Several years ago, I emailed several professors, inquiring about the possibility of pursuing grad school in philosophy. Two of the three gave me unqualified yes’; I’d been a pleasure in class, had done solid work and would likely find much joy the environment of a PhD program. A third responded with a lengthy email that could be boiled down to ‘no’, but could be expanded to include the economic dead-end that is pursuing the humanities. More painful was a lengthy explanation that I wasn’t cut out for it, couldn’t read and respond to texts with the level of precision and rigor that was demanded, and that I should instead pursue the more creative and synthetic writing they’d seen me do.
Unfortunately, whatever else might be the case, your third professor was right about the economic dead-end of a humanities PhD. But that makes the kinds of points you raise here more urgent: given how hard it is to make one's way in academia (and only getting worse), it's all the more important to have other spaces that reward slow, thoughtful, serious reading. And it's not clear where those are.
I enjoyed this piece a lot (thank you for sharing it!) -- I understand the difficulty of utilitarian reading. You do get more reading done, but as you say, it leaves one jaded over time, or too pressured to get a lot out of the reading. Just fwiw I come from a solid blue-collar background, and while it was initially very hard, I've found some modus vivendi of fitting it (but I do notice now w my kids being raised by middle-class parents that it makes a big difference)
I really like this, especially the parts about being upset that there is an inside and an outside.
Unfortunately, whatever else might be the case, your third professor was right about the economic dead-end of a humanities PhD. But that makes the kinds of points you raise here more urgent: given how hard it is to make one's way in academia (and only getting worse), it's all the more important to have other spaces that reward slow, thoughtful, serious reading. And it's not clear where those are.
I enjoyed this piece a lot (thank you for sharing it!) -- I understand the difficulty of utilitarian reading. You do get more reading done, but as you say, it leaves one jaded over time, or too pressured to get a lot out of the reading. Just fwiw I come from a solid blue-collar background, and while it was initially very hard, I've found some modus vivendi of fitting it (but I do notice now w my kids being raised by middle-class parents that it makes a big difference)