As you are probably aware, Dear Reader, there is a scintillating sub-genre of academic writing devoted solely to the experience of leaving the academy: colloquially called "quit lit." For the most part these essays are either written by tenure-track faculty members decrying the inability of those in charge (academic associations, administrators) to create more faculty positions or by tenuously-employed adjuncts lamenting the inability of those in charge (tenured professors, administrators) to create more faculty positions. There is a lot of grieving and shame and heartbreak. The academy is crumbling! The humanities are dying! It's all someone's fault! There is no trace of humor or self-depreciation anywhere to be found.
These articles are hilariously misguided, but I read them anyway, mostly for the sheer joy of muttering emphatically to myself while doing so. Basically, my take is that anyone who thinks it's the responsibility of academic associations or administrators or faculty who were tenured pre-1990 to somehow create jobs in the worst humanities labor market in the history of forever is straight up craaazy.
Crazy not because they want to be professors, but for a much more pedestrian reason: they are not acknowledging reality. I am no expert, but even I know the truth! And the truth is that nothing will change for the better in the humanities job market until two things happen simultaneously: 1) more undergrads start studying the humanities, and 2) the labor market of PhDs willing to teaching those students for little or no pay disappears. That's it, guys! That's the whole show. Students need to want to study medieval English poetry and you and 499 of your closest grad school buds cannot agree to teach them for $1000 a class and no health insurance. But neither of these things is remotely happening right now, and no amount of faculty awareness or administrative layoffs will make it true. (Even if you succeeded in cutting administrative positions (which everyone seems to think is a great idea that will solve every problem in higher education, despite the fact that faculty don't even want to run a meeting, much less a department) the leftover cash will just go to that fancy new data science institute anyway, so think again.)
However! There is one article, Pilgrim at Tinder Creek, which is not only the best but perhaps the only good example of quit lit. It's a meditation on the similarities between the academic job market and Tinder, and when I read it I was really mad, but only at myself because I wish I had written it. (Alas, I've never been on the academic job market or on Tinder, so there was no way I could have, but...envy is always irrational, right?) It's funny and self-deprecating and sad and makes no claims about solving any kind of crisis.
The author, Andrew Kay, has written a follow-up which does not disappoint: a couple years out from his adventures on the job market, he travels to the latest MLA meeting and, fortified by booze, surveils the current state of his former profession. He meets with his dissertation advisor for what amounts to a therapy session, randomly chats people up at the hotel bar, and de-briefs with his grad school friends via video chat. It's worth reading.
And his article reminded me again why I liked his first essay so much: he's not angry. He's just sort of occasionally sad and feels like he's lost an intellectual home. He muses rhetorically at one point about maybe trying to find a reading group of retirees with whom he could discuss extremely difficult poetry and eat rice krispies treats. The aptness of this joking aside is greater than the sum total of combined insights in the rest of these essays: this is precisely what most people really miss when they leave academia, a community of people to talk about obscure books and eat snacks with. I too want to conjure up a reading group with whom I will discuss esoteric philosophy and eat donuts. Admitting this feels kind of small and sad, though, so no one says it.
Instead quit lit authors try to diagnose "the crisis" and rail against the injustices of the labor market, and in doing so they just throw up fancy jazz hands up around what remains: due to forces outside their control, they can't find a way to get paid to read and think about the things they want to read and think about. To me this is not an injustice, but rather a small, sad truth. It's not necessarily less important for being small and sad, but it is ultimately more personal than structural. The problems of the humanities and higher education are not a conspiracy: they are simply unfortunate. But if we raise up every disappointment to the level of injustice, and every personal defeat is treated like a systemic crisis, then no one will ever get to just feel sad about the whole thing, start esoteric book clubs, and move on with their lives.
These articles are hilariously misguided, but I read them anyway, mostly for the sheer joy of muttering emphatically to myself while doing so. Basically, my take is that anyone who thinks it's the responsibility of academic associations or administrators or faculty who were tenured pre-1990 to somehow create jobs in the worst humanities labor market in the history of forever is straight up craaazy.
Crazy not because they want to be professors, but for a much more pedestrian reason: they are not acknowledging reality. I am no expert, but even I know the truth! And the truth is that nothing will change for the better in the humanities job market until two things happen simultaneously: 1) more undergrads start studying the humanities, and 2) the labor market of PhDs willing to teaching those students for little or no pay disappears. That's it, guys! That's the whole show. Students need to want to study medieval English poetry and you and 499 of your closest grad school buds cannot agree to teach them for $1000 a class and no health insurance. But neither of these things is remotely happening right now, and no amount of faculty awareness or administrative layoffs will make it true. (Even if you succeeded in cutting administrative positions (which everyone seems to think is a great idea that will solve every problem in higher education, despite the fact that faculty don't even want to run a meeting, much less a department) the leftover cash will just go to that fancy new data science institute anyway, so think again.)
