There’s an interesting piece from Richard Nile in the Higher Ed on the inadequacy of the current Australian doctoral model – though a lot is left unsaid.
The main point is that since only about 30% of Oz research students will go on to an academic career, the degree is not properly structured to deliver meaningful outcomes for the majority. But I’m not sure that the idea of lots of coursework designed to inculcate “graduate attributes” suitable for industry is the way to go. But there’s no doubt the PhD is broken – the isolation, the narrowness, and the inaccessability and disinterest of many supervisors (something Nile alludes to but doesn’t spell out).
If I had my time over again, I’d strongly consider going to North America for doctoral studies. I like the idea of two years of advanced coursework before a smaller dissertation is begun. Many departments and Schools in Australia lack any sort of research or intellectual culture, and the drive to get students to complete within three and a half years so the University can pass go and collect $70 000 from the government only reinforces the trend to very narrow specialisation. My own supervisor thinks we’re between a rock and a hard place here – he did his doctorate at London and when he first came here couldn’t believe the pressure on students to teach so much and publish while still completing their thesis (“if you don’t have four first class journal articles, forget about a job”), and we also seem to lack the broad education in a discipline or field that the North American model focusses on. As with almost everything else in contemporary academia, there are big incentives for the interests of students and pedagogical concerns to be sacrificed on the altar of the scramble for funding.
“I’d strongly consider going to North America for doctoral studies.”
But would you go to a North American university that is no better than an average Australian university?
While the North American coursework and thesis PhD model is better than the Australian thesis-only model, what matters also, and maybe matters most, is the research environment and the quality of the academics doing the supervising.
If Australian universities were a whole lot better than they are, they would be more attractive places to do PhDs, even without a formal coursework component. And there is always the opportunity for Australian-based students to spend a year at a North American university doing some coursework while sitting at the feet of a leader in their field.
I think what Mark is getting at is that the research culture in many Australian universities (including some of the most prestigious) is broken. And obviously if you were going to the States or Canada, you woudn’t go just to attend Kansas State U or whatever.
They won’t even give most academics the money to go overseas for conferences now.
Doing a PhD almost destroyed any pleasure I found in the subject matter and convinced me I wasn’t suited for an academic career. Working in the field of higher education policy – and particularly research policy – since graduating has only reinforced my conviction. I’m as aware as anyone can be, without being directly subject to them, if the pressures and expectations on research students and academics. Not fun.
There is a lot wrong with the current approach to doctoral studies. The focus on completions – within a set time-frame – is at the top of the list. There is some evidence that the quality of Australian theses has declined. And it’s well known that one can do a doctorate, these days, on just about any damn thing.
But to suggest that the whole process is broken is a step too far. So only about 30% of doctoral students go on to academic careers. Yes? And?
The important thing about the PhD process – for the education process – is not necessarily what you learn but what you learn how to do. In the case of the PhD, it is the fundamental skills of the information age: how to find, analyse, and interpret data, and how to communicate what you have discovered.
Yes, the information economy is still skills-based.
A good PhD in any field will equip a graduate with everything they need for a wide range of careers, without all this bullshit about ‘graduate attributes’. If you want to start equipping people with job-specific skills (that are likely to date very quickly), then just call it vocational training and be done with.
“They won’t even give most academics the money to go overseas for conferences now.”
I was thinking that ambitious students might try to win themselves a one year fellowship at the place they want to visit; something like that. These opportunities are open to good students, but with no guarantees, of course.
It would dramatically help some PhD students if their emotional experience of the PhD was positive – as it stands, it’s too often a dreadful experience emotionally.
There’s certainly an explosion in overseas opportunities for Honours graduates, more so than in “my day” (although that was pre-tubes; maybe its also just easier to find out and apply nowadays).
In retrospect, I probably would have started my PhD later. Thats an advantage of the US model – advanced generic research training continues a little longer. I found by the end of it I was finishing a project started by someone else – a person I no longer was.
Thats said, people should bear in mind that its a research qualification, for a discipline, not for a specific topic. I rarely touch my own PhD area, and wouldnt – unless armed with a bargepole.
Another tidbit: its more than an occasional rumour in Australian academia that if youre a weensy bit concerned about your PhD students chance of passing, send it to a US academic. They’re not used to dissertations being the only focus, generally have a lower standard on that specific component, and are more likely to be impressed and pass it….
My PhD supervisor had taught in Australian universities for about twenty years, and before that in the US for about as long. He’d had dozens of doctoral students, but he’d mentioned to me that he was no longer actively encouraging students to undertake a PhD due to the prospects for graduates because of the state of the Australian university system.
The lot of the academic in Australia is currently pretty poor. An increasing number of departments are using post-grad students to teach courses to save money. Many other courses are taught by sessional casual employees. Actual academic staff are carrying higher teaching loads, with little time left for the research they need to do to advance their own careers.
Of the people doing their PhDs at the same time as me, very few have gone on to academic careers. Most have ended up in the public service, where they’re paid pretty well, but where they wont have any opportunities to publish, and so wont have any real prospects of eventually getting an academic job if they want one.
I don’t think that the Australian PhD system is necessarily broken, but it’s very dependent on having a good supportive supervisor and being in a good department. Luckily for me the quality of my supervisor more than made up for the dysfunction of the department I was in. The US system is not without its problems, and essentially assumes that you didn’t learn anything in your degree that was relevant to undertaking your doctorate. For me, at least, an honours degree, and some good mentoring, gave me all I needed to complete. If I had the choice between re-learning basic research methods, or finishing two years earlier, I think I’d opt for the later every time.
Richard Nile: â??THE PhD is a dinosaur from a previous age of elite education.â??
Not if it is regarded what it was intended to be, namely a de facto apprenticeship for a career as an independent researcher in academia or industry. That is what it is thought to be in most of the rest of the world. In broad areas such as Science, the forefront of knowledge and current best technology are set globally, and we cannot afford to downgrade our qualifications and capabilities if we want to make a meaningful contribution.
A Ph.D. does, or should, inculcate transferable skills that should be useful outside academia. Long-term project management, the ability to collate and critically review large amounts of data, the ability to identify deficiencies in understanding and devise remedial strategies, preparation of lengthy and technical reports in lucid English, public presentation skills, for instance. These aspects should be borne in mind and valued by the students themselves, supervisors, and prospective employers whether academic or not.
A higher-level vocational or industry-specific qualification should not be called a â??Ph.Dâ??. If that is something that employers and universities want to create, they should come up with a different name for it. But note that companies should not be expecting Universities to do for them the job-specific training that the companies should be providing in-house: this seems to be a perennial risk in Oz.
Nile: â?? The problem is that only around a third of all successful contemporary PhD candidates will end up working in their specialist fields.â??
But some prospective supervisors are utterly up-front about this. And it is not necessarily a problem. Some make a positive decision not to stay in academia. Some change fields and broaden their skills, voluntary or otherwise.
Nile: â?? enrolments could be slashed by at least 50 per cent with a doubling of scholarship and research support fundingâ??; alternatively, the degree could head in the opposite direction with an overhaul to take into account the employment prospects of those two thirds of students who will never find full-time employment within the university sector. â??
We need more research funding and fuller scholarships, whether or not enrolments are slashed. And as I said, the experience of doing a Ph.D. should be developing skills that are useful outside the studentâ??s academic speciality.
Nile: â??The PhD has been caught up in the movement towards mass education,â??
Which it shouldnâ??t be.
Nile: â??but the degree itself has remained elitist and virtually unchanged for around fifty years. â??
As it should be. It is supposed to identify the people best capable of independent research, and of making globally relevant new contributions to human knowledge.
Nile should get over this â??ELITIST IS TEH BADâ?? drivel. We donâ??t hobble our Olympic athletes with that crap, and we shouldnâ??t do it to our scholars and researchers, either.
Mark: : â??But thereâ??s no doubt the PhD is broken – the isolation, the narrowness, and the inaccessability and disinterest of many supervisorsâ??
Departmental policy re. attendance of seminars/courses outside the core speciality, having an advisory panel rather than sole supervisor and a proactive Graduate Convenor can cure most of these ills.
Mark: â??Many departments and Schools in Australia lack any sort of research or intellectual cultureâ??
So they shouldnâ??t be accredited to offer higher degrees by research! And the students who suffer there should be assisted in enrolling somewhere that does have a research culture.
I agree that 3-3.5 years is too short and encourages narrowness, but the UK is the same. Both countries need to become more flexible on rewarding departments for slower-but-still-successful Ph.Dâ??s. We need to compete with the Germans, who often do meaty 5-year Ph.D’s. Bear in mind that the similar duration of US Ph.D’s includes a lot of coursework to make up for their broad-but-shallow first degrees and an lot of earning-money-by-deputising-for-absentee-lecturers time.
Mark: â??My own supervisor thinks weâ??re between a rock and a hard place here – he did his doctorate at London…â??
He was either lucky or taking an overly rosy view of the UK. Did mine in the UK 20 years ago, in Science rather than Humanities. Taught like mad to get myself back in the black every quarter. Got 6 papers from it published in international journals. Still took me 2 years to get a postdoc in a relevant area. Many of my contemporaries took 4-month â??1/3 lectureshipsâ?? at the recently-Dawkinsised ex-Polytechnics (i.e, turn up for a term, recite somebody elseâ??s lecture notes, mark the scripts, then p*ss off). It wasnâ??t easy, there and then. Admittedly, it has become even worse here over the last decade.
Guise:â??Doing a PhD almost destroyed any pleasure I found in the subject matter and convinced me I wasnâ??t suited for an academic career.â??
Hugely important point. Self-discovery is another of the benefits of trying to achieve ambitious projects under great pressure.
I started my PhD at an Australian university this year, and I certainly agree with some of the criticisms expressed above. I have struggled with the lack of structure, and the lack of fieldwork funding, but am blessed with fantastic supervisors.
Having read several books on “how to write a PhD”, one thing I noticed was that the same concerns, obstacles and criticisms popped up in US texts as in Australian texts – so I’m not sure that adopting a US model is the way forward.
I think that comparing the Australian model to the US model is a bit like comparing apples to oranges. If all you’re interested in is having the letters “PhD” after your name, then I think heading to the US is a good option! I suspect that part of the problem is that people are embarking on further study without having thought about why they’re doing it and what they want to get out of it. Having completed two undergraduate degrees in which all my subjects focused on a particular field (aid and development), and written two honours thesis of 20,000+ words, I didn’t feel I had much to gain from doing yet more coursework. I would have loved to do an LLM before starting a PhD in law, but I couldn’t justify it in terms of the time, money, and the fact that I would simply be doing “more of the same” – it would have been fun, and having the letters on my resume would have been good, but I don’t think I would have gained a huge amount more in terms of knowledge and skills. A PhD that consists of 2 years of coursework and a minor thesis just can’t be compared to a PhD that consists of three years of research and writing. You might end up with the same letters after your name, but the skills you gain in each are very different.
Gad .. where to start.
I found having a PhD was a hindrance to getting a job. Employers thought, probably correctly, that I’d piss off within a short while because I would get bored.
There are alot of US Universities which don’t appear above the radar here but have quality graduate programs in certain specialist areas.
The higher profile institutions (Harvard, MIT etc) are good, but can be a bit cut-throat. It is not uncommon to cull the intake of graduates by 30% each year for the first couple of years.
I have heard, anecdotally, of two students being given the same project so the first out with the answer to gets the PhD. I have no idea if this is true, but it is oft repeated.
I know a number of people who have failed to finish a PhD. Seems such a shame that there isn’t some sort of “fallback” they could get awarded when their project goes tits up through no fault of their own. A diploma of philosophy?
