Purdue Philosophy and Literature

[UndergradDad]

Looking at the site this sounds similar to a complit program. It looks like you need a masters to apply though. Anyone have any thoughts or good info on this program?

[Glasperlenspieler]

Graduates from interdisciplinary PhD programs generally have a tough time finding jobs. This is true even for very prestigious programs like Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. I imagine that would be an even bigger issue at an institution that is not particularly well ranked in English OR Philosophy. Interdisciplinary is and will probably continue to be a hot buzz word, but at the end of the day, you usually get hired by a department in a standard discipline and you need to demonstrate your disciplinary chops in order to stand a chance. 

[UndergradDad]

Yes I was thinking about that- lots of articles out there about the separate humanities departments eventually merging and the "reconfiguring" of the Humanities,

but its a crapshoot either way I suppose as to what academia will be like in 10 or even 5 years.

[politics 'n prose]

On 12/5/2019 at 11:45 AM, Glasperlenspieler said:

Graduates from interdisciplinary PhD programs generally have a tough time finding jobs. This is true even for very prestigious programs like Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. I imagine that would be an even bigger issue at an institution that is not particularly well ranked in English OR Philosophy. Interdisciplinary is and will probably continue to be a hot buzz word, but at the end of the day, you usually get hired by a department in a standard discipline and you need to demonstrate your disciplinary chops in order to stand a chance. 

Can you speak a little more to this, Glasperlenspieler? I guess I'm still a little clueless on what we mean when we talk about interdisciplinary study in English. For instance, I've applied to two programs (Carnegie Mellon and Pitt) that are housed in their respective English departments but are billed as literary and cultural studies (CMU) or critical and cultural studies (Pitt) programs. In both instances, it seems like the distinction between literary/cultural studies and straight up English, no chaser has less to do with the coursework itself and more to do with a particular theoretical/practical bent of the program and the faculty, but I could be wrong on that. 

To be clear, I'd gnaw off my own left arm to get accepted to either of these programs, but I'm wondering if getting a PhD in something other than straight-up English Literature puts one at a significant disadvantage later on when applying for teaching jobs. 

[Glasperlenspieler]

@politics 'n prose, I'm not familiar with either of the programs you mention, so I can't comment too intelligently there. I don't think the distinction between literary studies and cultural studies is particularly relevant in today's academy, so I wouldn't worry too much, especially if those programs are housed in strong English departments.

I do however know that say, people with PhDs from American Studies departments often struggle in comparison to their colleagues in "traditional" English departments, though the job market is awful for everyone. I can also say with relative certainly, that you will not be hired as a junior hire in a philosophy departments with a degree like Purdue's Philosophy and Literature. Philosophy departments are arguably a lot more parochial than English departments, but I'm not sure English departments are immune from that sort of criticism.For instance, journals like Philosophy and Literature are often looked down upon by people in literary studies as being too "traditional." I happen to like the journal, but these are the sorts of things it's important to beware of. 

I think in general that in the job market it's important to be able to fit yourself into a well-defined box. As I said above, Chicago's Committee on Social Thought is a program that I'm very sympathetic too, but despite the Chicago pedigree and the reputation of the program, it really doesn't do a good job of placing its graduates. Many people, myself included, are very attracted to out of the box approaches to scholarship, which cover a large territory. But if you look at those sorts of studies, I think you will often find that they are written by scholars who *already* have tenure and that their first books were often much more clearly situated in their home discipline. 

In regard to @UndergradDad's comment about the reconfiguration of the humanities, I think it's important to distinguish between the sort of interdisciplinary done for intellectual reasons and the merging of departments for budgetary reasons. The latter is a reality and it will only put more pressure on the job market, which I do not think will be favorable to applicants who do work that is hard to define. I hope I'm wrong, but that's my general outlook.

For what it's worth, this is the best think I'm aware on the topic of interdisciplinary: