are better & worse motivations for wanting to ask it in the first place. But what would ha