The whole PhD review thing needs looking at. I personally know two people whose PhDs were held up by massive delays with reviewers. Both took over a year to review the thesis they were sent. In one case it meant he got a lower rate of pay until his PhD was awarded. In the other case his life had moved on so much since submitting that when the reviewer came back saying he had to go back to the lab he told them to shove it. Fair enough too.
In general I think the Universities are way too subservient to the review process. They should be sending it out to a new reviewer if they take too long. Perhaps they need to pay the reviewers so they can make more demands on their time?
I’m am a working engineer the studies part time (it’s a lot easier to learn in a lecture room than from a book, if only the average 19 year knew). I have used up the excuse “I am doing a honors year” as all that is left is the thesis, no more excuse. I have also been been the industrial supervisor for a Phd student and I hire Phd graduates. So this is a topic I have thought about.
1) Universities could offer post graduate course work. It would be nice if it led to a masters at least ( if you complete enough subjects). Sorry but people like me spend most of our time dealing with projects and writing reports. I don’t want to deal with the intellectual property issues that arise if I write something up in my area of expertise. And the last thing I want to do is execute a mickey mouse project for academia, I have seen enough of the real thing.
2) I feel sorry for Phd students, three years of their life and they learn a lot about very little. The key I believe is they have to extend knowledge. Sorry research reality “failure”, ideas sometimes don’t work out. That is not an option for a Phd student. A Phd is not about real research.
If I was doing a Phd I would pick a topic were the critical issue was collecting the data and writing it up, not the idea. No chance of failure then.
3)There is just so much you miss in an undergraduate degree, where and what is the educational process that pushes people knowledge afterwards, at the moment there is no structure and as things become more complex there is a need. Well I believe there is anyway.
I can’t see the virtue in moving to a US style of PhD until we do something to fix the postgraduate coursework currently offered in Australian universities.
Coursework masters programs are what pay the bills at Australian university these days, and from my experience at two Victorian universities the quality of those programs is seriously sub-standard. If coursework were to become a component of PhD study, undoubtedly universities would simply piggy-back the existing postgraduate coursework they already offer. Sadly, the teaching in many of those programs is not even at an undergraduate standard, let alone PhD.
Unless the quality of coursework masters programs is seriously improved across all institutions it seems to me that PhD students doing coursework would find themselves even more dissatisfied than they currently are with their research-only degree.
some points on the above
charles makes a key point about research failure. if research is actually research, so the outcome is the production of new knowledge rather than a performative display of disciplinary competence, then there is a real threat that the research may not work out. this happened with my phd, relating to my proposed interview work. after 6 interviews i realised it was a waste of time. i had to change direction after 1.5 years of work, this was meant to be halfway through my candidature…
the question of coursework is less clear. structured learning of key concepts is good for those without the time or gumption to pursue their own study agendas. i am a strong advocate for giving Australian phds enough time to read in a given field long enough to be at least competitive with the rest of the world. self-directed learning, especially in the scholarly context of also teaching, is important. The dual learning/teaching transforms the nature of pedagogy itself, so it becomes a problem that is continually worked at from various angles. By this I mean, for example, learning and understanding for one’s self so as to be competent, and teaching and understanding in such a way to connect with the non-understanding of your students. These two eventually connect when the research carried out produces new understandings that have to connect with the non-understanding of scholarly peers and examiners.
besides a lack of structured disciplinary inculcation, in Australia we don’t have a two language requirement either (unlike the US), so the strength of our phds has to come from somewhere else. the only possible answer to this has to be creativity. literally producing new knowledge, and not simply a performative disciplinarity dressed up as ‘new’.
for there to be real creativity phd students need to be able to make mistakes and have problems with research, if everything went as expected, then the research becomes conditioned by these already held expectations. If they can make mistakes and have problems then they need more time.
from what i have witnessed the 30% that get academic jobs may not necessarily even be potentially the ‘best’ 30%.
the academic division of labour between less insecure academics and more insecure casuals and postgrads is increasing. (i don’t want to do interviews for someone else’s research project again.)
the worst thing to do is to treat the phd as a kind of diploma which has value in itself. a phd is a block of time that allows someone to gain enough experience to develop conceptual and scholarly tools. the quality of the phd is therefore determined by the nature of this time. 3 years is nowhere near long enough.
Sweden is changing to more of a US style system with MA and PhD programs.
Glen, thankyou – that’s exactly what I was trying to get at: “the worst thing to do is to treat the phd as a kind of diploma which has value in itself. a phd is a block of time that allows someone to gain enough experience to develop conceptual and scholarly tools. the quality of the phd is therefore determined by the nature of this time. 3 years is nowhere near long enough.”
Ok so too many Australian PhDs are struggling to get academic jobs… so how exactly does this relate to problems with the PhD programs?
I think this is a good case for NOT adding even more years to something for which people won’t get a directly relevant job out of any way…
3.5 years would have been nice. Mine took 7.25 years.
glen’s point on the foreign language requirements of US Ph.Ds is spot on. I cannot understand how a Humanities/Social Science Ph.D could could be awarded to anybody without mastery of at least one foreign language. How do these people engage with French, Italian, German scholars?
From my experience, an undergraduate can see that lecturers with U.S. Ph.Ds are two classes beyond those who did not leave Australia, and just did the 3 years after Honours.
Those Ph.D qualifying exams they have to sit in the US sound like absolute killers. None of this “20% for tutorial attendance and 30% for a reflective journal” bollocks.
Rebecca, just to clarify, the US model is two years of coursework and then two years of dissertation. The usual completion time is 5-7 years. I’m a big advocate of taking your time, btw.
I’m guessing it varies hugely from discipline to discipline as well. I finished a PhD in literature in 1980 (at 27, after three years) and there were no jobs then either. It seems universal in both place & time — read David Lodge’s The British Museum is Falling Down, set in London in the early 1960s.
But several of my friends went to North American universities to do their graduate studies, and because of that their knowledge of literature (and not just English literature) is far broader and more thorough and systematic than mine has ever been. They had to pass really gruelling exams; they had to complete an MA before they began the PhD; one had to learn two languages in order to quailfy to do a PhD in Comp Lit; and they had regular coursework and good supervision — whereas I and my fellow studes were left, on the English model, to muddle through in near-solitude, which I think was and is the basis of most of the emotional derangement mentioned up-thread.
Changes since then include (1) the rejigging of universities as businesses and consequent re-branding of completed higher degrees as Product (hence the hasty pushing through), and (2) what was then the relatively leisurely pace of academic life, now unrecognisable as the same thing. It’s very hard to be a good supervisor when you’re working an 80-hour week and your eyeballs are hanging out on stalks. Every academic here knows that 80 hours is a conservative estimate, too.
Yes, Dr Cat, that’s what’s attractive to me about the US model – I’ve found a lot of my knowledge in areas apart from my thesis topic has been acquired on the run and often through having to teach in areas I’m not really familiar with. It’d be great to have acquired it more thoroughly and systematically.
Just to respond to the point above about going over to the US for a year – a friend of mine did that and another went to Germany for a year. But it’s very difficult to access funding for this – a lot of the fellowships are restricted to US and EU citizens respectively. And the whole “must finish in 3.5 years” factor makes it less likely that you’d be permitted to.
The big danger of the funding tied to “timely” completion is that theses will become “manageable” examinations of micro-problems. If you’ve ever had the chance to read PhD theses completed in the 70s and 80s compared with recent ones, there really is a difference in depth. It’s not that the quality is lacking in current theses, but they rarely break new or interesting ground and you can tell they’ve been written quickly.
People shouldn’t underestimate the value of research that can go into theses either – I’m reading Ray Evans’ new CUP history of Qld at the moment and he makes the point that so much of conventional wisdom has been overturned by unpublished theses. So I’d like to enter a small protest against the idea that doctoral research only has value as “research training”.
I couldnt be arsed publishing my PhD. Yecch. Thats would presumably involve looking at it.
Ive written or edited entirely new books since, in preference.
It does occasionally get referenced by some poor suckers who felt they had to read it, which goes to Mark’s point. And Ive certainly read a few in my own research.
My point is merely that it is also, inevitably, an advanced research qualification, so one needn’t be imprisoned by declaring the topic “your field”.
As a good friend of mine often says “I dont like to work in my field”.
Oy. This talk makes me rather glad I’d already decided honours was quite enough.
I have to contest the notion that working in government means you never get published, though. That’s not at all true for the environmental sciences – in fact, I think I’d be rather more likely to develop a good record of research and publication working for an organisation like QLD’s DNRW than sticking around uni, and I’d have more gear and funding to play with, not to mention more relevant study topics.
Glen writes: “the worst thing to do is to treat the phd as a kind of diploma which has value in itself. a phd is a block of time that allows someone to gain enough experience to develop conceptual and scholarly tools.”
If that is what it is then shouldn’t it be something a person does if they are offered a scholarly career ( which is pretty much limited to academia while research isn’t), and shouldn’t there be something else for those that want an to be educated to a higher level but not be part of that game? Should government policy push universities towards creating more Phd graduates than needed?
I have hired Phd graduates because of the topic studied, I expect a graduate to know how to find the library, it’s value and the value of reading the work of others ( given the patent situation a risky business, not covered well).
I think I am getting masters and Phds confused and what I am arguing for a higher standard being applied to master programs, and that master be available through course work ( which I believe they now are) that the programs be flexible and for government policy to focus on getting people educated at some sort of postgraduate level instead of creating Phd’s that really are of limited use.
I think cc may have hit the nail on the head.
Three years is a long time to take out of a persons youth, to learn a topic they may never use again. I think not contributing too much to the time wasted by our youth is one of our responsibilities.
Though I also question the need for Ph.Ds in the humanities.
Mark, is that the case for all PhDs (2 + 2 years)? Because I had the impression from people who are looking at PhDs in law that it could be done in 2 years.
I agree with grumphy that so much depends on the field you’re in. I could have done some of the research and writing I want to do with just my undergrad, and in government – however I prefer the relative freedom that academia gives me (ie the ability to be critical of current policy). I’m lucky enough to be in a field that is anything but an “ivory tower”, but is constantly communicating with (via consultations, workshops, whatever) those who are in practice. Coursework would actually take me away from a lot of those connections and opportunities.
“How do these people engage with French, Italian, German scholars?”
Most of them publish in English these days.
Even in undergraduate work, not having fluence in French and German can often mean a lot of scholarship cannot be accessed.
Jeeze, John Greenfield. Did a postmodernist run over your dog or something? You’re quite authentically unhinged on this topic.
I think part of the problem is that a PhD is conceptualised essentially as an academic/research apprenticeship. You get paid crap wages and end up doing all of the crap work (like marking essays), and most of what you learn you’re supposed to learn at the feet of the master to whom you are apprenticed (your supervisor). It’s not meant to be vocational education.
Masters by coursework falls more into the vocational education area, at least in my field (the social sciences). They’re much shorter, and may involve a minor thesis, but they’re also more focused on a specific occupational domain.
There are a small number of doctorates by coursework offered by Australian universities (I know of courses in psychology, but I imagine there are other fields as well). These, again, are designed as vocational education. They aim to impart some research skills, but have a hefty coursework component focused on the job you’ll be doing. Universities tend to love these courses, because they’re pretty much all full-fee.
It’s probably no longer fashionable to say so, but I think you should only do a PhD if you have a particular love of knowledge. It’s something that consumes your life from three to 10 years, and unless you’re doing something you’re passionate about, it’ll make you miserable. I don’t think anyone should be getting a PhD for the job it may offer at the end. And really, outside academia, it doesn’t count for that much.
Well, sounds like someone’s never scored a flight upgrade off their Dr title.
