wt2020

IF YOU ARE THINKING OF APPLYING PLEASE READ I have lurked these forums for years since first thinking of attending a graduate program in art history in 2012. I finished my PhD this spring from a top-tier program and I now feel more than ever that it is imperative for me to loudly voice what is, in some ways, a cruel but honest truth about this system: A PhD in art history is a bad idea. Everything vivodito mentioned above is true. To add anecdote to fact I will say I had a tenure-track job at a decent liberal arts college revoked this summer because the department put a hiring freeze in place and is now cutting funds. I am now returning to a competitive field of recent elite PhDs from this graduating cycle in addition to those lingering from nearly a decade of cycles past. I have colleagues who are brilliant, and whom I adore, who finished their degrees in 2012–14, in the early recovery post 08' recession, who have spent a decade now trapped in adjunct hell, working 3 jobs a semester at different universities to make ends meet. The constant demands on their working hours means they are never able to do the kind of work museums or schools want to see in their hirees. They will never find stable jobs in the field but that doesn't stop them from competing with those of us graduating now. The finalists last year for Columbia's unfilled architecture spot where largely c.2014 grads. We should loudly sing the praises of those like Prof. Ilene Forsyth at UMich who had the immense foresight and ability to endow chairs on her way out, but sadly most institutions do not have such saints. If the dimming prospects of the field don't dissuade you, think about the PhD itself. It is a horrible and arduous process that is, somehow, simultaneously full of some of the most amazing, fulfilling, and formulating experiences you will ever have. Especially if you are just finishing undergrad, know this, you will give your 20's to this process. Your non-academic friends will be establishing careers, getting raises, maybe even starting families or buying houses. You will be married to your work, your dissertation, and your classroom. You will make less than $30k if you are lucky. You might have health insurance, you might have labor rights. If you are lucky you will also see the world, meet inspiring minds, make friends for life, and learn more about yourself as a human (not just as an intellect) than you are prepared for. [I am going to get grilled for this, knowing this forum, but] EVEN THESE SILVER LININGS ARE NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE IF YOU ARE NOT IN ONE OF THE TOP TIER PROGRAMS. We no longer live in a world where the independently wealthy whimsically dig mummies at the behest of colonial Egypt. If your department cannot: pay you living wages, ensure full health insurance, provide ample time to complete the program (5-7 years), protect your rights as a laborer in the department DO NOT GO TO THAT INSTITUTION. You will be taking on debt you can never recover from and placing yourself in serious harm. For all my struggles this past year I have watched friends and colleagues from places like UWisconsin and UCLA absolutely suffer over the past 8 years. Imaging working a full-time job (your studies) on top of which you must teach (another part- to full-time job) after which you either make "Extremely Low Wages" (HUD's classification one step above poverty) while living in the 9th most expensive city in the US (UCLA) with no ability to unionize and demand better working conditions OR make NOTHING if UWisconsin cannot scrounge the funding for a stipend on top of your fee waivers. This is nothing against the quality of the professors in these institutions and the students they produce but know this: Yale and Harvard send at least one class a semester abroad on study trips (to places like Russia, the UAE, and Mexico) because they have the money to do that on top of paying their students over $30K for 7 years. Imagine entering the job market out of UWisc. where you never had the funding to travel to your sources, time to truly invest in your work, or chances to network locally and abroad. Now know you are against a Yalie who had the time and support to go to every conference, travel to Russia on Yale's dime, write a solid dissertation because they didn't have to TA after year 3, and spent the night before the CAA interview in a fancy hotel they could afford on their real (albeit still meagre) stipend. This is also not to mention the cruel and classist stigma of hiring committees: I once had an ivy-league professor (old white man) tell me that ivies don't hire graduates of non-ivies, "you can only ever move horizontally or down in the pecking order," which is, thankfully, not a universal truth, but one that still lingers painfully on. "Okay, I'll apply to one of the top programs then." Not this year. As mentioned above, in the (I would argue correct) demands and interests of their current students, many programs are cutting admissions to support current candidates. Yale and Chicago are skipping the whole year. The IFA is reducing admissions to half for at least a year. UPenn is considering something similar. Assuming they will not also make such drastic changes, you can guarantee Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, and Michigan will all also be slimming their usual 12 or so a year down to maybe 8-10. That's potentially up to HALF the number of genuinely funded and supported spots available in top-tier American programs for this application cycle. And you can bet rejected students will be applying again next year, meaning the application pool will only be growing. [we can argue over who is and is not in that top tier but each of those programs pays living wages, insures their students, is overly represented in major fellowships like Kress and CASVA, and in new hires. Only ONE (IFA) is fully unionized, ensuring students are paid extra when they choose to teach as compensation for extra labor] If you have made it this far please hear me out, none of this is a reason not to apply. When I was finishing my undergraduate I was deeply in love (and still am) with the field of art history and gave myself gladly and fully to a senior thesis supervised by my favorite professor who was caring and helpful and incredibly supportive. What he told me come application time was crucial: "If you can imagine yourself doing anything other than a PhD in art history then you should not be applying for a PhD." At the time I was a little hurt and took it as his admonition of my unreadiness for graduate school. What I have realized since is that 1. he tells this to all his good students and 2. the process of getting a PhD in art history is mentally, emotionally, and physically (yes, books are heavy) destructive work that will chew you up and spit you out into an even more grueling and horrible world, and if you are not so enamored of, so head-over-heels-crazy about doing this insane thing, weathering all the long nights, sacrifices of friends and family, and meagre living standards then you must (not should, must) turn elsewhere. It is no mark against you. There are brilliant, interesting, passionate, and powerful people doing all sorts of things other than PhDs in art history and I encourage you to think long and hard, especially now, if you are one of those people. If you can imagine yourself doing anything other than a PhD in art history—and I mean anything: an MBA, law school, finance, a start up, tech, medicine, hell, even history (those guys can get cushy state department jobs)—then you should not be applying for a PhD in art history. If you can look yourself in the mirror and know that you are willing to weather the horrifying tempest that is dying humanities, collapsing departments, under-supportive programs, and a field that is only just (but thankfully is) beginning to deal with its historically myopic fixation on white-western-male-centric topics then I wish you the best of luck, godspeed, and may you and all those like you save us all.