You ask: "In a law-law-land of hedgehogs, should a fox try to change her ways?"
My answer: it depends on your goals. It is easier to get known as a hedgehog than as a fox, unless you are *incredibly* good (both substantively and in the self-promotion department).
I have found that academics have an astonishingly difficult time dealing with foxes. People want and need to be able to say, "Oh yeah, Belle Lettre. She's the one who does ______." (Fill in the blank with a single thing.) People want and need to be able to categorize others, to know what "field" they're in, to know whether or not another person is someone to whom they should be paying attention.
Hedgehogs do a lot better than foxes in this environment.
Hedgehogs are likelier to get invited to conferences, to get invited to workshops, and to get lateral offers.
Naturally there are some foxes who are exceptions to this rule -- I am thinking of somebody like Mitu Gulati at Duke, who has managed to be a very, very successful fox (by just being excellent everywhere he roams). But Mitu is, in my view, an exception.
So if what you're looking for is to be noticed -- to be seen as a "player" in some defined field -- then the hedgehog strategy is the way to go.
Belle,
I think it's probably just too early to know which you might end up being. Just believe in what you're doing and find it meaningful and it will all work out.
(Before I started teaching, I thought my interests were all over the map, too. When I started teaching, however, my interests changed.)
Commenting by HaloScan