The closest to an upgrade I’ve ever got was the offer of an exit row seat.
Do people actually still get upgrades? I figured Qantas was a bit tight to do that sort of thing these days. Maybe I’d have better luck with another airline.
It would be nice to get *some* advantage out of all those years I spent
drinkingstudying!“Well, sounds like someone’s never scored a flight upgrade off their Dr title.”
I score them because I fly a lot, and I refuse them because.
1) You meet a better class of people in economy.
2) The seat is too far away from the window to rest your head to sleep ( must try one of those new sleeping seats one day).
I know; strange.
Seriously though, I agree: a PhD’s not to undertaken lightly.
Another real problem is that people are invariably sorting out some personal issue in their choice of topic, normally subconsicously, which only enhances the isolation, procrastination, and general long-haul ‘war-with-self’ that is the PhD experience.
For more of my audio and on-line pep-talk products, contact my office at Keating Towers.
I cannot agree more with the sentiments of John Greenfield regarding foreign language REQUIREMENTS particularly for humanities phds.
Contra Spiros, most of my phd reading material (in the field of asian studies btw) is in either French, German, Japanese or Russian. Whilst many of these scholars may be able to publish in English, few do. Moreover, why should they have to publish English anyway? Advanced phd students in Europe and Japan can read all these languages competently anyway.
Australian Humanities PhD students are very often hopelessly ill-prepared for a rigorous PhD. Completing the PhD overseas is definitely preferable for Australian humanities students. Get out while/if you can!
I do think that you can’t expect people to spend 6-12 years of elite study (a lot of US PhDs wind up taking that long) in relative poverty and then come out and go into some unrelated low-level job, as will probably be the case for most humanities PhDs. Sure, the unrelated job mightn’t be terrible, but probably not as good as if they had have done a good masters in a year. Australia doesn’t have the ‘ooo you got a good degree from elite uni I’ll give you a job simply because you’re smart sounding’ culture that the United States has.
The academic job market will start to improve substantially over the next ten years as the baby boom cohort who monopolise tenure start to retire. Perhaps then we can think about lengthening things.
Swings and roundabouts, Lefty E. I have found over the years that my chances of scoring an upgrade on the strength of ‘Dr’ are approximately the same as those of being asked to perform an emergency tracheotomy at 30,000 feet with a wire coathanger and a borrowed biro. One is not immune from either, but both are fairly remote.
Oh FFS, in my day it was the 1930s babies cohort who monopolised tenure, and I’m sure in their day it was the post-WW1 lot. It’s called “history”. I know history has been largely abandoned and we all living in a perennial Now, but this boomer-blaming bullshit is starting to look really stupid.
well, Pav – I did once get upgraded to business, and was seated next to a real (medical) Dr.
The hosties then proceeded to refer to me as Dr E, and him as ‘Mr’.
He was none too pleased, but I couldnt have been happier: all upgrade, and no emergency bowel-detwisting fears!
Lefty E, yes, I too was once (only once) upgraded to business. Good lord, I thought, real forks. Hope I don’t have to untwist any bowels with them.
David, I beg your pardon; that little outburst was uncalled-for. Not retracting what I said, but apologising for the way I said it.
Excuse me?
I wasn’t doing any “blaming”, I was simply stating a well-known fact, that the jobs market will improve over the next decade as the baby boom cohort starts to retire. (eg. http://www.aisr.adelaide.edu.au/docs/Conference_UniHRBenchmarkConf_Presentation_06_Nov_Windsor.pdf p 23).
I can guarantee you I was not meaning to bag out the baby boomers!
I think what’s stupid is to respond with an aggressive tone to a fact about the academic job market. You a bit sensitive?
No worries PC, I wrote the above before I saw that last message.
Honestly, I was just responding to a fact a about the job market. Bagging out baby boomers wasn’t in mind at all, and I was genuinely shocked to see your response.
How do these people engage with French, Italian, German scholars?
At dawn.
With seconds.
Also, on a point of fact, the monopolisation of the 1930s cohort was far less significant, as the job market was expandeding rapidly. It was relatively easy for baby boom graduates to get a job, as more teachers were needed to teach all the younger baby boomers.
David, I am indeed a bit sensitive on the boomer-blaming score, but it’s the heightened reaction one develops after steady overexposure, as with an allergy. Now that I’ve read your comment again I can see I was overreacting.
Certainly not on the academic job score though — I did my time there with the universal academic experience: casual jobs, one-year contracts, three-year contracts, being forced to compete viciously with peers and friends for tiny numbers of jobs, fight for tenure, fight for promotion, and then be thought insane when I resigned from a long-held tenured job because I hated what was happening in the universities (NB I was replaced by a Gen-Xer, so I have done my bit!) — but I think that’s the story of any academic life at any age.
Which gets us back on-topic … I agree that the language thing really is important. Mine was the first year at Adelaide U where either one foreign language or Old & Middle English wasn’t a prerequisite even just for Honours, and I have no idea why they abandoned that. I don’t know how I would have managed without school French and German, and here at LP I have always envied Mark and Kim their Latin!
I’m a PhD student in the humanities, and I’m very happy with the support I’ve receieved from my university (I’m about to head off to Japan for a conference, the second international conference that my department has funded for me). I came straight to my PhD from my honours year.
I agree about language requirement. I’m monolingual, and I do find it really limiting when I can only read translations from German or French, without being able to refer to the original. However, I think in that regard the entire Australian attitude towards foreign language learning needs to change– we need people to be learning second languages right throughout school and undergraduate degrees. Our culture, however, does not support that.
I definitely think that taking more time would be a good idea. I’ve heard stories about the old days when you’d do your Masters, get a junior position in your department, and then you’d spend the next 5-10 years working on your PhD thesis– this gives you the time to engage with your field in a way that simply will not happen in the 3.5 years in which contemporary students are expected to complete theses.
As for publishing… these days, it’s difficult to even get a scholarship for your PhD unless you have a publication– not something that’s easy to do during your honours year. I think that publishing is great, and I’m grateful that my deparment supports that (I’ve got a few articles under my belt), but I think the expectation to publish during your honours year is very unrealistic. Perhaps (I don’t know this, just speculation) it’s easier for science students, if their honours work is part of a larger project, and they get listed as co-author on a paper.
Speaking loudly and using big hand gestures.
Gotta agree that, “A good PhD in any field will equip a graduate with everything they need for a wide range of careers, without all this bullshit about ‘graduate attributes’.”
I finished mine in Literature quite a while ago, and by then knew that I would hate to be working full-time in academia (if there were even a decent chance that I could get a job — times have been tough since the Literature Factory shut down). I fell into a healthy and enjoyable career without much trouble and have been loving it ever since. But without the skills that I developed during this time I would have been completely unfit.
I think the discursive drive towards ‘vocational PhDs’ (what a ludicrous concept) might be getting impetus from the way that universities have been pushing for more PhD students in order to secure additional funding, so that the argument then moves on to ‘what sort of PhD’. With more and more PhDs about, the relative value of a PhD decreases. It’s necessarily an elitist thing (elite, 1. noun (often used with a plural verb) the choice or best of anything considered collectively, as of a group or class of persons.)
As a current honours student in physics looking at a PhD this thread was certainly…um.. uplifting…
A lot of the posters seem to have come through a humanities PhD. Any scientists have similar experiences?
Also, having asked numerous PhD students around my office/floor whether to embark on it, they’ve all replied that you have to be passionate about the area/subject.
My question is how do you know what level of ‘passion’ will be required for a sustained 3-5 year stint on a fairly narrow field that will/could quite possibly change after 6 months? Sure i’ve enjoyed studying for the past six years and not in a hurry to leave, but….
Oh and regards the poverty aspect – yeah its no full time job salary, but most PhD students here are on ~$390 a week tax free plus top it up with a few hours tutoring.
Also, with regards alternatives if the PhD research isn’t going well – a friend of mine turned his Physics PhD into a Masters, and has since gone onto start a PhD at another university.
We should also remember that many universities are simply forced by Govt policy to ‘push’ through the research students.
Perhaps if higher education were properly funded, more leeway and flexible deadlines could be allowed.
m
The new rage, of course, is getting an ARC linkage funded PhD scholarship, aka APAI.
Means some acas have already desinged your topic (major headache averted), won funding for it, and some industry partner is co-funding the whole deal. The scholarship pays more too.
Only downside is the topics may be on the dullish side, with performative consultancy-style expectations.
Beppie,
That’s excellent news that your scholarship is being supported and encouraged with funding.
I’m not sure how common your experience is though. I have always funded my own trips out of my own pocket. I applied a few times, got knocked back, then I lost any interest in ever applying again and just funded myself. From what I have heard, my experience is not unique either. Many postgrads just simply lose interest in the excessively bureaucratic application process and opaque selection process for funding and end up self-funding instead. Personally, I think that self-funded postgrads should get a portion of the research funding that normally goes to the school for their publications. Fuck the bastards.
Finally, and I know this is a generalisation, but if Australian PhDs stay monolingual then they simply will not be internationally competitive. European countries are starting to ramp up their marketing as knowledge economies with multilingual access. With American students increasingly becoming familiar with Spanish as well, Australia will get left behind. That said, it is so easy to get rhetoric-fatigue about the moribund state of Australian Higher Ed (particularly in the humanities). I think the best thing to do is to try to go overseas and hammer crap Australian academics at the international conferences. Maybe the message will start filtering through…
“How do these people engage with French, Italian, German scholars?”
STUDENT ACTOR: “But what I’m really trying to figure out is, Did Hamlet sleep with Ophelia?”
OLD VETERAN ACTOR: “In my day, lad… always.”
‘Seems to me one’s choice of topic and supervisor(s) is not to be made lightly.
In a way, supervisor is sometimes more important than topic – if you choose a topic where the only possible supervisor is awful, you’ve made the wrong choice. The supervisor doesn’t necessarily have to know the literature about your question intimately – good supervisors undertand that the role is a pedagogical one in terms of writing skills, research and motivation.
Michael D, Stephen Edney did a physics PhD and I’ve done a mathematics one.
The hardest part of it for me were the emotional aspects which people have touched on – feeling isolated and losing self-confidence and self-belief. Emotionally, it was horrible – and this is not an uncommon experience. Of course, many people have a good PhD experience.
Good question – I tried four different topics before settling on what turned out to be my thesis topic, 19 months into my candidature. In the last few years of it, passion wasn’t anywhere to be seen – moreso a grim determination that I would finish the thesis. It was very difficult. A phd is a highly non-trivial project – it is nothing like undergraduate work. At least in mathematics, you develop very rigorous analysis skills that can be applied to practically any area of interest.
monolingual? i hope phds from other countries have more going for them than being able to communicate in different languages.
hmm, i’d be happy if english-speaking phds read (and had time to engage with) all that there was to read in English on their topics, let alone other languages!!!!
i had a go at reading Lyotard’s book on Enthusiasm in French and it was far too time consuming. Unless you have extremely good language skills, then I think it is a better idea to let professional translators do the work and spend your own time actually doing research, etc.
Many (most) mathematics papers are in English – a few are in French and some (old) ones are in Russian.
Jeez, Id be happy if some allegedly ‘monolingual’ students could speak and write in English.
Sublingual more like it!
In answer to Rebecca’s question above, I don’t know about the length of North American Law PhDs. Certainly for humanities and social science fields, it’s meant to be 2 years coursework, 2-3 years dissertation. It may be that a law PhD is only a dissertation and the prerequisite is a coursework Masters. Shouldn’t be too hard to check though – I’m sure any law school website would have the details.
Glen,
Just think about what you wrote for a second.
Two phd students – one from Australia, one from the Netherlands.
