In the following essay, Hannon discusses the exploitation of African Americans in "The Man Who Was Almost a Man" in the context of the exploitation of temporary faculty at universities.

In response to an early draft of this essay, a reader at College Literature made the point that "adjuncts have always existed; until the 1970s they were typically faculty wives"; the reader went on to ask, "has adjunct exploitation only recently become an issue because there are more men in the ranks?" The reader's insight helped me to see the historically "feminized" position of adjunct faculty, and to recognize the underpaid and underacknowledged labor of temporary teachers and staff as an effect of structural sexism in American institutions. The reader caused me to question whether my criticisms of the academic hierarchy were the result of an unconsciously perceived threat to my own "masculinity," since masculinity, as a...