What's your motivation? (Art History PhD)

[AClarke]

After being on this forum a short while (and I'm in a seriously contemplative point in my life) - I'm curious what all the 2012 applicants to PhD programs or current Art History PhD students motivations are for pursuing a PhD?

I've seen a lot of people throw around opinions on what the "right" or "wrong" motivations are. How to get into a program is one consideration - what it takes to get there may be different than what you want out of it.

I'll use myself as an example. I've worked with museums and private galleries to "gain experience". These experience have taught me that ultimately these are not the places I'd like to end up working. I love the academic environment and research and have always thought that, if I can hack it, that's where I'd like to be work-wise.

Of course, realism enters into the equation, but, the shortage of academic jobs aside, if I want to eventually end up with an academic position, getting a PhD is a necessary step. I have a sense that there's a divide between those who see it as a career-training step and those who see it as a labour of love. Maybe it's a combination of both?

[Guest mckee002]

This is a really great question that it seems a lot of grad applicants don't truly answer. While I didn't apply this round I have started working on my SOP for this fall (and to get my letters of recommendation).

While I haven't worked in a museum setting (yet), I have worked as a paid and unpaid intern in two very different art galleries, one emerging contemporary the other antique African. While great experiences, they definitely made me realize that a for-profit setting is not for me.

With my own motivation and the support of my advisors in both the art history and history departments at my university I have been able to pursue research that I find meaningful in my undergrad career. It was these experiences that really made me realize why I want to be in a PhD program.

I know that I have a unique voice in the field of art history (as do all of the passionate people on this forum), and I know that my passion for scholarship could fill a conspicuous gap in my field. I am currently grappling to find the right words and evidence to elegantly articulate these sentiments in a Statement of Purpose.

[AClarke]

I am currently grappling to find the right words and evidence to elegantly articulate these sentiments in a Statement of Purpose.

I hear you on this one! SOPs are the worst... how to convey that you're worth admitting?

In one former job, I was in charge of hiring a few times. I have to say that the amount of times I read on job application cover letters "I'm organised, compitant, easy to work with" etc... whether it was true or not about the applicants, it just became meaningless fluff after a while. Could maybe say the same about a SOP. I'm sure they read things like "I'm passionate about my field" over and over again. The question is, then, how do you convey that you really are passionate about your area of research?

Edited April 4, 2012 by AClarke

[Pepé Le Pew]

This is an interesting question. When I'm in classes with Seniors and first or second year graduate students, I often wonder what drew them into this field. This is my (admittedly limited) experience:

• Almost all of them are female (in at least the three schools I've known). The few guys are usually beta males.
  
• Most of the students don't have what one might call a driven, scholarly disposition (easy to see if you compare the atmosphere to a History seminar, or even moreso, to one in the sciences). It is more of the 'I like to read about this and be the art history person among my friends'. A pleasant niche.
  
• Few of the students seem to have retained only a superficial familiarity with the art outside their range of particular interest.
  

Why do they move on to graduate study? Some combination of a naive sense of the job market (perhaps they assume they'll marry a guy with a job) and a gentle drift into something comfortable after the BA. After all, who wants to look for a job with a BA in art history??

Edited April 4, 2012 by mattmcg

[runaway]

• Almost all of them are female (in at least the three schools I've known). The few guys are usually beta males.
  

I am going to take a wild guess and posit that your forte is not gendered histories of art.

[Hicks]

I'm in it for the money...umm...wait....

As an undergrad is painting I actually had very little interest in Art History. I only got really interested my last semester. For My MFA, I went to a school that had a joint masters program in art history. As I went through my studies I got more deeply interested in art history to the point that I wanted to get a PhD. But, I'd been in school for a long time and with a terminal degree in hand I started teaching. I ended up first at a small liberal arts college and now at a regional state university. At both institutions I have taught both studio and art history. I have found that many of the questions I ask dovetail with art history pursuits and that I enjoy the art history classes. But, with only a masters I will never get a tenure track art history job. If that is what I want to do I need the PhD. But, for me the biggest issue is that it will help me intellectually with the questions I am asking.

[Pepé Le Pew]

runaway,

Despite regretting the academic cant of the very phrase 'gendered histories of art', I'm still thankful for its existence: as a kind of magnet to attract and identify those without the creativity or intelligence to actually practice art history.

