Off the clock

Research topics in life outside academia·Namesakes·Cycling

Research topics in life outside academia

Films, books, and other media about family expectations, career choices, and social mobility.

Movies, series, documentaries, and clips

Dead Poets Society
e.g., the scene between Neil and Todd.

Operation Varsity Blues
The US college admission scandal.

CODA
Film about a child of deaf adults (CODA) showing that although sometimes it may be (almost) impossible for parents to appreciate what their children love doing or what they’re good at, it may still be possible to bridge this gap. A beautiful way to show a more general pattern in a somewhat extreme form, with one particularly powerful scene…

Toni Erdmann
A hippy father and a consultant daughter.

Losers
e.g., Episode 1, The Miscast Champion.

Into the Beat
Ballet or hip hop dance?

Accepted
What to do if you get rejected everywhere, but your parents really want you to go to college?

Bend It Like Beckham

Fences

King Richard
Biopic about the upbringing of Venus and Serena Williams. Plus a few scenes of parental behavior you encounter at tennis tournaments…

October Sky
A son’s dream to escape a mining town and produce rockets. And his father’s (and town’s) belief that he belongs down in the mines. What will he do?

The Greatest Showman
A take on certain challenges of social mobility and staying true to what one enjoys doing and aspires to oneself vs. wanting to be accepted and striving for what others value.

Wakhas befreit sich von den Erwartungen seines Vaters | 37 Grad
For the German-speaking visitors: Wakhas’ reflections about his father’s influence.

The School of Life on parents and career plans
There is also interesting material in the comments section…

An unexpected source: advertising by Taylor’s University
Again, don’t miss out on the comments section!

Billy Elliot: I Will Dance

Shaq’s plans for his children
Starting at 20:30 min (to 24:00 min).

ARTE: Kinder im Spitzensport (Futurs champions, le prix de la gloire), no longer available online
Documentary about children in elite sport, their coaches, and their parents. Some interesting quotes to reflect on:

“…the earlier they start, the harder it is to distinguish between what they really want, what society wants and what their parents want.”

“The problem is that if you say you don’t want to do it anymore, you lose your whole life. Everything is lost. You lose your whole identity.”

They are caught between the expectations of top-level sports and those of their parents. At the beginning of 2024, Thierry Henry, the world champion footballer, spoke out to tell his story. “My dad, this is exactly what he said the first time he took me in his arms. He said ‘This baby will be an amazing football player’. This is what he said. (…) I was maybe five, six. From that point, it was always a mission. I was on a mission. To fulfill his dream… to please him.”

Books

Educated, by Tara Westover (Goodreads)
Open, by Andre Agassi (Goodreads)
I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, by Erika L. Sánchez (Goodreads)
A Woman Is No Man, by Etaf Rum (Goodreads)
The Inequality Machine, by Paul Tough (Goodreads)
The Price of Admission, by Daniel Golden (Goodreads)
Du bleibst, was du bist, by Marco Maurer (Goodreads)
The Meritocracy Trap, by Daniel Markovits (Goodreads)
Ein Mann seiner Klasse, by Christian Baron (Goodreads)
Frausein, by Mely Kiyak (Goodreads)
Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua (Goodreads)
They Called Us Exceptional, by Prachi Gupta (Goodreads)

Podcasts

Freakonomics Radio, episode 479: The Economist’s Guide to Parenting: 10 Years Later, especially the roughly four minutes starting at about 35:30 (Steven Levitt talking about and to his daughters about educational and career choices).

Your recommendations

Do you have any additional recommendations (books, movies, anything)? Please share them: maximilian.muller@tse-fr.eu

Namesakes

Maximilian Müller is the German equivalent of “John Smith” in the US. Thanks to this, some of my students have sent emails to the wrong Max, reimbursements have gone to the wrong Max, and at a conference a hotel once put two of us in the same room because they thought it was a mistake that there were two of us with the same name. To convince you that we are a versatile bunch, let me share a few of my namesakes here:

Max Müller, philologist and Sanskrit scholar
Maximilian Müller, German hockey player and Olympic gold winner

Maximilian standing under a car park height barrier that reads MAX HEIGHT (2.0 METRES), pointing up at the sign. — And who is this Max Height?

To be continued…

Cycling

Below a few impressions of some cycling trips around the World. Feel free to ask for route recommendations if you’re going to one of these places. And always grateful for recommendations of where to go next, so feel free to send them along!