The Netherlands and Australia have roughly equivalent sized populations.
The Australian student is (presumably) not an EU citizen so will find it difficult to find permanent work in Europe.
The Dutch student is an EU citizen.
Australian students have English.
Dutch students have fluent Dutch, French and German as a minimum.
Even leaving aside the generally higher standard of Dutch universities, how do you expect an Australian to compete with a Dutch student on the International stage? What is going to get the Australian student over the line?
I’m really interesting in reading your reply.
Michael D,
Having passion for a topic is necessary, but having a group of people who are passionate about a topic around you will make the process so much easier. I am currently doing a PhD in computer science in the UK, under a well known and respected researcher and as part of a large research group. The support I have recieved from the research staff and other students has been brilliant – although no one else is working directly on my topic, it has helped keep away the sense of isolation many others have referred to.
Having seen some friends go through the process in Australia (in humanities and science), I’m pretty happy with my decision to move to a university renowned for its research to do a PhD.
Antonio – that’s a pretty vague scenario that demonstrates nothing.
What did the Australian and Dutch students study? What part of the ‘international stage’ were they intending to enter? It’s useless without specifics.
I think that everyone can safely assume that speaking more languages (fluently) is a bonus, no matter what field you work in, but stating that being bilingual should be mandatory for PhD studies is a joke.
It would obviously be essential in some fields, useful in some and absolutely irrelevant in others.
Agree with this. Someone could be a brilliant scholar and not know another language.
It’s a snobby excuse for privileging people from elite schools.
Antonio, you make it sound like an Olympic sprint.
Annemarie Mol has written on the dynamics of publishing her native Dutch rather than English. If her experience is any indication, the advantages of being able to publish in either language are not at all clear. By reaching out to a wider audience, she risks alienating local scholars. However, if she publishes in her international peers won’t see the fruits of her labour.
Fwiw, I’ve found being able to read original Weber texts quite handy.
But surely languages are still taught in non-elite schools. Um — aren’t they?
In some disciplines it might not matter at all — I can only speak for my own — but beyond a certain level of scholarship in the humanities, at least, it really does give you an advantage to have other languages, the more the better, especially for a historian or a literature person. Not just for reading things in the original but also for a better general grasp of what’s going on in other cultures, as reflected in their languages, and also for a half-decent understanding of the ways that translation changes original texts.
I like the idea of humanities PhD candidates being given more time in order to learn or perfect second, third, fourth languages where relevant or desired. Personally, I’ve put language lessons on hold in order to complete my PhD, for reasons relating to both time and money.
As an imperative, though, I agree with glen: it would be nice if they’d get as far as reading everything published in English. Relying on translators will only be a problem for some kinds of research.
I don’t have any data, but I’m pretty sure you would find quite a strong correlation between the social class of the school and knowledge of non-English languages.
If you’re an expert in, say, contemporary US literature, or 19th century British literature, I really can’t see why you need other languages. Sure, it may be something that occasionally comes in handy, but far from essential for writing good academic material. I think it would be a big social exclusion, for a benefit that is intangible and highly contentious.
David, I went to a state school in Brisbane and learnt two foreign languages. Your mention of elite schools is non sequitur. Most of the foreign language study I did do was at uni or under self-study.
Jobby, Dutch students study the same fields as Australian students. Language skills are not necessarily relevant in the physical or biological sciences but in the fields of Law, Business and Humanities they are very relevant. The “International stage” I am referring to is the academic job market specifically and the international job market more broadly. I was particularly speaking about the field of humanities – where with a few notable exceptions, having a language other than English is essential.
Dk.au, trying to get a job in academia is kinda similar to an olympic sprint at times. My point is that monolingual Australian students start at a distinct disadvantage. In my field (Asian studies), there are a number of major international conferences where papers must be delivered in either French, German or Japanese – depending on the location of the conference. Not being able to communicate in these languages is a distinct disadvantage for a young scholar in this field.
To me the situation is pretty clear, the more languages one can read/speak – the more job opportunities become available. I acknowledge that I was lucky enough to be bought up in a multilingual family. However, the reluctance of some people to acknowledge the crucial importance of multilingualism in academia is astonishing to me. The “snobbery” comment from David really does exemplify to me the muddle-headed thinking that exemplifies the worst of Australian Higher Ed thinking.
While I think that being multilingual is potentially very useful and important, especially in the humanities, excluding people in advance doesn’t make sense.
It’s nice that you studied languages in your own time, but a lot people don’t, and I believe the restriction would disproportionately exclude those from a lower class background.
If it is “essential”, not an occasional advantage, why only 1 or 2 languages, and which are they? Your argument doesn’t make sense.
The academics I know virtually never do stuff in other languages.
David,
I am certainly no expert in British or American literature. While you may not think that you need any other language apart from English in order to analyse British or American literature, perhaps you are not thinking critically enough.
There is certainly a large volume of material in French on literary theory in general. There is also a large amount of material in German on linguistics.
Maybe usage of some of this material might enhance a PhD?
Where does this resistance to multilingualism come from????
The important texts have been translated – and I’d dare to suggest the English translations have become more influential than the originals. Heaps of people complain about Spivak’s translation of Derrida, but she’s the one they quote…
The occasional problem is hardly a fundamental block to a good academic career.
I’m not resisting multilingualism, in fact I think it should be strongly encouraged – it’s one of numerous useful things. But I don’t think you can justify it as an absolute requirement.
Being English-monolingual in the fields of Law and the Humanities (and to a lesser extent Economics/Business) AUTOMATICALLY excludes a large amount of valuable material. Most non-English language academic writing is never translated into English. Languages with a large, original technical corpus include French, German, Spanish, Russian and Japanese. Emerging original technical corpuses are also developing in Arabic, Hindi and Chinese. Additionally, mastery of a romance language is a gateway to a number of other romance languages. The same is largely true for slavic languages and to a much lesser extent (from a written perspective) for East Asian languages.
I personally see no inverse correlation between class and multilingualism.
Anyway, I think the point here is pretty clear. Australian universities seem to be largely resistant to emerging international standards (including multilingualism). This is to the detriment of Australian postgraduates.
I don’t see David resisting multilingualism, so much as the requirement of multilingualism being imposed as a means of exclusion. I think David’s point is a good one.
David said:
“The important texts have been translated…the English translations have become more influential than the originals”
Well David, I’m afraid it really does depend on what you consider “important” and “influential”. I think your approach really does border on Anglocentrism.
Do you think Freud was more influential in German or English?
What about Mein Kampf?
And how about Marx?
Were Che Guevara’s written works more influential in Engligh or Spanish?
And do you really think that Derrida and Foucault are more influential in the English language?!
I certainly don’t think that multilingualism is essential for EVERY academic field. However, my point is that in the areas that by international standards multilingualism is a prerequisite – often in an Australian context it is not. I think this is greatly to the detriment of Australian students and in these particular fields being monolingual highly devalues the value of their degree.
Resistance at the institutional level may be a problem. Students have to be supported to acquire languages, though. Putting more responsibility on students to acquire languages independently, at their own expense, will potentially exclude students who’ve come from contexts where multilingualism isn’t valued.
I am a psychology PhD student at a Sydney university. I did an honours thesis at another university (note: in the UK the equivalent year to honours, in psychology, is a masters degree – if you’re competing with overseas types, point out that honours is a full year thesis of significant length here) and I decided to do the PhD where I am now because the research culture at this institution was obviously much better, they had more funding, etc. I was able to study something I want to study with a supervisor who is obviously dedicated, knowledgeable and good at the pedagogical aspects of the supervisory process. I’m currently over 3.5 years into it, and looking to complete by the end of the year. I know that to complete it within 4 years I have to work extremely hard for the rest of this year.
I don’t feel that I need to learn another language for my PhD. In my experience there have been a total of 2 papers that I have wanted to read which have been in languages other than English. I don’t think that either of those 2 papers (out of the 400+ I’ve read) would have changed much in my thesis.
I am doing a PhD because of the love of knowledge, and to be honest, I haven’t really thought seriously about what I’ll do next. I would like to become an academic, but I would not be heartbroken if I did not – it’s a hard life. I think I have a reasonably good knowledge of my particular field, which is multidisciplinary, and I’m reasonably comfortable tutoring both a first year genetics course (I’m quite sick of Punnett squares now) and a third year ‘history and philosophy of psychology’ class (which is mostly philosophy of mind stuff – last week’s tutorial was on medieval philosophers).
I completely agree with Mark that the 3.5 years is ridiculous – the only people who complete their PhDs in 3.5 years, in my experience (all 2 of them out of the dozen people I know who’ve finished a PhD) are people who aren’t doing theoretically based topics, or people who do extensions of their honours thesis. PhD should be about theory, people who do a research project based on someone else’s theory aren’t quite as PhDy. I wish I had more time having a scholarship than I do, and, in particular, the scholarship running out next month (as it does for me) is an added strain to the pressure to compete within a certain time, because when we should be focusing on finishing, we have to take on more teaching work (if available) or start worrying about sources of funding, etc etc.
There are several people in my research centre who have the ARC-linked industry-funded scholarships, and probably half of them have had bad experiences – two of them quit the PhD about a year in. This was, in some cases, partly because of the different things that the industry, the supervisor(s), and the students wanted from the PhD. The industry may not like PhD work that might be critical of them (if done honestly), and the things the industry wants may be unrealistic in terms of the state of knowledge in the field and in terms of what a PhD is, though this may not be clear until some time into the PhD. Where the industry has a clearer idea of what psychology is, and what it can achieve, this hasn’t been a problem.
My girlfriend also does a PhD, at Mark Bahnisch’s university, in quite a different field to me. She has found that, while her supervisors are very encouraging and/or knowledgeable, she is basically the only PhD student in the faculty, and so she doesn’t have the strong research culture that I do behind her. It’s quite lonely for her, and because of budgetary/space constraints she doesn’t really have a room to herself to study in at the university and so she subsequently spends most of her time at home and gets cabin fever every so often. She strongly believes that what she is doing is important, and she’s smart and self-motivated and so forth, so she’ll work her way through it, but if she had much less motivation or much less academic self-esteem, it would start to become very difficult.
Just on the language issue, back in the day, matriculation to UQ to do an arts degree required a foreign language to senior level. David makes a reasonable point about Spivak, but there is real value in reading Derrida in French. And Foucault suffers from execrable translation (it’s good to hear that the estate is now allowing new translations). But many who have the skill to read French (or German or Hindi or whatever) don’t have the skill to do their own translation. As Dr Cat alluded above, translation is an incredibly problematic art, and the politics of translation (as well as the reception of authors outside their own context) is fraught.
Tim, thanks for the comment.
I’m not sure I agree wholly – but they should be more than a straightforward review literature, formulate hypothesis, gather data, discuss implications exercise. That’s an honours thesis, but even an honours thesis in social science should make some sort of theoretical contribution – if only to comment intelligently on the theoretical assumptions being employed.
Incidentally, honours theses are being rethought at many Universities (including at least one Go8 sandstone I’m aware of) to radically reduce the scope and the word length. Reducing the rigour and depth of honours has a flow on approach to the PhD.
And some universities offer “PhD by publication” which really means academics without PhDs get to claim one based on journal articles so the university can up its stats on doctorally qualified academics.