However! There is one article, Pilgrim at Tinder Creek, which is not only the best but perhaps the only good example of quit lit. It's a meditation on the similarities between the academic job market and Tinder, and when I read it I was really mad, but only at myself because I wish I had written it. (Alas, I've never been on the academic job market or on Tinder, so there was no way I could have, but...envy is always irrational, right?) It's funny and self-deprecating and sad and makes no claims about solving any kind of crisis.
The author, Andrew Kay, has written a follow-up which does not disappoint: a couple years out from his adventures on the job market, he travels to the latest MLA meeting and, fortified by booze, surveils the current state of his former profession. He meets with his dissertation advisor for what amounts to a therapy session, randomly chats people up at the hotel bar, and de-briefs with his grad school friends via video chat. It's worth reading.
And his article reminded me again why I liked his first essay so much: he's not angry. He's just sort of occasionally sad and feels like he's lost an intellectual home. He muses rhetorically at one point about maybe trying to find a reading group of retirees with whom he could discuss extremely difficult poetry and eat rice krispies treats. The aptness of this joking aside is greater than the sum total of combined insights in the rest of these essays: this is precisely what most people really miss when they leave academia, a community of people to talk about obscure books and eat snacks with. I too want to conjure up a reading group with whom I will discuss esoteric philosophy and eat donuts. Admitting this feels kind of small and sad, though, so no one says it.
Instead quit lit authors try to diagnose "the crisis" and rail against the injustices of the labor market, and in doing so they just throw up fancy jazz hands up around what remains: due to forces outside their control, they can't find a way to get paid to read and think about the things they want to read and think about. To me this is not an injustice, but rather a small, sad truth. It's not necessarily less important for being small and sad, but it is ultimately more personal than structural. The problems of the humanities and higher education are not a conspiracy: they are simply unfortunate. But if we raise up every disappointment to the level of injustice, and every personal defeat is treated like a systemic crisis, then no one will ever get to just feel sad about the whole thing, start esoteric book clubs, and move on with their lives.
5 comments:
I also loved his first essay, but I found this one to be kind of desperate and confused. What is the argument, exactly? English as a discipline is dying, but no one in it cares? It's dying b/c they don't care? It's dying b/c they can't actually speak English anymore? B/c the GOP in Wisconsin is mean?
Maybe one reason that the humanities are sinking is b/c all these people are just obsessive navel-gazers who, unlike this guy's advisor but apparently like this guy, are concerned only with articulating their feelings and the contents of their own heads in the cleverest possible way instead of building and sustaining institutions?
Also, another problem is that, if you quit academia to become a journalist whose beat is academia, you really can't move on or let go but neither can you really be part of the community you longed for, and so you become The Worst. See, eg, Rebecca Schuman.
Wait, you didn't find Pilgrim at Tinder Creek desperate and confused?! Um, I think you must be remembering it wrong. It's funny but also so, so desperate and confused. But fair enough, re: the recent article not having a point. I'm not sure it did, other than just meditating on the pointlessness of MLA and responses to the "crisis," blah blah. You're right that he's desperate and confused, but I kind of enjoyed that part—at least he's not righteous and victimized. I don't mind reading about his feelings, because there were highly entertaining to me. Your point about institutions is a good one, though I bet the author would have been happy to institution-build if he'd, you know, managed to get hired anywhere.
Also, I agree that if you are an academic who becomes a journalist you need to stop writing about academia or it quickly becomes a Schuman Situation. So I hope this is Andrew Kay's last trip down this particular avenue and he moves on from here. Given the twitter response to this article, though, I'd guess that CHE is going to keep paying him to write about this.
The first one was a depiction of desperation and confusion, but this is like a real-time unfolding. I agree, the tone is better than the usual I WAS PROMISED A BEAUTIFUL LIFE BUT ALL I GOT WAS THIS WORTHLESS DEGREE approach. Maybe I've just read too many of these essays, but I'm just bored of the grad school navel gaze. Yes, grad school is a very unpleasant time in life. People treat you poorly. You are, literally, poor. Your professional (and personal) future is uncertain, you are jealous of everyone doing better than you, etc. Psychic pain. Boo-hoo. It's all TRUE but now tedious. Isn't there anything else to say about grad school or academia or any of it?
Yes, he is well on the road to becoming Schuman II. CHE pays well and he clearly enjoys expensing his drinks.
I've definitely read too many of these essays, but that's my own problem—more importantly, to your point, too many of these essays get published. I mean, none of this is news! It's just clickbait for grad students and the disgruntled at this point. Maybe that's why I like these sad, confused personal essays more. It's just feelings, with no pretense of actually pretending this is a new subject.
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