Butler Library, Columbia University, 20 August 2005, by Kenneth M. Kambara

Recently, in the Chronicle of Higher Education {I sometimes refer to it as the “chronic of high ed” on Twitter, cue rimshot  }, there have been articles on the dearth of jobs for academics in the humanities. “Thomas Benton’s” “The Big Lie was countered with James Mullholland’s “Neither a Trap nor a Lie“.

I won’t weigh in on the discussion about the state of academic careers in the humanities, as the above articles and comments have done that for me. My focus is on the structural issues of this situation. Moreover, I think many should heed what is going on here, as it’s a case of too many applicants searching for too-few jobs. Unless the job losses from the Big Recession are replaced, I’m afraid many middle-class wage earners will be facing the same situation, resulting in employees being at a disadvantage in the power dynamics of the labour market.

The humanities offer a rich corpus of knowledge that can be used to address issues of the day. I recall heading to lectures by Jacques Derrida on forgiveness at the UC-Irvine Critical Theory Institute, as well as talks by scholars such as W. J. T. Mitchell on images and Anne Friedberg on the metaphor of the window. Universities see value in offering courses in the humanities, but in the business of higher education, the model results in an oversupply of labour. In a gross simplification, humanities {and social science} graduate students are taken on to teach discussion sections as cheap labour that results in more doctorate degree holders than the market will bear. Even if graduate students are warned of the job market, nobody expect’s the Spanish inquisition. Universities seeking to maximize efficiencies not only draw upon graduate students, but also well-qualified adjuncts at discounted wages. The humanities, in my opinion, often suffer from a public relations problem. In a sense, they can be the ivoriest of the ivory tower, often communicating in a dense linguistic code that causes lay audiences to scratch their heads. Phallogocentrism? Huh? While I’m not advocating that the humanities need to be applied in nature, I feel there is a need for their staking of a claim for relevance.

Is there a need for a rethinking and a restructuring of academe? Are departments creating silos of knowledge based on fields? Should curricula be reconceptualized?

I’m sure these questions will resonate with many and strike fear into the hearts of others. Hence, these questions are ones that can be readily addressed by organizational sociology. Academe is one of the last feudal systems. This doesn’t mean that all universities are terrible places, but that context is everything, as they are structures with power relations and resource allocations that are highly idiosyncratic. Moreover, they are businesses with cost and profit centres. While Bourdieuean {huh? what?} analysis that incorporates::

  1. Field. Social space where individuals and groups vie for dominance
  2. Habitus. The social norms and rules affecting behaviours
  3. Capital. Economic, symbolic, knowledge, and relational resources used by individuals and groups.

could illuminate institutional dynamics, I’m afraid it will also illuminate how difficult change will be without a radical discontinuity, e.g., financial exigency. There also is the question of values, as well as what is valued.

I’m actually in favour of a life of the mind and I see the value in humanistic inquiry to society and in an everyday sense. I feel how the humanities are currently situated within universities is often problematic, in that there’s a social reproduction of humanistic fields that, in my opinion, limit how the humanities can impact society. I hope for more cross-disciplinary modes of inquiry that span how fields are currently defined. While some may balk at this, I’m also for the humanities {and social sciences} as being more popularized, but which institutions would take this on.

Twitterversion:: Thoughts on the life of the mind & the role of the humanities. #ThickCulture @Prof_K

Song:: Ministry-“So What”