On research culture, I can see that it would be a big problem in a more vocational faculty, but in research oriented universities in traditional faculties, it can be massively dysfunctional as well. Someone above suggested that students be required to attend research seminars. At one place I worked, most academics didn’t attend them, and then when encouraged to attend student seminars used them (quite unethically in my view) to take potshots at each other by proxy in factional/disciplinary/methodological wars. In others, even though there are active researchers there are just no seminars at all or they’re very poorly attended – that may be because the disciplines in the school don’t fit well in any sense with each other, it may be that the active researchers are never there as they’re always off working on industry projects or enjoying overseas trips and other perks, or it may be complete apathy. Or, as with the example I gave before, I’ve seen them dropped because they just got so nasty no one wanted them to continue. Fostering a research culture even where one should be expected is much more difficult than some suppose.
And the problems identified with industry PhDs are spot on.
My undergraduate degree had no such requirement, Mark. I wish that it had! I was convinced of my own hopelessness with languages doing high school Japanese, and was surrounded by people who were monolingual and didn’t value languages enough to encourage me in that direction. My multilingual partner set me straight on this point, and the imperative to learn is strong, but I’ve found that doing a PhD is not a good context for language acquisition when the imperative/support are not forthcoming from the institution.
This was back before my day, Adam. I think they got rid of the language requirement for doing an Arts degree in the 70s. It was a faint echo of the Oxbridge Latin/Greek requirement.
Oh, and anyone will tell you the earlier you learn another language the better. But on Antonio’s points, it’s very rare for anyone to attain genuine multilingualism unless they live in a multilingual environment. Think of the Bollywood movies where people switch at random between Hindi and English in the same sentence. That’s multilingualism.
I’m really conscious of my good fortune re: research culture. My current context has regular research seminars for postgrads, and regular open seminars with visiting academics that postgrads and academics are supposed to attend. In the past there have been problems in some of these, but there has been a really good run, especially this year, and attendance has been excellent. There’s a real sense of an active research community with links to people from lots of other contexts. I’ve met plenty of other PhD candidates without such a resource to draw on.
I’m very conscious that it’s a case of ‘the earlier the better’. I’m hoping for Portugese this summer, if I can possibly afford it.
Mark,
I completely agree with you. I was using multilingualism to mean having some degree of functional facility in more than one language.
Fair enough, Antonio.
Adam,
Speaking as a Portuguese, I cannot recommend the portuguese language more highly! It’s a pretty tough language though compared to Spanish and there are also significant dialect differences between Brazilian and European Portuguese.
Melhor da sorte!
I’ve been tempted too, Antonio, because I’d like to spend some time in Brazil. Is it difficult to pick up from the pov of a French speaker?
Well it’s easier to go from Portuguese to French (hence why so many Portuguese live in France I guess!) and the system of grammar (particularly the verb) is more “full” than French. But that said, I reckon any romance language is a good gateway to another. A good couple of weeks of Teach Yourself Portuguese with accompanying CD will be more than enough for a French speaker to start to get the swing of it. The biggest problem for a French speaker is the lexicon of portuguese which has a higher proportion of words of Arabic origin.
Most problems alluded to in this thread seem to come down to the obvious (i.e., not enough Higher Education funding), don’t they?
I think the PhD should make a substantial theoretical contribution, at least – it doesn’t necessarily have to be making a completely new theory, but it would have to extend the theory or conclusively disprove a theory, introduce a new empirical method, or argue against methodology/etc. As others have said, the problem with shorter PhDs is that the student has less time to work on the theory and (at least where I am) is pressured to figure that out very quickly and start doing empirical work very quickly – as a result the theoretical contribution is often less than it could be.
PhD by publication isn’t necessarily a bad idea in some ways – at least more than 5 people are likely to read the student’s work. Honours theses being dumbed down is a bad idea in most ways.
Research seminars are a great idea where they work, in a faculty which is relatively closeknit, with a good atmosphere (my research centre), they do broaden your world a little bit, get you to engage theoretically with others. I imagine that where they’re not appreciated or abused they’re not worth the time or effort.
My university has basically decided to concentrate its research funding/attention on a few research centres which it believes are doing world class work, and where I am happens to be one of those centres (certainly people paid more attention to me at international conferences because of where I came from, so they’re right on that account). I guess that’s one way of dealing with limited funding.
Antonio, I believe you when you say Portuguese is tough. I look forward to the challenge. My partner is fluent in Spanish (complete with slightly out of date Central American slang), can speak passable French and can follow conversations in Italian, but struggles a bit with spoken Portuguese. Written is not as bad for her, I think, apart from a few words here and there. I’m conscious of the differences re: Brazilian and European Portuguese. They parallel some of the not-insubstantial differences between the various Spanishes. I think I will learn what is readily available to begin with, and go from there. Probably European at first.
Well, I agree Antonio – Portuguese is a great language. I would go so far as to say its the most beautiful language on the planet for song.
However, I find Portuguese extremely bloody difficult to learn. And I speak Spanish quite well.
I can read it ok – its the pronunciation when spoken that flummoxes me.
All those xsshhhh, oooooo, and awwwnnnngg sounds.
Reading a few more of these comments is making me realise how well supported some of the students are in my little corner of the university.
All phd candidates are on some form of scholarship/funding arrangement. I currently share an office (as an honours student) with 5 PhD students and another honours student. We have another 5 phd students across the hall, and supervisors and other post-docs further down the hall. There are regular colloquia and seminars to attend. Conferences are encouraged and generally well attended. (I’m even given a talk in Nov at a local student orientated conference as an honours student!)
In addition, being part of an Australian Research Centre means that you definitely feel part of a team and there is a lot of funding available. (just be nice to the US backers…)
It’s also worth pointing out that Melbourne Uni will essentially not have any honours programs in a few years, as it will mostly move to masters by coursework under the Melbourne Model. Which will then lead onto PhD where applicable.
(I assume melbourne is not the ‘Sandstone’ that Marks referred to above.)
Although never a PhD student, I did spend part of my somewhat raggedy professional career working as a research officer for CAPA, the national postgraduate student association.
German students advise me forcefully zat ze German model iz ze vay to go. Sadly, I can add nothing more. We’ll just leave that hanging.
From my little acquaintance with them, I remember CAPA politics as being even more confused and confusing than NUS politics!
Yes, I agree, Tim. I wasn’t sure what you meant by “about theory”.
No, it’s one a bit closer to my home, Michael, without giving it away entirely!
Mark, CAPA looked very odd to me when I was VP of the Sydney Uni Postgrad association in 2000-2001.
I used to get really bored when Jack Ford explained the ins and outs of it.
So did I, and I was his successor in the job! I once had to host a CAPA national conference at UQ. From memory, I rather
disgraceddistinguished myself with my non-attendance at sessions.But hey, I seem the recall it was one of those new love, honeymoon periods. Plus CAPA was
dull as f*ckquite capable of looking after itself.Erm, CK, what years was you in it?
If memory serves, Lefty E, Jack resigned to finish his own interminable PhD did he not?
I had him as a tutor in American history as well.
Poor bloke – he was unlucky enough to run for the unwinnable state seat of Toowong the election before Labor could have actually taken it off the strangely named Denver Beanland in 89!
Memory’s a bit hazy, LE, but it would have been around 86-90. And Mark is absolutely right about the politics. I could never figure them out either. I do have a good yarn about two particularly overweight, not particularly big on personal hygiene, eternal PhD students collapsing the suspension of a VW, though.
And Denver only won Toowong in ’89 by a whisker. Does CAPA still exist?
Oh ok… Im more yer 91-2 vintage CK.
Tim Byron
The points you make are all very valid. Firstly, Sydney University’s Psychology and Neuroscience are excellent. Also, the issues being discussed on this thread apply much more to the humanities than to the sciences. You are right in arguing foreign languages are marginal to the sciences.
To the person above who said languages are not crucial for Mathematics. You are correct in that the language being used IS Mathematics.
Adam/David
The idea that you can be a scholar in the humanities with only English is hilarious. Newsflash, art, literature and culture did not appear like Athena from the head of Zeus when the Anglosphere was born! If English were your only language, you would be like a paraplegic aiming for the Olympic swimming team.
If your only language is English, you would rarely be in a position to undertake any meaningful research in the humanities. Art, literature, and culture are far, far too deep to be researched using merely a Johnnie-Come-Lately language like English. English is a mogrel language. If you do not know even one of Latin, Greek, French, or German, you might as well apply for a job in a call centre.
Not only have French, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Persians, Chinese been producing literary works, philosophical treatises, medical texts, encyclopedias, court records, legislation, religious texts, and on and on for millenia, but humanities academics publish great books and articles in every language under the sun.
And that’s before we even begin to consider visual texts.
This thread has been fantastic as I’m strongly considering doing a PhD in History. I know, I should manifest my midlife crisis in other ways – the red sports car, the 20-year-old mistress, etc. – but perhaps it’s like acting, don’t do it unless there’s absolutely nothing else you can do.
In Australia? Are there opportunities for Australian PhDs overseas, however monolingual? How highly regarded are Australian PhDs?
John, you’re a postmodernist from way back – no proof could convince you otherwise. For a start, nobody anywhere has “fluence” (or if they do, I suspect they’d keep quiet about it and seek medical treatment).
I shall let this gem’s irony speak for itself.
Yes, that playful jouissance is one of the signs of the postmodernist. Along with a third nipple.
John, your post is filled with lots of jibber jabber. Those who specialise in English-speaking humanities of the 200 years have no need for non-English languages. Simple.
Ooo you can name lots of languages. But why do you suddenly become much better the moment you know one or two? and which ones should they be? Surely knowing 10 would be better than 5, which would be better than 2, which would be better than 0. But I fail to see how at any point there emerges a categorical difference, eg. between knowing 0 and 1. How can good humanities research abruptly shift from IMPOSSIBLE to POSSIBLE at that magic point? It’s quite a silly argument, with no conceptual logic other than as a mechanism for those who are desperate for cultural capital dividends from their expensive but intangible educational investments.
I can see why John is so obsessed with other languages.
Your point being, Kim?
Came to this late as usual. I’ve done an MSc (research) and am doing a PhD in history. And dropped out of a PhD in physics. I don’t think there is anything wrong with the structure of the research PhD; I think writing an ~80,000 word research thesis necessarily teaches you a lot of skills. Personally, I’m loving the PhD (just past 2 years in), it’s not killing the subject for me (which is what happened in physics). But I do have concerns about the research culture in the humanities here.
I’m currently in London doing research in the archives, and taking the opportunity to meet with other historians and students, and there’s a degree of intensity here that is missing back home (at least in the circles I move in). Students in the humanities in Australia seem to be left to sink or swim in terms of broadening their horizons; if there isn’t a critical mass of other researchers with cognate interests around, it can be hard to do. (Which is why I’m very glad I’m blogging the PhD …) And unlike in the physical sciences, where you get shoved into an office or lab with the other students in your research group, in the humanities (history anyway) it’s a much more solitary experience, even in a big department. (I have very little idea who my supervisor’s other students even are, let alone what they’re researching.)
So … I’m not disillusioned about my PhD, it’s great fun and well worth doing, but if I were to do it over I’d also VERY strongly consider going overseas for it!
You cannot do serious research in my field of the humanities (Ancient History) without a reading knowledge of French and German. It is, indeed, simply impossible. Only a handful of books in, say, German, get translated and they’re the dudes doing a lot of the heavy lifting, research and theory wise. Journals in the field will publish French, German and English language articles next to each other in the one issue. For much of the rest of the world this going from one to another is normal, its just native English speakers who get all lazy and freaked out about it.
Well, I guess I’m out of a job then. Mr Greenfield has spoken.
Hang on. Bob Dylan’s not THAT old, is he?
I wish. But you’ve given me an idea, tavarish. If I put those tickets from last week down as a tax deduction, do you think anyone would notice?
