I have humanities academics on both sides of my family tree (dad and maternal grandfather, both tenured with long careers at good schools) and classics as an omnipresent topic in my growing years. Out of my undergrad program, I got accepted to the University of Chicago’s Committee on Social Thought. I opted instead to get a history degree at a smaller school and dropped out after my MA.
It became clear to me along the way that the world that a young humanities academic would have joined in the 1960s just didn’t exist anymore. Departmental politics, publish or perish, shrinking funding, and the declining prestige of the fields meant the gravy train was over.
It also became clear that unhappy academics are amongst the most miserable, impotent, and self-loathing people around.
I had the same experience and also dropped out after my MA. It's pretty sad. One of my professors told me, "You should have been here in the 70s, you would have loved it."
An older CS professor (whose book, I’m guessing, about half of HN posters have read) told me essentially the same thing.
He’s one of the best people to talk to in the department. Kind, passionate and compassionate, interested first and foremost in ideas and people. No ego, doesn’t care about telling anyone he’s smarter than them (he is though), just wants to figure things out together.
Similar but less prolific experience. I had this idea that I could make a career out of loving books and ideas and sharing those things with other people in a spirited way.
It's totally possible to make a career out of loving books and ideas, and sharing those things with other people in a spirited way: create a YouTube channel. Here are a couple I found at random but there are many more.
I hate to inform you "Departmental politics, publish or perish, shrinking funding, and the declining prestige of the fields" has applied to STEM just the same as the humanities.
It's worth noting since the STEM explosion the world has gotten more violent and inequality has gotten much worse. They might not relate but perhaps they do.
UChicago’s strains came after its $10bn endowment — a critical source of revenue — delivered an annualised return of 6.7 per cent over the 10 years to 2024, among the weakest performances of any major US university.
The private university has taken a more conservative investment approach than many peers, with greater exposure to fixed income and less to equities since the global financial crisis in 2008.
“If you look at our audits and rating reports, they’ve consistently noted that we had somewhat less market exposure than our peers,” said Ivan Samstein, UChicago’s chief financial officer. “That led to less aggregate returns over a period of time.”
An aggressive borrowing spree to expand its research capacity also weighed on the university’s financial health. UChicago’s outstanding debt, measured by notes and bonds payable, climbed by about two-thirds in the decade ending 2024, to $6.1bn, as it poured resources into new fields such as molecular engineering and quantum science.
A combination of bad bets and mismanagement. Ah! Well I have a friend who is currently going their for law school, so I shouldn't be celebrating this, it harms them and their career prospects.
I'm not that shocked honestly, I did a humanities degree and when I checked UChicago's departments they were large and pretty good but not really cutting edge or doing anything radical or interesting. Seems like they were coasting on their reputation for a while.
I know for Classical literature it's largely the theoretical approach to interpreting texts. Lit theory is always evolving and tenured faculty don't always keep up with the changes. There are also new interdisciplinary departments that pop up. I imagine it's more varied in fields that study things created in the last 2000 years though.
> But the professors also seemed reluctant to define the success of a program by how many professors it creates—after all, most humanities PhD students at Chicago do not pay tuition and receive stipends to cover their living costs, and getting paid to learn and read is not the worst fate.
I think this neglects the stark opportunity cost: PhD students are devoting years of their life to this endeavor, which may pay modest living expenses during school but otherwise provides no current or future financial benefit to the student unless they get a job in their field. Those years become lost years in their lives, years they can never get back.
Moreover, if the ultimate goal of training graduate students is to preserve human knowledge, how is that goal going to be accomplished when those students are forced to leave the field and find some other way of supporting themselves after grad school? Ultimately, the knowledge will still be lost, won't it?
In fairness to the University of Chicago, this is not a problem specific to the University of Chicago, certainly not the first straw but only the final straw. When the humanities are defunded across the board, and tenure-track jobs become nonexistent, the training of humanities PhDs becomes futile. We can't look to Chicago for a solution to this larger problem. Every university, no matter how big and prestigious, should and indeed must face the stark reality.
PhD students are devoting years of their life to this endeavor, which may pay modest living expenses during school but otherwise provides no current or future financial benefit to the student unless they get a job in their field
I'd like to juxtapose your quote against a famous quote of John Adams:
The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts. I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.
-- John Adams in a letter to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780)
In this quote, John Adams offers the thesis that what subjects we deem appropriate to study is determined not wholly by our interests, but also by the situation (personal, economic, and political) we find ourselves in. Within your quote is an implicit sense of urgency that weighs against someone's desire to devote years of their lives to studying the arts.
