tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post6477726755915724495..comments2024-03-12T22:31:46.500-04:00Comments on What Would Phoebe Do?: Shakespeare won't pay the billsPhoebe Maltz Bovyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-35494517957117018132010-12-22T15:35:46.422-05:002010-12-22T15:35:46.422-05:00Since writing this post, I have learned that a dis...Since writing this post, I have learned that a distant relative of mine has an MA of some sort, from the UK, in Shakespeare Studies, and is currently gainfully employed in a related area. Go figure.<br /><br />Kei,<br /><br />With letters to advice columnists, I almost think it doesn't matter if they're made up or not, because even if they're legit, they're selected intentionally, to return to various tropes that define the tone of the advice columnist in question. So you get Dan Savage picking lots of questions from those uncomfortable with monogamy, while Prudie fields the letters from shacked-up 30-something women wondering when the ring will ever come. It's quite possible someone as flaky as the letter-writer exists and wrote to Prudie, but she had to choose to pick that over the other letters she no doubt receives from less flighty students of the humanities. <br /><br />Flavia,<br /><br />The academia job-market horror stories really do rest on the idea of the GUSC, and on the idea that the GUSC is universally available to recent college grads, universally unavailable to anyone tainted by time spent in a PhD program. What gets to me most about these discussions is that academia is declared a dead-end ... but compared with what? There was an article in the Times a while back about how difficult it was to get a job at some new fast-food restaurant or chain store or something, how many applicants wanted a few positions. <i>Everything</i> is competitive, everything requires connections (and I can't think of anyone whose first, pre-college menial-labor jobs - and I'm not talking about internships - weren't acquired through knowing the right people.) You're better off being specialized in something.<br /><br />Maybe this is my own naivete, but I can't see how being where I'm at (ABD) or further would have done anything but help me get any job I was ever interested in prior to taking the grad-school plunge.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-80144261089178001902010-12-22T12:58:26.835-05:002010-12-22T12:58:26.835-05:00No, no: I was agreeing with you, and I understood ...No, no: I was agreeing with you, and I understood you to be paraphrasing Prudie.<br /><br />I'm as cynical as anyone about the academic job market, but there <i>are</i> jobs there--and more importantly, there are worthwhile skills (life as much as more practical ones) to be learned in grad school. I worked as a paralegal at a big corporate law firm for two years before grad school, and--perhaps because of that basic office experience--never doubted that I could find a job if I left academia, or that getting a Ph.D. (or part of a Ph.D.) would be worthwhile regardless of what I went on to do.<br /><br />This is what irritates me about grad students who are all "oh noes! I have no skillz! I'm not trained to do ANYTHING but be an academic!" Prudie at least has the excuse of not <i>being</i> an academic--although as an advice columnist she should know that there's really no such thing as a dead end or a permanently wrong path.<br /><br />(None of which is to say that the letter-writer should get this ridiculous degree. But if she wants it and has the money, why not? The GUSC will still be there--that, or some new one.)Flaviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-2082702613381065792010-12-22T11:56:50.001-05:002010-12-22T11:56:50.001-05:00I like the bold hypothesis that this is fiction; I...I like the bold hypothesis that this is fiction; I wouldn't have thought of that even if I found suspicious claims in the letter. I was going to comment on your previous post, saying that the Vows, Modern Love, and Styles of the Times are meant to provoke drama and juicy gossip, but that really, I think the authors just write about people they personally happen to know and do the celebrate/sneer combo you mention, which seems manipulative and stooping to levels of TMZ without ever admitting to it. But now I wonder if that isn't as bad as making shit up about a potential humanities grad students on a well-traversed advice column! <br /><br />What made me think this story is weird was the part about the husband willing to cross the pond with her. "Which is awesome"? Are we all 16 years old here? Are we not talking about big life decisions for two grownass adults?keihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10395109777604139705noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-46107791318377578892010-12-22T07:57:21.725-05:002010-12-22T07:57:21.725-05:00Britta,
I think we actually agree on this. My sta...Britta,<br /><br />I think we actually agree on this. My stance isn't that this woman should get an MFA in Shakespeare. (Unless her husband's super-wealthy and willing to pay for it and that's the kind of arrangement they have - she only mentions he's willing to join her in the UK for it.) It's more that the letter to Prudie reads as a parody of the clueless would-be humanities grad students. The degree sounds possibly made up. The question itself doesn't make sense, because it's not clear what Artistic Dream the letter-writer is tempted by, other than, as you say, the chance to pay a lot to a British university, in exchange for... membership in the social class of people who have fancy-sounding degrees from abroad? The letter seemed designed to provoke a <i>general</i> job-over-grad-school response.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-65635386383732670692010-12-22T02:31:56.687-05:002010-12-22T02:31:56.687-05:00I agree with your general view on the "don...I agree with your general view on the "don't go to grad school" point of view, though in this girl's particular case, I would be hesitant to support paying lots of money for an MFA in "Shakespeare theory." It sounds kind of worthless, and possibly like a money making machine for broke British universities. I mean, I have a few questions: Why would universities get MFAs to teach Shakespeare to undergrads when they could have PhDs? Is her goal to be an adjunct at community college? If she wants to teach high school, an expensive MFA is not necessary, she could get a teaching degree at a local commuter college and teach Shakespeare to students.<br />I tend to think except for med school and maybe a top law school, going into debt for grad school is a bad idea, especially if it is an MFA.Brittahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02224221011978374915noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-74520373022388195822010-12-22T00:08:01.465-05:002010-12-22T00:08:01.465-05:00Consider my post title paraphrased Prudie, paraphr...Consider my post title paraphrased Prudie, paraphrased generic don't-go-to-grad-school article. Zola and Anatole France pay my bills these days. My larger point, if I ever got around to making one, was that oh-the-humanities warning speeches never quite add up.<br /><br />The GUSC is frustrating because it ignores the actual fall-back careers of actual humanities grad students and academics. Journalism, publishing, or (horrors) 'being a writer' - are these so lucrative? I looked for jobs starting before graduating from college, before the recession, and I can't say that a BA in French was a fast track to anything particular. I wasn't unemployable, but in terms of meeting interesting people, doing interesting work, and even making a reasonable living, with benefits, grad school was quite clearly the best option.Phoebe Maltz Bovyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17996039330841139883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7146512.post-42728785564394043742010-12-21T23:56:07.270-05:002010-12-21T23:56:07.270-05:00Count me among the confused--and I teach Shakespea...Count me among the confused--and I teach Shakespeare every semester.<br /><br />One can indeed be a Shakespearian, in the sense of doing one's primary research on Shakespeare, but there's no "Shakespeare" degree that I know of, nor any job that would allow one to teach <i>nothing but</i> Shakespeare.<br /><br />An MFA would perhaps qualify her to teach in a college drama department, though the DFA is more usual. But she wouldn't get a job in a literature department--and U.K. degrees are notoriously difficult to translate into U.S. academic employment anyway.<br /><br />But to your larger point: for those of us who work in Renaissance literature, Shakespeare actually <i>does</i> pay the bills. (My research isn't on Shakespeare, but I wouldn't have a job if my institution didn't need two people to teach the dude every single semester.) And I surely make no less than I would have in my fall-back career in book publishing.Flaviahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17832765671541392835noreply@blogger.com