But my point about the composition of the classes was offered only as a description. Not sure what to think about it. Perhaps my experience is at odds with the broader pattern. Or maybe the field changed in the past generation, driving men away (like, say, physics repels women). It wasn't always this way.

Edited April 4, 2012 by mattmcg

[runaway]

runaway,

Despite regretting the academic cant of very phrase 'gendered histories of art', I'm still thankful for its existence: as a kind of magnet to attract and identify those without the creativity or intelligence to actually practice art history.

But my point about the composition of the classes was offered only as a description. Not sure what to think about it. Perhaps my experience is at odds with the broader pattern. Or maybe the field changed in the past generation, driving men away (like, say, physics repels women). It wasn't always this way.

Aha, clever, that subtle insult to my intelligence behind the mask of anonymity! I use the plural 'histories' because it's accurate; the very basis of the subfield resists the singular canonical history that has predominated for so long.

For my part, my classes were predominately female because I attended a woman's college. I don't know a single student who majored in art history because it was easy-- instead, the major was quite small and weeded out all but the most dedicated after a couple 200-level classes. Of those not continuing to graduate school, I know my program placed quite a few recent graduates in jobs at major New York museums and art institutions.

My significant other also happened to be an art history major at my college, but believe me, a MRS degree was the very last thing on my mind when I chose my major.

My motivation for pursuing a PhD is, simply, that I can't imagine doing anything else. I am happier in a museum than in any other place on earth. I have specific research interests that deserve examination and the interest and drive to do the work.

And art always interested me more than physics, although I do admire the work of a dear friend who's currently in the midst of her physics PhD program.

[Pepé Le Pew]

runaway,

I have no idea whether you're interested or not in 'gendered' historical studies. The comment isn't personal. There is simply an immense amount of bad scholarship in what one might call grievance studies - the various subfields that have taken up the shabby banner once carried by marxists and later theory-heads. There are folks who care about art, and there are folks who care about politics and theory, and then happen to relate it to art.

Now, as I said above: my experience is very narrow. But such as it is, it surprises me to find very few men, and an atmosphere of scholarship tending somewhat towards the not-so-serious, compared to similar fields in the Humanities. Reading through conference notices, I'm not inclined to expect it's much different in the field. But - hope springs eternal.

Finally, on physics: having practiced it previously, and moved in those circles for a while, I can tell you the guys there only dream about women darkening the doors of their departments. There are exceptions, but as a sociological reality: it's (lamentably) a guy's field, especially at the graduate level.

Edited April 4, 2012 by mattmcg

[Hegel's Bagels]

This is an interesting question. When I'm in classes with Seniors and first or second year graduate students, I often wonder what drew them into this field. This is my (admittedly limited) experience:

• Almost all of them are female (in at least the three schools I've known). The few guys are usually beta males.
  
• Most of the students don't have what one might call a driven, scholarly disposition (easy to see if you compare the atmosphere to a History seminar, or even moreso, to one in the sciences). It is more of the 'I like to read about this and be the art history person among my friends'. A pleasant niche.
  
• Few of the students seem to have retained only a superficial familiarity with the art outside their range of particular interest.
  

Why do they move on to graduate study? Some combination of a naive sense of the job market (perhaps they assume they'll marry a guy with a job) and a gentle drift into something comfortable after the BA. After all, who wants to look for a job with a BA in art history??

There are so many things that are offensive and presumptuous about this post that I don't even know where to begin. You have a strange conception of the current field of young scholars. There might be one or two vapid students that somehow make it into less prestigious programs, but it hardly seems to be the cess pool of shallow girls babbling incessently about how much they looove Da Vinci that you make it out to be. I thought all 13 students in my MA cohort to be intelligent, interesting, and very ambitious. I thought the same about the students (half of whom were male btw) I met at my PhD program's visiting day. Your comment about "theory heads" definitely raises a few red flags and really raises the question about why you decided to enter a field filled with "grievance studies" and plagued with "less-than-serious" conference notices.

[runaway]

runaway,

I have no idea whether you're interested or not in 'gendered' historical studies. The comment isn't personal. There is simply an immense amount of bad scholarship in what one might call grievance studies - the various subfields that have taken up the shabby banner once carried by marxists and later theory-heads. There are folks who care about art, and there are folks who care about politics and theory, and then happen to relate it to art.

Now, as I said above: my experience is very narrow. But such as it is, it surprises me to find very few men, and an atmosphere of scholarship tending somewhat towards the not-so-serious, compared to similar fields in the Humanities. Reading through conference notices, I'm not inclined to expect it's much different in the field. But - hope springs eternal.

