by
Shannon Lujan, Connected Academics:
https://connect.commons.mla.org/preparing-for-a-future-in-the-humanities-as-an-english-phd/
Recently, I sat down with Dawn Opel, a postdoc at Arizona State
University, to ask her about postdocs, the job market, and what the
future in general looks like for someone pursuing a PhD in the
humanities, especially in English.
Dawn is a postdoc research fellow with the
Nexus Lab and Computational Innovation Group at the
Institute for Humanities Research.
Before earning her PhD in rhetoric and composition, Dawn received a JD
from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and was a federal
law clerk and a lawyer for a not-for-profit organization.
She doesn’t
feel that it was a stretch to go from United States Bankruptcy Court to
studying new media and technical communication; in fact, the more time
she spent in the humanities, the more Dawn saw her past professional and
current scholarly interests merging.
This is one of the ways that she
believes graduate students in the humanities must learn to consider
their scholarship and career paths, as “overlapping layers of interest”
that seem to “naturally borrow from one another.”
Dawn insists that instead of the either-or mentality that
traditionally exists in the academy, we need to adapt a both-and
mind-set where we can move fluidly between professional and academic
trajectories.
Although this approach will not catch on overnight and may be a hard
sell for some, this is one of the better futures for those pursing a PhD
in English. Dawn explained that she did not set out to explore the
alt-ac path and still does not necessarily consider herself to be doing
so but that she did set out to gain a useful skill set that would
transition into a job that she envisions for herself. This at once
open-minded and deliberate approach is what allowed her to finish her
degree in less than five years and secure a postdoc immediately upon
completion.
Dawn encourages PhDs to consider a variety of postdocs outside their
comfort zones. She suggested that if you’re well versed in teaching, you
should look for something more research or administrative based and
vice versa.
She recommends that you find something that aligns with your
interests as well as with your previous experiences but also challenges
you to move in alternative directions. “One thing to keep in mind,”
stated Dawn, “is how any position will look on your CV to a potential
search committee. You want to ask yourself, What does the postdoc add in
my favor?”
When discussing what she found attractive about pursuing a postdoc,
Dawn explained that it affords her more “exclusivity in applying for
only desired positions” within the academy. “Let’s be honest,” she said,
“time is not on your side” when finishing the dissertation and
simultaneously going on the job market.
She wishes we were more honest
about this in the humanities but expressed a satisfaction that the MLA
and the Connected Academics project encourage critical conversations
about time to degree and the job market. Dawn and other English and
foreign language PhDs will present at the
2016 MLA convention, at the session “
Connected Academics: Redefining the Humanist Entrepreneur,”
where they will discuss how they’ve crafted scholarly identities beyond
the traditional academic setting by reimagining their skill sets,
boundaries, and potential career paths.
Dawn believes that as humanists, we must be willing to be more
transdisciplinary and consider the most effective way to maximize our
career options. She stressed that ultimately the completion of a degree
is about “career preparedness,” not just for the expectations of the
field, but also for what it means to actively function within that
field.
At ASU there is a growing emphasis on entrepreneurship, and I
wondered if Dawn saw herself as an entrepreneur. She laughed when asked,
sharing that she once looked up the definition of entrepreneur. The
definition reads something like this: an entrepreneur is someone who
organizes and operates a business at greater-than-normal financial
risks. As she recited the definition, we both nodded our heads in
understanding about its application to the PhD.
“But there’s more,” said Dawn, borrowing from language
outside the academy, not typically used within the humanities, “you must
think about how you want to ‘brand’ yourself.” In other words, you
should constantly consider “how you can uniquely identify yourself and
your project to benefit your career as a scholar-practitioner.” Ask
yourself questions like, “What can I take from this to make something
that is mine?”
Ultimately, what I learned from our conversation is that you drive
your own career and invent your own opportunities, so make the risk
worth the investment. For example, Dawn recently presented at Phoenix
Comicon about digital media, leisure reading practices, and literary
fandom.
She believes that it may have been one of the best presentations
of her academic career because it allowed her to talk about the
intersection of subjects she loves and opened unexpected doors for
“future public intellectual conversations.” Through this experience Dawn
was able to brand or uniquely identify her work in ways that have
“transformed” her scholarship.
Dawn’s best advice? “Treat the PhD as a professional project”: adhere
to strict deadlines, “implement procedural and productive managerial
skills,” find a way to make your scholarship unique and about something
you love, and adapt a fluid mind-set.