I have no idea what JG is talking about. In my field, it’s very easy to get by with English alone … since my (broad) field is modern British history, this shouldn’t be too surprising! Of course there are a very few things in other languages that I’d like to read, but nothing I need to read. And of course it’s different in other fields. But as a blanket assertion, the idea that “The idea that you can be a scholar in the humanities with only English is hilarious” is hilarious.
I don’t see why not. It’s not like your interest is amateurish. Deeply-disturbed-stalkerish, maybe, but definitely professional.
Actually, I’d be amazed if the Bobster doesn’t depreciate himself for tax porpoises. I’m sure tax auditors are really into self-deprecation.
“The idea that you can be a scholar in the humanities with only English is hilarious.”
Utter bullshit.
Being bilingual may be essential for some areas, and useful in others, but it’s not essential for every field. I have a PhD, have taught and worked in the humanities for over 10 years and there are a stack of great scholars (many of world repute) who are monolingual.
By the same token, I can’t tell you how many ‘scholars’ I’ve met who claim to know any number of languages, but seem to have a problem with basic comprehension in their native tongue.
Horses for courses. Stop being so stuck-up about it.
“The idea that you can be a scholar in the humanities with only English is hilarious.”
I’m still amazed by this. Postgrad study is elite, but there’s no need to act like a wanker about it.
I’m about 6 months from submitting my APAI funded PhD in law and have to say my experience could not have been more positive – definitely the way to go – more money and more support generally. I have had amazing support and supervision and have not had a problem which a previous poster referred to of landing a dull topic (I had published an article on the topic for my masters so was au fait with it).
For the record on the multilingual thing – I can speak German (professional translator) and some French and Spanish. But how much help have they been with a thesis on sentencing in Tasmania? Not a lot. Assuming that learning other languages is the key to a good thesis is just bizarre.
happy writing everyone.
David
As I am the one making the argument on this thread, I presume you are accusing me of only wishing to cash in on my ‘cultural capital’ amassed from my ‘expensive but intangible educational investments.’
1. I have not really made any expensive educational investments. My high school education was free, as all Australian public high schools are. My university education has been largely free, save a relatively modest accumulated HECS debt.
2. Foreign languages instruction is accessible by just about all Australian high school students. As far as I am aware, some foreign language study in compulsory in Years 7 and 8, and the HSC offers an extraordinary range of foreign language options.
3. All universities have a raft of beginners language courses. I can totally understand people choosing subjects other than foreign languages for their BA. My point is that at the Ph.D level, serious scholarly work in the humanities would be disadvantaged if your only language was English.
I, myself, for any practical purpose am only fluent in English, but I just take for granted that OF COURSE I will need a few other languages to complete a coherent and incisive Ph.D. I have basic High School French and have been teaching myself bits of Greek and Latin as they present themselves.
Brett
I am not trying to tell you how to do your Ph.D. If you say you do not need foreign languages I believe you. My point is not that you need foreign languages for every single TOPIC you might explore during your scholarly career, rather to be productive as a humanities scholar, you must have more than just English.
Even in your own field of modern British history, having only English must restrict you. Given that until the 19th century, English polite society preferred french to english, and from the 18th century right up until the 1960s, the Civil Service exam was in Greek and Latin. any scholar engaging with British imperial administration from the eighteenth century until WW2 would be seriously hindred by ignorance of the culture created by French and English speaking Mandarins, whose correspondences, policy documents, and cutural values were shaped by Homer, Aristophanes, Herodotus, Julius Ceasar and Virgil!
Jobby
See above on the false idea that acquiring language skills is somehow “elite.” As we have been discussing on this thread, foreign language courses are compulsory in American Ph.D programs. As Amanda points out, an American university will not even look at an Ancient/Medieval History Ph.D candidate if they do not have French, german, and Latin when they apply, and then they will have to pick up Greek during the coursework.
Actually being able to speak foreign languages is useless in humanities scholarship if you cannot READ the languages. That is what is important. A girl I know has parents from Lebanon and Iran. Her parents are fluent in Arabic, Farsi, and French. My friend speaks Arabic at home all the time, but she has never learnt to read and write it. While she can listen to SBS radio programs, she cannot read the local Arabic press.
lorana
Law is not part of the humanities. Though again, one wonders why there are Ph.D programs in Law?
Why does “one” wonder that? The answer is obvious.
A few points on all this.
*This elite schools business is a red herring. I went to a state school myself, as did many other people I know who came out of high school with at least some French and sometimes German as well. But in several decades of observing several different universities, I don’t think any of them have ever made a second language, already acquired, a prerequisite. And I don’t think anyone here has argued that they do or should, have they? The university I went to offered first-year crash courses in basic French, German and Italian for anyone who was hoping to go on to English Honours and needed them as prerequisites to do so. Or you could take Old and Middle English, which was the alternative. It had nothing to do with private schools (and God knows I’ve got no love for the private-school ethos myself).
*It did, however, have everything to do with what was then an Honours degree (much less an MA or PhD) in literature — not in communications, or media, or creative writing, or cultural studies: literature. Most of which had been written by and for people who could speak at least two languages (always French, sometimes others as well) and assumed their readers would do likewise. As someone who has had to teach T.S. Eliot’s ‘The Waste Land’ and Charlotte Bronte’s Villette (just to mention two) many times over the last few decades I can assure you I would have been completely stuffed without French. (That’s the answer to that question up-thread about 20thC American and 19thC British lit, by the way.)
*Again, referring to literature in particular: there’s no more effective way to learn how any language works than to get your head around a second one. Not to mention the extra opportunities for reading other literatures as they were written.
*The monolingual can by definition have no conception of how useful a second language is until they have acquired one.
*Some years ago I was asked to go and visit a class of 16-year-olds in an Austrian high school and talk to them about Australia. Their English was uniformly excellent, which was just as well as my German is hopeless. In Europe it’s a given that any literate, educated person will speak two or more languages as a matter of course. These are the people with whom one will eventually be in competition for international academic jobs.
*If you want an academic job any time in the future then it’s probably better not to go around publicly proclaiming on the internet the uselessness of linguistic, or indeed any other kind of, knowledge.
Quelle surprise infinie. Il n’y aura aucun couper-coller pour toi!
I love the way those with pretensions to erudition wank on about the necessity of multilingualism without possessing a fucking clue on the subject.
John Greenfield, thou art a prize wally.
Je pense qu’il a mangé toute la pâte de toute façon.
Bob
That may well be the case, but at least I am able to read what others actually post rather than respond to what they have not posted.
On espère que c’était seulement pâte sur ses doigts gluants…
O rly? Did you or did you not post the following:
What YOU SAID is that you:
a) don’t speak or read another language; and
b) don’t have a PhD.
Do you have a fucking clue on the necessity or not of multilingualism for PhDs?
No, of course you don’t.
Ew.
Yeah well. LOTE is theoretically compulsory in NSW but I personally did not do one second of it in 12 years of schooling, our school (Jennifer Hawkins’ alma mater too. Just one of the many things we have in common) being on the official DoE “disadvantaged” list and thus we got an exemption. Says so on my School Certificate. Low expectations, soft bigotry, swept under lino etc etc and so on. When I was in Yr 8 the school library sold all its old French books from a happier time and I bought them with my lunch money *hello? does someone want to buy the rights here? Sure fire Oprah book club pick* for 5 cents each.
So rilly. If anyone gets to sloganise on about the unfairness of what thems with an elite education got over the likes of me it is me and I say: just get me drunk, and I damn well will. In the meantime, its not an excuse to pitch a fit at the idea you’re missing out on alot when you confine yourself to what is written in English, quite apart from the question of what is required for a phD. Just in life generally. It is the single best thing for your own intellectual improvement you can do. I.M.H.O.
Get thee to a WEA-ery.
Ð?а зеÌ?Ñ?кало неÌ?Ñ?а пенÑ?Ì?Ñ?Ñ?, коÌ?ли Ñ?оÌ?жа кÑ?иваÌ?.
Bob
Sorry, but you are going to have to try again; the logic you are currently using does not compute. The proposition beign discussed is how essential mastery of languages other than English is to humanities scholarship.
Greensleeves, I’m not sure you’re even mastering English.
You’re the one suffering from illogic, Mini-J. You said I was responding to something you had not posted; I showed you exactly what it was in your post that prompted my response.
Now, Mini-J, your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to attempt an argument substantiated by more than the stupid assumption of an uninformed tosser.
Ð?олодеÑ?, Ð?олÑ?.
You know, Howard canning the Asian language program in schools in his first term was an early sign of what a visionless US-centric dipstick he would turn out to be.
Even Peter Hendy criticises that one.
Olvida investigaciones academicas!… La realidad es que nunca has vivido hasta que has disfrutado una noche de amor dulce, conducido solamente en Castellano.
“Conducido”?
Es la primera vez que oigo a alguien llamáselo así. ¿Cómo lo haces tú, izquierdista?
I suppose when you gotta drive, you gotta drive.
Pie al piso, Liamista!
Ay, tu sabes, como ‘suceda’, o algo.
Cabron.
Bah.
“llamándolo”.
Yo no queria decir, pero…
Amanda
Well isn’t this a coincidence. I also went to shitty public High School that was on the disadvantaged schools list. I was actually the student representative on the committee that decided what to do with it. But I did French until Year 10. They didn’t offer it at HSC as I was the only one interested. I passed on the offer of 2 Unit Z Indonesian. Salamat pagi?. Eeeeewww. I don’t think so. Quelle horreur!.
So to all those above whingeing “oh boo hoo, capitalism is unfair. Only GPS kids would ever have the opportunity to learn another language, therefore we must destroy the history of civilisation so that us poor petals from public schools can play too” I say, grow up. You live in Australia, not Malawi. If you are ignorant and you want to become a Humanities scholar, get off your buns, use some initiative and learn!
It really is just sickening the way some of these people carry on, “oh boo hoo, John Howard stole my life.”
ã?«ã??ã??ã??ã?¤ã?¹ã??ã?¯ã?°ã??ã?¯ã?ªã??ã?¦ã??ã?¾ã??ã??ï¼?
ã??ã?£ã?±ã??ã?ï¼?
Thats easy for you to say Anthony.
Well, well, y’all shall have to bone up on “Yankee” if you wish to pursude a Ph.D at Sydney Uni.’s new $50 million United States Studies Centre where a Mr. Kim Beazley M.H.R. will be sitting on its Board of Directors.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22295870-12332,00.html
Luvvies, of course, will join His Luvvieness Robert Manne in cats-bumming, “I don’t like it.” Culture warriors of the bourgeois left are invited to undertake intensive languages in Luvvie-Speak before pursiong a demanding reasearch program in “Genocide, Orientalism, and the Other,” at that humanities powerhouse La Trobe University, Dunny Do, Victoria.
Don’t bother with French, German, Greek, Latin, Arabic, or Turkish.
My school was not “shitty.” I have great memories of wonderful teachers and particular classes I remember well to this day, 15 years later. They did the best with what they had.
Anyhow:
nxt pw grt ir m xpS.f
pr-a nn twt.n.f
mAA.tw.f hA.f r-pDt
Xam.f r-Daw
waf ab pw sgnn drwt
n Ts.n xrwy.f skw
ia-Hr pw tSb wpwt
n aHa.n.tw m hAw.f
pd nmtwt pw sti.f bhAw
nn pHwy n dd-n.f-sA
aHa-ib pw m At sAsA
anw pw n rdin.f sA.f
wmt-ib pw mAA.f aSAt
n rdi.n.f Hms HA ib.f
Yes, not really the language for a wanker like you.
And your ‘shitty’ public high school probably lost much of its shitiness after you left.
n wHm.n.f a r Xdb
(nn wn rwi aHAw.f nn itH pDt.f)
bhA pDt Xr-HAt.f mi bAw n wrt
aHA.f xmt.f pHwy
n sA.n.f nn spt
Copy cat.