Finally, on physics: having practiced it previously, and moved in those circles for a while, I can tell you the guys there only dream about women darkening the doors of their departments. There are exceptions, but as a sociological reality: it's (lamentably) a guy's field, especially at the graduate level.

Sure there's bad scholarship; that exists in every sub-field. There's also some very good scholarship. Your offhand dismissal of a large body of work is rash and irresponsible, especially given your snide misogyny in reply #4 and your own admission that your experience is very narrow.

My user icon is Felix Gonzalez-Torres, so that's quite a hint as to my research interests. But then, I suppose it's bold to make assumptions about others' deductive reasoning.

I hate to hijack a thread with very good intentions and purpose, so perhaps it's a good point to go to DM if you'd like to continue this conversation. My apologies to others.

[Guest mckee002]

Mattmcg,

What do you mean exactly by beta male? As a gay man who often has to deal with insults to my "masculinity" this is highly offensive. While in my undergraduate experience there was perhaps a majority of art history majors who were women and gay men (let's be real here), why is that negative? Why does that make the discipline less serious? These new voices in a traditionally white male heteronormative field are valuable.

Also, why go into art history if you don't think it's a serious discipline? I'm sure you could find any number of other "serious" disciplines in the humanities.

Finally, your position that "there are folks who care about art, and there are folks who care about politics and theory, and then happen to relate it to art" represents one line of art historical scholarship without doubt. However, in my opinion (and perhaps in the opinion of many prominent scholars) it is an outdated one that conforms to a cannon of art history created by the very white heterosexual male voices I mentioned earlier. Don't mistake me, these voices (Wolfflin, Riegl, Panofsky, etc.) and their scholarship are seminal and invaluable, but one should not be chained to the past. Scholarship is about moving forward. Art existed and exists in a specific temporal, cultural and economic, framework. And art, by consciously or unconsciously interrogating gender and race, holds a unique mirror to the anxieties of a society. This is an indelible part of art's beauty.

[Pepé Le Pew]

My, the response got shrill pretty fast. Very quickly:

mckee002:

1) 'beta male' is not the same as 'gay man'. I'm sure as a gay man in the Bay area, you could confirm that vast numbers of gay men are not at all 'beta males' as it is generally understood. I'm uninterested in the sexuality of my classmates, but in appearance and demeanor, there is a variance from a guyish guy type. I don't care if the guy is gay - I do care if I can't find a single dude who looks like he could throw a football in the park.

2) art history can and should be a serious discipline.

3) you and I will have to agree to disagree about the value of grievance studies vs. traditional art history. I don't buy your defense (the likes of which I've read a hundred times 'interrogating gender and race' and other nonsense). But you are probably in the majority, while I'm one of a few young fogeys, I guess.

runaway:

1) your icon is clocks, didn't recognize it as art. sorry about that.

2) rereading my #4 response for 'snide misogyny' - perhaps I was unclear. I don't think much so much scholarship is unserious because it seems to be practiced by women. Those were adjacent observations, but not related. As for attitude within graduate school, the not-so-serious approach to scholarship compared to other disciplines: surely that has some other cause than the sex of the student. I know plenty of female musicians, for example, who practice as hard and perform as well as the men.

artofdescribing:

1) if you can imagine, it's not worth a penny to me or anybody if you find my remarks offensive or presumptuous. I quite clearly said my observations were from limited experience - familiarity with three above average departments - and that would rather find out that i was wrong.

2) no doubt there are serious, ambitious, scholarly students. Great to hear you've met some!

3) sorry about the 'red flags' - you may find, one day, that pseudo-intellectual academic fads don't have quite the heft they once did. Think how quaint a Freudian reading now looks in most subject areas - not far from a phrenological one. I do expect there is room in the field, still, for those who aren't committed to nonsense of that sort. In fact, it's easy to find young professors teaching at good schools who aren't theory heads, and who aren't abusing good art with contemporary political hobbyhorses.

Edited April 4, 2012 by mattmcg

[runaway]

My, the response got shrill pretty fast. Very quickly:

1) It's Untitled (Perfect Lovers), which isn't exactly an obscure work of art.

2) You characterized a large group of females as naive, passive, undriven, and lacking self-actualization. To make such a blanket statement is inherently misogynistic.

