"the wreckage of a profession"

The Chronicle's "The Disgusting New Campus Novel" was based on Kristina Quynn's peer-reviewed academic article: "Drudgery Tales, Abjectified Protagonists, and Speculative Modes in the Adjunctroman of Contemporary Academic Fiction."

In her academic article, Professor Quynn writes:

Kudera’s Fight for Your Long Day. . . reflect[s] the cycles of poverty and the effects of deprofessionalization on a highly educated workforce. Among academics, such fiction can hold an even more weighty and didactic purpose. In a recent interview Moseley asked Kudera about his decision to write Fight for Your Long Day. Kudera (2016: 124) responded that he looked around and decided, “I can’t believe these are our lives.” Like victims of a disaster brought about by forces beyond our control, we identify with Kudera’s stunned disbelief as we survey the wreckage of a profession turned piecework teaching labor. This wreckage of adjuncting when represented in the story structure of the Professorroman, however, has no place to go, literally. There is no pathway for promotion, no promise of future job security, no innovating in or adding to scholarly fields or libraries of knowledge. Such tales do not progress. Nor do the protagonists—unless they escape the rubble.