But a good part of the encomium for you.
If I’d been offered Indonesian I would have taken it like a shot.
PC
I would have also in different circumstances. In the 1980s 2 Unit Z courses were scaled down due to the generally lower average academic standards of kids taking it. I was much more into Maths.
Well, this is now a different argument than before: it’s not about the practical business of scholarship (i.e., being able to read stuff) but getting into the mindset of somebody who lived in a different time and place than one’s self. But there is still no “must” about it. I’m not interested in polite society, the civil service or Imperial administration. My period is the first half of the twentieth century; my sources are (mainly) printed materials aimed at the British public (mostly the middle class, but above and below too); they are entirely in English, free even from the annoying (to the monoglot) habit of quoting slabs of French or Latin and assuming that the reader will be able to read it.
Certainly, some, even most, of my most important writers had a public school education and had three or four languages, some of them dead, stuffed into their heads. No doubt it had an effect on the way they thought. But they nearly all also began their careers in the Army and then the Air Force. That would have had a huge influence on their cultural values too; the services think and operate rather differently to civilians (as I can attest having just spent a couple of days on a RAF base surrounded by air force brass). Does this mean I need to have been in the military myself in order to study them? If so, the whole project of history is doomed from the start. One would have to have been both a slave-owner and a slave to study slavery in 19th century America, have grown up in a world where heliocentricity is an amusing notion to study the Copernican revolution, or bayonetted somebody in the gut to understand trench warfare in the First World War. You can never perfectly recreate the world of the past; you’re always going to miss out on something — in fact, rather a lot of things. I do not in the least deny that having such knowledge would be handy; I do deny that it is essential to doing history.
FWIW, I did actually do Latin (and German) in high school. I can’t say it’s been terribly useful in my present studies. I’m not sure it would have been particularly useful even if I had been interested in the Colonial Office. What might have been is all the (wholly extracurricular) reading I’ve done in English about classical history. That’s taught me far more about Julius Caesar than I ever got from Latin class … which is my point. Sometimes, it’s okay to rely on secondary sources. If it wasn’t … well, there are only so many hours in the day, days in the week, weeks in the year, years in the PhD. One can’t actually know everything that might possibly be useful or relevant, so one has to prioritise. For me as a historian of Britain, being able to read Greek, Latin, French, etc, are way down the list.
For the record, I’m not at all proud that I’m only fluent in English (well, that and FORTRAN — though even that’s getting a bit rusty now), and I deeply admire scholars who are fluent in two or more languages and, what’s more, can master the primary and secondary literature in all of them. And I do think it’s great advice to learn more languages if you can. It’s just not actually necessary in order to make serious contributions to scholarship in all areas of the humanities.
It’s meaningless blather like this that makes anything you might have to say worth ignoring in principle, JG.
Well said Brett.
I think this idea that you must have two or more languages to do a humanities phd, or that it ought to be a requirement, regardless of what your thesis is about, is indicative of a very basic misunderstanding of what a phd actually is, entails, and represents. An Australian phd is granted in acknowledgment of a substantial and original contribution to knowledge. It’s in recognition of the document, not of the educational acquirements of the person who produced it.
If your phd topic requires knowledge of multiple languages you will need to have that knowledge. If it doesn’t require that knowledge, the thesis examiners will have no way of discovering which languages you do or don’t have competencies in, aside from the language the thesis is written in, of course.
As Brett says fluency in multiple languages is an excellent attribute and I would add it’s probably a fairly fundamental element of a good education. But it is not necessary for the writing of a phd thesis. By the same token I would disagree very strongly with the implied idea that holding a phd is the mark of a person whose education is complete. It is not. It is not even necessarily the mark of a particularly well educated individual.
The second issue then is whether phd by thesis alone is as intellectually worthwhile as a phd by coursework and thesis and other requirements including linguistic proficiencies. I disagree with the claim that the American system is inherently better than ours because it involves coursework. I think there are problems with both and good things about both, but I prefer the Australian model. Under this and the Scottish model it is very difficult to forget that while you (should) know a great deal about a few closely connected topics, you actually don’t know everything about everything. I have met a lot of American PhDs in my discipline who seem to me to have very limited ideas of the scope and depth and breadth of our field; they sometimes appear to think that they covered everything of any importance in their classes in Graduate School. At least with the phd by thesis you don’t tend to underestimate the complexity of subjects you are not yourself a specialist in.
Prodistas may be interested in the reserach blog of Mary-Helen Ward who is using blogging as part of her PhD on completing a PhD. She has a knitting one too, which is nice, don’t you think?
At ANU when I was an undergraduate no second languages were required for honours in history, English or law, but art historians were expected to speak/read French or Italian. I’ve mentioned before I speak Portuguese, which is a joyously pointless language. LE is right, the sound of it is unmatched – with the possible exception of Egyptian Arabic which has a similar zhjsh sound. ahhh
And one last thing – John Greenfield you, sir, are a gherkin. The weird thing is you seem to like it that way.
“The monolingual can by definition have no conception of how useful a second language is until they have acquired one.”
I disagree with this PC. It is very clear to me how useful a second language will be, and I am functionally monolingual (for the time being at least). Now, I’m sure there are wonderful things about multilingualism I have yet to discover, but I can not agree that I have ‘no conception’.
“By the same token I would disagree very strongly with the implied idea that holding a phd is the mark of a person whose education is complete. It is not. It is not even necessarily the mark of a particularly well educated individual.”
Agreed, Laura. The day my education is complete is also the day I die.
A language other than English has not been necessary during the course of my PhD. However, I do feel personally that it is necessary for me to learn at least one other language in order that I become a well-rounded human being. These are different, if sometimes related, things.
I had to write a letter in Portuguese today Zoe!
Process was:
- wrote it in English
- Babelfished it to Portuguese
- decrazified the resulting Luso-babble through the lens of my more passable Spanish
Think it worked. Just dont ask me to say any of it.
PS I wouldnt say 3rd most widely spoken European language is pointless. More speakers than French or German!
Hmm. In the attempt to convey my own sense of wonder at the new worlds that open up before one when a new language begins to dawn on one, I suppose I may indeed have been a tad hyperbolic. Apologies.
Learning another language has been a great education for me. For starters, the immanent sense of superiority one tends to have as a native English speaker (other people learn ours, hegemonic tongue) gets rather shaken: many other languages tend to make a lot more sense.
Ours is friggin crazy – no grammatical consistency, pronunciation all over the shop, irregular verbs are practically in the majority, “keep” and “get” mean about 50 different things each.
Dont get me wrong, I like it, and English’s main strength is flexibility, diversity and its status as a bridge between latin and germanic worlds make it a quite good choice for a hegemon tongue.
But I have to say – Id hate to have to learn the f*cker as an adult. Blimey! Rules really help a second language learner, and English is bizarro world accretive nightmare. Its rote learn territory.
I watch my three year old, who speak very well for her age, struggle with standard irregular past tense. “daddy I finded it, daddy I runned here”.
Languages like Spanish dont present such problems. Admittedly, many have crazy tenses whcih are traps for young players, but English must be one of the hardest to get a basic fluency.
Frankly, on a level playing field (ie if much of western culture werent starated with it for historical reasons), you wouldnt pick it as the logical winner.
Sure, PC, understood. Also, I do take your point, I just thought it was a bit overstated.
but English must be one of the hardest to get a basic fluency
I dunno. Any language is a challenge to learn as an adult, English would be middling I reckon. Complicating factors in English include weirdo spellings, a vocab range much bigger than many other languages, rigid word order, grasping the nuance of unique tenses etc.
OTOH, we dispensed with gender and (largely) declension and conjugation and that makes a lot of positive difference in getting a basic grasp on the thing.
I have had about three Arabic lessons and I’m finding the spoken aspect pretty simple – I’m sure thats misleading and massive drama is on its way.
Amanda, I heard this on Radio National the other day. You might find it relevant (I thought it was fascinating – very insightful, even though I’ve no interest in learning Arabic!).
Tony, the spaminator has suddenly developed an affection for you. I despaminated both comments and then deleted the second. Hopefully that way it will learn that you are not a threat to humanity.
Some would say the Spaminator shows rare good judgement – my wife, for example, and my teenage daughter… thanks, Brian.
PC
A while ago I wrote a paper on the extent to which homosexuality – as we know it today – existed in ancient Greece. With a very basic exposure to Latin under my belt, I slowly started teaching myself a bit of Greek. The power that gave me even when I was reading modern sources, such as Foucault, was quite amazing.
When writing another paper of late archaic and Classical Greek attitudes towards ‘the east’ I taught myself a bit more Greek and a bit more Latin. The quality of my engagement with modern sources was a galaxy away from what I might have achieved, without getting even basic Greek and latin under my belt.
However, there was very important scholarship in German and French that has not been translated into English as yet. Relying on other scholars’ commentary just would not have worked for me. There have been a couple of occasions when my basic French combined with basic Greek and Latin has opened up huge windows, particularly when cofronted with concepts such as l’autre, differance, etc.
Even being exposed to the notion of an inflected language really opens your eyes about your own language.
The issue is not whether some state schools have good language education or whether all state schools have some. It is simply the fact that elite schools are far more *likely* to have good programs. This will have a statistical consequence in terms of the people who get admitted. When I said cultural capital investment, I didnâ??t only mean financial cost, I also meant time investment, opportunity cost etc.
Studying a language at uni will reduce the number of other subjects you can take in other areas, and unless you do a whole major in languages, you probably wonâ??t get good enough to use it for scholarly purposes anyway. While useful, I donâ??t think it is worth *that* much once you factor in opportunity cost. Imagine if all that time had have been dedicated to oneâ??s research focus â?? eg. US literature after 1970.
I don’t think this one was directed at me, but just in case, of course knowing another language is useful. I specifically said that, but I donâ??t think it is essential. People who say it should be essential are the ones who are excluding and delegitimising contribution to knowledge (can’t someone who doesn’t know another language write great papers and books on some field of literature? well that’s what people are saying when they say non-English knowledge should be required for research). By saying it is essential for humanities research, someone is in effect saying “everything my monolingual colleagues write is not up to scratch, and they shouldn’t have gotten their jobs”.
*The monolingual can by definition have no conception of how useful a second language is until they have acquired one.
The atheist can by definition have no conception of how meaningful a relationship with God is until they have acquired one. The logic works for both.
That kind of appeal to personal experience, to an intangible benefit only insiders can understand, is one of the classic tropes of discrimination that are now viewed as invalid in democratic and professional relationships.
Iâ??m the one being inclusive. If someone feels they gain a personal benefit from language knowledge, thatâ??s awesome â?? it will improve their thesis, articles etc. This will help them gain employment. But why have an arbitrary requirement of language knowledge beyond academic output? If it is so beneficial, then it should show itself in the quality of academic output anyway, thereby eliminating the need for an absolutist requirement. I just say let everyone be judged equally according to what they can produce.
Boy, those French: They have a different word for everything!
David
What any of that has to do with the superiority of the American humanities Ph.D model that requires foreign language fluency over the Australian model is not really clear.
Someone who’s in the last throes of her thesis before submitting it sent me the following story about a study of the emotional lives of PhD students and the expectations of “success” and “failure” in the academic world.
I reckon this story would resonate with many current and former PhD students.
Ok debating about the utility of having a foreign language requirement has nothing to do with comparing our system to one with a foreign language requirement… rrrright.
David
But that is not what you have been doing. You have been trying to argue that the history of art, literature, and culture must give way to your fanciful notions of class warfare. David, history, civilisation, art, literature, and culture do not give a jot about the curriculum offerings in this or that Australian public high school. If you wish to be a serious humanities scholar you must learn the tools of the trade.