Perhaps we are returning to John Adams's tumultuous time? Then it should be wholly understandable for more students to choose pragmatism over personal calling when deciding on a course of study.
Studying in that context didn't mean spending years and years in an institution, it meant regularly taking the time to read up and immerse yourself in those things. One of the greatest tragedies of modernity is that we've created a society where the majority of people believe studying is just something done at university, and stop studying anything difficult after they graduate.
Adams may be correct, but isn't the lesson that we need people to study political science right now? The lesson surely isn't to drop all studies that aren't capitalistically profitable. I don't think the current situation requires even more ruthless profit-seeking.
In Adams letter it seems that studying poetry, tapestry, and porcelain are leisurely and enjoyable. For most kids I know today, this would be torture. Are there modern equivalents to this? Film and comics?
Readit News
It became clear to me along the way that the world that a young humanities academic would have joined in the 1960s just didn’t exist anymore. Departmental politics, publish or perish, shrinking funding, and the declining prestige of the fields meant the gravy train was over.
It also became clear that unhappy academics are amongst the most miserable, impotent, and self-loathing people around.
He’s one of the best people to talk to in the department. Kind, passionate and compassionate, interested first and foremost in ideas and people. No ego, doesn’t care about telling anyone he’s smarter than them (he is though), just wants to figure things out together.
The junior faculty can’t afford to be that way.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microcosmographia_Academica
What a stupid fucking idea that was!
https://www.youtube.com/@EllieDashwood
https://www.youtube.com/@QuinnsIdeas
It is a great idea.
We just don't live in a great society where your naive thinking would have been fitting.
Your last sentence:
... reminded me of Sayre's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayre%27s_lawhttps://www.ft.com/content/4501240f-58b7-4433-9a3f-77eff18d0...
UChicago’s strains came after its $10bn endowment — a critical source of revenue — delivered an annualised return of 6.7 per cent over the 10 years to 2024, among the weakest performances of any major US university.
The private university has taken a more conservative investment approach than many peers, with greater exposure to fixed income and less to equities since the global financial crisis in 2008.
“If you look at our audits and rating reports, they’ve consistently noted that we had somewhat less market exposure than our peers,” said Ivan Samstein, UChicago’s chief financial officer. “That led to less aggregate returns over a period of time.”
An aggressive borrowing spree to expand its research capacity also weighed on the university’s financial health. UChicago’s outstanding debt, measured by notes and bonds payable, climbed by about two-thirds in the decade ending 2024, to $6.1bn, as it poured resources into new fields such as molecular engineering and quantum science.
https://chicagomaroon.com/43960/news/get-up-to-date-on-the-u...
https://news.uchicago.edu/story/morningstar-inc-agrees-acqui...
The significance to the University financial picture cannot be understated.
I think this neglects the stark opportunity cost: PhD students are devoting years of their life to this endeavor, which may pay modest living expenses during school but otherwise provides no current or future financial benefit to the student unless they get a job in their field. Those years become lost years in their lives, years they can never get back.
Moreover, if the ultimate goal of training graduate students is to preserve human knowledge, how is that goal going to be accomplished when those students are forced to leave the field and find some other way of supporting themselves after grad school? Ultimately, the knowledge will still be lost, won't it?
In fairness to the University of Chicago, this is not a problem specific to the University of Chicago, certainly not the first straw but only the final straw. When the humanities are defunded across the board, and tenure-track jobs become nonexistent, the training of humanities PhDs becomes futile. We can't look to Chicago for a solution to this larger problem. Every university, no matter how big and prestigious, should and indeed must face the stark reality.
I'd like to juxtapose your quote against a famous quote of John Adams:
The Science of Government it is my Duty to study, more than all other Sciences: the Art of Legislation and Administration and Negotiation, ought to take Place, indeed to exclude in a manner all other Arts. I must study Politicks and War that my sons may have liberty to study Mathematicks and Philosophy. My sons ought to study Mathematicks and Philosophy, Geography, natural History, Naval Architecture, navigation, Commerce and Agriculture, in order to give their Children a right to study Painting, Poetry, Musick, Architecture, Statuary, Tapestry and Porcelaine.
-- John Adams in a letter to Abigail Adams (12 May 1780)
In this quote, John Adams offers the thesis that what subjects we deem appropriate to study is determined not wholly by our interests, but also by the situation (personal, economic, and political) we find ourselves in. Within your quote is an implicit sense of urgency that weighs against someone's desire to devote years of their lives to studying the arts.
Perhaps we are returning to John Adams's tumultuous time? Then it should be wholly understandable for more students to choose pragmatism over personal calling when deciding on a course of study.
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