Applicant

A priceless time bomb of pop culture, this serves as a compelling and secret look into an impossibly lost era. The author found discarded, confidential, PhD applicant files for the biology department at an Ivy League university from 1965 to 1975 as he was rooting through the recycling bin for magazines. Photographs of the prospective students were stapled to many of the documents and this book collects these photos and pairs them with accompanying comments from employers and professors. The results are absurdist, confusing, often hilarious, and disturbing. They provide unique insight into outdated, 1970s social attitudes and ephemera yet much of the book’s appeal is found in what the book fails to say: the blank and despondent stares of its subjects, the outdated fashions and hairstyles, and its understated text.

• Author
• Jesse Reklaw

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 48

• Publisher
• Microcosm Publishing

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 9780977055760

• Genres
• humor, history

• Release date
• 2006