Not at all John. The whole point is that such a system would bar talent that wasn’t lucky enough to have a good language education, and thereby deprive itself of good scholars.
I’m the one arguing for a meritocracy, rather than an arbitrary requirement for something that supposedly bestows on its holds an intangible benefit no one else can possibly understand. That’s the stuff of the middle ages.
If it has this wonderful, mysterious effect that increases the quality of academic scholarship, multilingual scholars will produce all the best scholarly output anyway. No need to specify a language requirement.
Also John, I specifically stated that it was not *just* a matter of financial investment, but also an investment in time. I argued that it was not an efficient investment for *all* scholars once opportunity cost had been considered. For some it is, but not for all. For example, it wouldn’t be an efficient investment for someone who studies current US literature. Sure, it would confer *some* benefit, but probably not as much if all those hours had been spent in another kind of study – certainly not enough to specify it as an absolute requirement, as opposed to just one of many potentially useful things.
In my experience, the biggest problem scholars face is not insufficient material to research, but rather too much. At some point, scholars have to just stop reading more and more and more and just write their own thing. In my own experience, the struggle is to try to cut off the reading. For this research, a practical limitation in available material could actually be enabling.
I agree about the too much material issue, David. That’s a real problem for a lot of people, including myself. My supervisor’s PhD had 44 items in its bibliography; mine has over six hundred and counting. I can’t say all that reading has much improved what I’ve written.
A second year student asked me today how many items I required in the bibliography of a 1000 word essay mainly focused on close reading of an Austen novel. I said at least two. She looked surprised and said that another of her tutors had said there should always be 10-15 biblio entries per thousand words.
Bored now.
Tough.
And it was Evil Willow who said ‘bored now’ not Buffy. Attribute correctly please. Such things are important.
wow, someone left the door open
sacha, that link you posted is interesting in the way it assumes the myopia of neoliberal careerism. PhDs becoming academics are not judged by the quality of their job, but the quality of their work. If they get different jobs they do different work. This requires different judgement. PhDs who land good positions and turn out shit work should realise there is an over supply of super talented researchers. A shark pool. I would quite frankly feel a failure if I get a job someone and don’t turn out good work. I don’t really care where (or maybe even what) the job is.
Weirdly, the Higher Education editor at the Australian saw my comment on this blog, rang me up and wanted to do a story on me in regard to a follow up to the article Mark posted.
They’re here http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22324208-12332,00.html
and here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22324207-12332,00.html
Strange things can happen when you post on a blog.
What, they didn’t want to interview John Greenfield?
Puta que pariu, as we say in Brazilian Portuguese.
Actually, glen, I find universities have a real eye for quantity these days.
I say that with no joy.
LE’s hot tips for a successful aca career (not that I necessarily have one. Ok, lets say “Non-dud” career):
1. Avoid teaching wherever possible. It will only hold you back.
2. Why publish once, when twice is so easy (see ‘top and tail’ )
3. Dump your PhD area if its holding you back. It was a bore anyway.
4. Get out of the university, find an industry partner, and get an ARC linkage grant. Relatively easy.
5. Promote any and all publications strategically. My philosophy: “well, my work hardly speaks for itself now, does it!”
6. If you’re starting out and short on pubs, run a conference, volunteer to edit best papers into ed book, or refereed conference proceedings. Get a senior aca onboard as a beard, to interest publishers. Too easy.
7. Dont be intimidated. Ever. It aint rocket science.
And dont tell me I never give ya nothin.
Jeez Lefty E, you think running a conference is easy?? You know something I don’t, clearly.
Good point Laura.
Conferences are hard work, but not difficult per se.
Main problem is the acas. Its like herding cats sometimes.
I am afraid there are too many ‘humanities’ Ph.D types here who reveal a frightening provincial philistinism. To all those jumping up and down about their exemption from the hardly controversial truism that decent humanities scholarship is not possible if you only have English, all we can say is that is clear Australia’s status as a humanities backwater is the result of the philistine ‘scholars.’
Good help your students.
As opposed to the controversial truism…
This is wonderful…
You actually consider anything you say to be a ‘hardly controversial truism’?
I think the phrase ‘self-important pompous ass’ is perhaps appropriate here.
It’s possible to be conversant in ten languages, John, and still be regarded as provincial and philistine. Immanuel Kant did not travel far from his birthplace and spoke only one language, yet he is regarded as having made a powerful contribution to the humanities even by those who despise him. By contrast, I have read a great many pretentious and badly-argued articles with bits of merde and scheisse dolloped onto the page in an attempt to make the writer look sophisticated – particularly, it must be said, in Quadrant.
If you can justify sending athletes to Osaka in order to run around and throw things, you can send academics into their equivalents of these events to face up against the world’s best. Mind you, if you were running a seminar on Australian history why would you hold it in Wroclaw or Des Moines or Nanjing?
JG, you’re the git who just keeps gitting.
Liam
You still do not get it. I am not a scholar. This is not about ME, it is about the fact that European and American humanities programs require fluency in a number of languages. In fact, far from ME being “pompous,” blah, blah, blah, my attitude is one of humility at the sheer depth of learning and imagination that are the foundations of decent humanities scholarship. Take potshots at me all you like if that’s what tickles your fancy, but you are also insisting on the superiority of your own wisdom against the wisdom of the world’s greatest universities.
What’s that again about gits and gitting?
Andrew E
WTF? Kant learnt Latin and Greek from the age of six. He was a Koine (New Testament Greek) scholar before turning to mathematics, physics, then philosophy. Oh, for Australian humanities Ph.D’s to have the monolingualism of Kant!
Um … not that I’ve ever witnessed.
In terms of engaging with other living scholars, my point stands.
I fail to see how learning Latin and Greek magically makes you a better scholar unless you are specifically a classicist. Doctors used to be forced to learn Latin as well, and the old guard resisted the change, believing Latin to be absolutely crucial. There’s just no sense to the argument.
Oh noes! First I learn from John that
Now he tells me that it’s a
Before, at least there was a chance that I might be able to undertake ‘meaningful’ research, small though it might be. But now I don’t have a hope of producing even ‘decent’ research. I’d better stop reading this thread before I find out that my thesis will actually subtract from the sum total of human knowledge!
(Although …)
I’m examining a rather boring and repetitive PhD as we speak.
Hope its not yours!
Although, to be fair, maybe its just the sheer length of it. Jeebus. No one should have to read these!!
They really oughta come with an exec summary.
Err, Lefty E isn’t the introduction meant to be the executive summary?
Yup Brett, your doctoral thesis is doomed because you can’t read Giulio Douhet in the original Italian.
Though not quite as razed to the ground as the proposal I made to you.
At 6000 words, it needed one too.
Im talking five dot points here!
Adam Gall (and other revolutionary types)
I thought of you last night (don’t worry, this post doesn’t end in a Glen Close moment
during a debate a few of us were having about Kevin Donnelly’s continual prattling about the high school English curricula being stolen by ‘postmodernists, feminists, marxists.’ I argued I doubt this very much. Basically, very few teachers nowadays would ever have been exposed to Marx at uni.
Now, correct me if I am wrong, but from what you have posted on LP, you are in your mid-20s writing a Ph.D. Hence, I said to my interlocoturs, “I’ll check with my very dear friend Adam Gall!”
Anyhoo,
1. How many of your peers/friends would describe their academic framework/politics as “Marxist.” I don’t mean some vegan pussy “structuralist” or “progressive,” I mean real red-meat and potatoes eating, burping, farting, “Marxist.”
2. Do any Humanities/Social Science academics actually even teach from a dedicated Marxist perspective nowadays? Back in my day, when I first started getting a clue in the 1980s, Marxism was very common among historians, sociologists, pol.sci, even many economists.
I was very much a Marxist, read Capital, and analysed everything first and foremostly from the workplace upwards.
3. For example, when you attend Ph.D seminars when you give your colleagues a taste of what you are researching and what methodologies you are using, does anybody say ‘I am approaching xyz from the persepective of dialectical/historical materialism. In particular I am looking data/responses to/strategies about the tendency for the average rate to fall and the impact this has on blah, blah, blah.”
4. Are many 17,18,19,20,21 year old undergraduates “Marxists?”
5. You said you have been tutoring undergrads. Do you get many essays written from a Marxist perspective?
Another sad sad group of painted clowns in this process are the mature age doctoral students who usually are not part of any academic stream and never will be and who have to sit through endless pep sessions where those supervising them tell them how hard it was for them in their day to do their PhD when they were 24 with two kids and a wife to support and how they lived in one room blah blah blah.
These stories are meant to silence any rumblings from the mature age about why the hell should they bother to do this in the first place and that they should just to ‘trust’ to the process after all its going to broaden their minds, be good experience for them and make them better people at the end of it.
Of course you put up with this crap and dont tell them that you were 24 once and had your own share of single room experiences too its just that unlike them, we don’t have an office, any published a grade articles and no collection of other pieces of crap (like ‘ordinary’ conference papers that can be cherry picked and rotate in our CVs) in order to be even seen as part of the contemporary academic stream we are supposed to already be part of.
Instead of doing a part time Phd at one of the big 8 I should have got a job as part time gardener at Charles Sturt University Wagga and applied to do a work related MA with a limited original work component – say a short essay and simnple field experiment model(say on improving the efficiency of watering systems in University native garden beds) then hassled someone to get five or six conference papers accepted and to allow me to be number three co-author on 4 or so of their articles coming up (on horticultural issues) then sucked up to someone else and got a job 4 hours a week in the Gardening Department at UWA – that is if I wanted to have any chance of getting an actual job in what actually is the ‘stream’ of activities that constitutes contemporary academic practice in today’s Australian University sector.
I have nothing against horticulture Im trying to find an example of some activity where you can be employed at a University other than by being an academic but then using the internal personal development pocesses of the University (that at least exist for its employees) to get into a meaningful strweam of research activities that would lead to an actual job after finishing the process.
Of course no such development process exists for Phd students and especially for mature age students who are best described a painted clowns who are tolerated in the corridors and offices of whatever Department they are situated in the way Jews were treated a few months before Heidegger issued them with their severance notices at the University of Friedburg.
My estimate is that two thirds of all human activity undertaken by anyone doing postdoctoral work in any humanities area in an Australian University is completely wasted and may not have been done at all. It is a complete waste and does not even find its way into mainstream catalogues or discourse – except in the most nominal way- and at least in the lifetime or the research lifetime of its originator anyway it will have little impact until someone else many years later may stumble upon it and use it to some reasonable degree.
This is a waste of ideas, views and etc and especially in todays world where we are supposed to have opened up new ways of communicating what we find is that the blogs, so called on line journals, and other similar means of communication are usually dominated by the five percent of younger post grads who have some chance of getting a job and a few existing academics who feel a penchant for using this means of communication. Obviously the escluded majority of post grads should be the ones who should be proactively given access to theses means of communication so that this huge waste of human ideas can be turned into a valuable resource for Gods sake.
Yes, yes, it’s very hard isn’t it. But nobody forced you (nor me) to do a PhD. Grow up.
But my ideas… surely they’re shockingly original and have merit all of their own, and everyone will recognise that if I just post them on the internet somewhere.
Oh, the humanity.
Thanks Bring in the Clowns, this was a fun thread to revisit!
I must admit, I was in sparkling form throughout.
)
Oh, I actually had a fair bit of fun doing my Masters. I started a Ph. D. but couldn’t be bothered finishing it. I think the Masters exhausted me. Now I just write books, without the burden of having to teach. (well, I try to.)