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Thesis Hatement
slate ^ | 4/5/2013 | y Rebecca Schuman

Posted on 04/05/2013 6:57:46 AM PDT by Borges

Getting a literature Ph.D. will turn you into an emotional trainwreck, not a professor.

Who wouldn’t want a job where you only have to work five hours a week, you get summers off, your whole job is reading and talking about books, and you can never be fired? Such is the enviable life of the tenured college literature professor, and all you have to do to get it is earn a Ph.D. So perhaps you, literature lover, are considering pursuing this path.

Well, what if I told you that by “five hours” I mean “80 hours,” and by “summers off” I mean “two months of unpaid research sequestration and curriculum planning”? What if you’ll never have time to read books, and when you talk about them, you’ll mostly be using made-up words like “deterritorialization” and “Othering”—because, as Ron Rosenbaum pointed out recently, the “dusty seminar rooms” of academia have the chief aim of theorizing every great book to death? And I can’t even tell you what kind of ass you have to kiss these days to get tenure—largely because, like most professors, I’m not on the tenure track, so I don’t know.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society
KEYWORDS: academia; books; literature; reading; wawaaa
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To: Borges

I haven’t read any Morrisons or Walkers or Haleys. I read Harlem Renaissance writers in college, and some authentic African writers on my own. But the White Guilt Award recipients, no thank you. I do pick up bestselling books when I visit bookstores, from Tom Clancy to Hairy Potty, and probably the above mentioned as well, read a page or two, put them down, and head to the john to wash my hands and face.


41 posted on 04/05/2013 9:37:07 AM PDT by Revolting cat! (Bad things are wrong! Ice cream is delicious!)
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To: Mr. K

“fellow travelers”

they’re satanists?


42 posted on 04/05/2013 9:57:21 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I can neither confirm or deny that; even if I could, I couldn't - it's classified.)
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To: miss marmelstein

humanistic renaissance == hateful liberal

at least how i see it.


43 posted on 04/05/2013 10:00:14 AM PDT by Secret Agent Man (I can neither confirm or deny that; even if I could, I couldn't - it's classified.)
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To: Borges

You ignore the issue and obfuscate. You used the word “scholarship”, and then switched to “research”. Which is it?


44 posted on 04/05/2013 10:07:50 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

That’s what scholars do. They research their field and provide new scholarship.


45 posted on 04/05/2013 11:39:56 AM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges

So does the clerk at Home Depot.


46 posted on 04/05/2013 12:59:53 PM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: blueunicorn6

I’m sorry! I thought you were serious!


47 posted on 04/05/2013 1:05:20 PM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges

No. Scholarship isn’t for losers. Expecting a well-paying job for life is for losers.


48 posted on 04/05/2013 1:38:24 PM PDT by pabianice
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To: pabianice

One should not go into the humanities expecting to be wealthy.


49 posted on 04/05/2013 1:43:10 PM PDT by Borges
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To: Borges

To me, In my life, I have found teaching the most difficult thing in the world. My hat is off to those whom this comes easily. That said, I find the author’s whining tedious.


50 posted on 04/05/2013 1:54:37 PM PDT by Cyber Liberty (I am a dissident. Will you join me? My name is John....)
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To: Borges

I don’t know if I just had one beer too many or not. What the Hell did I just read? I got a Master’s in another field and never got to use it. What is this weenie complaining about?


51 posted on 04/05/2013 1:56:01 PM PDT by Safetgiver ( Islam makes barbarism look genteel.)
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To: Steely Tom

“It’s actually “shoo-in,” as “all I had to do was say shoo and the cows walked right into the barn.” “

Thank you. I’ve always been interested in the origin of words and phrases.


52 posted on 04/05/2013 7:20:40 PM PDT by PLMerite (Shut the Beyotch Down! Burn, baby, burn!)
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