Ramping Up

Once we review the recent attempts at doctoral reforms, it’s difficult not to be discouraged. The defects of doctoral education have remained constant and have resisted any number of solutions. Given the lack of communication among all ­those concerned with gradu­ate school (including the...

There’s so much wisdom available these days on how to approach career diversity for PhDs in the humanities, arts and related fields. And there are a lot of models and best practices have emerged over the last ten years, offering both faculty and students a range of options and approaches to the...

Graduate humanities education faces multiple crises; this introduction to the volume promotes engaged, joyful, socially impactful scholarship, expanding ecosystems beyond academia for meaningful change.

The current higher education landscape presents as many challenges as it does opportunities, which can make it daunting to decide where to direct reform efforts. In this chapter and the one that follows, I use the context and arguments of previous chapters to begin building an action plan. First, I...

What literary works should we look to for new perspectives on materiality? Which methods hold promise today?

In its March 2013 issue, The Atlantic ran a tersely titled article, “Anthropology, Inc.The author, Graeme Wood, spoke about a market research company (ReD) that was hiring anthropology PhDs to use their training in social science field work to dreg up data closer to home—in fact, in the home itself.

No, they shouldn't. At least according to Douglas Hofstadter, who holds Ph.D.s in Comp. Lit. as well as Physics and has published extensively on artificial intelligence. His reasoning? Does making swooshing sounds while holding a toy plane qualify you to be a pilot? (That's exactly how he put it to me in an impassioned message.)