3) It's incorrect to say that a Freudian reading is not far from a phrenological one. See, for instance, the many recent applications of his unheimlich. It's one thing to disagree with this application of theory, but your statement is untrue.

4) As an aside: http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/928cc6cc-78bf-11e1-9f49-00144feab49a.html#axzz1r6a6i2eq

(Fun fact: The National Gallery sells a postcard of the exact crop of Botticelli's Venus and Mars that Berger makes in Ways of Seeing.)

[Hegel's Bagels]

I think I figured it out! Mattmcg is actually Roger Kimball posing as a hopeful grad student...(http://www.amazon.co...s/dp/1893554864)

All joking aside - I am constantly amused that those who are the quickest to decry the leftist feminazi "agenda" in art history are the ones who are actually unable to set aside their political dispositions and engage critically with the field. All theories have their drawbacks; but it seems immature to completely deprecate a school of thought soley based on the perceived merits of their political affiliations.

Also, on a completely different note: how on earth does a man's seeming ability to throw a football determine how masculine they are? (That was rhetorical btw)

Edited April 4, 2012 by artofdescribing

[Pepé Le Pew]

runaway,

My own aside: I like going back and forth with you more than you do, I suspect, because aside from the silly accusation of misogyny (as if I had made a judgment about women in art history general instead of circumscribing it to my own interactions in several classrooms - where my comments apply to the guys as well) you offer a spirited opposition. Looking above, note how artofdescrbing and mckee002 immediately leap to note their indignation and offense. When grievance is the currency students carry, they begin to expect others to recognize its value.

On your photo: you've found a limitation I'll freely acknowledge (with some guilt): an interest that wanes around mannerism, and is barely measurable by the 20th c. On Freud: of course people still cite him, but he was all over scholarship two generations ago. He as indeed become quaint with age - like a 80's rock anthem turned into muzak. Here's another example: Gombrich chasing modern theories of vision and Gestalt psychology in his Art and Illusion. Very 1950's. Not so useful, in retrospect. And John Berger: look, you're only making my point for me. What's ironic is to see him portrayed as supplanting old elitists like Clarke - but what could be more elitist than his dessicated Marxism?

artofdescribing:

you clearly have your own anxieties (Kimball, folks who use the word 'feminazi'). My point, by contrast, was against the whole lot of those whose preoccupation is politics, and ideology, not art. Before it was evil capitalism, now it's grievance studies, next generation it'll be something else. It doesn't matter, though, if the underlying ideology is left or right. What matters is that it masquerades as serious scholarship. And it's perpetrated by folks who can't be bothered to actually study the art and produce valuable insights about the art itself, not the intersection of contemp. fads and the art. If I pick twenty recent articles on, say, Piero della Francesca, most of them still attempt traditional scholarship - some even succeed. That is what I mean about grievance studies being a magnet that draws bad scholarship away from good subjects.

[AClarke]

your icon is clocks, didn't recognize it as art. sorry about that.

Ok - didn't think this would start a flame war! But yeah, saying that Felix Gonzalez-Torres just looks like clocks to someone on an art history forum made me laugh and cry a little.

Anyway, I actually am interested in hearing about motivations for PhDs on a serious level. Anyone, anyone?

[crossedfingerscrossedeyes]

I hear you on this one! SOPs are the worst... how to convey that you're worth admitting?

In one former job, I was in charge of hiring a few times. I have to say that the amount of times I read on job application cover letters "I'm organised, compitant, easy to work with" etc... whether it was true or not about the applicants, it just became meaningless fluff after a while. Could maybe say the same about a SOP. I'm sure they read things like "I'm passionate about my field" over and over again. The question is, then, how do you convey that you really are passionate about your area of research?

To change the subject and go back to this, I offer some advice one of my reccomenders gave me: "They know you are interested in art history, otherwise you wouldn't be applying." Talking about one's passion doesn't show your approach to studying art history, nor what you want to do within it. He emphasized that the focus of the statement should be your take on the current state of the field, and what you plan to do given that.

I think runaway summed it up quite nicely with:

I have specific research interests that deserve examination and the interest and drive to do the work.

[Pepé Le Pew]

But yeah, saying that Felix Gonzalez-Torres just looks like clocks to someone on an art history forum made me laugh and cry a little.

It looks like a big spacious room when you are all talking together (and crying a little) - but the sphere of those fascinated by contemporary artists is a tiny, well-insulated bubble - perhaps small even among art historians.

[runaway]

@mattmcg: I'll PM since I don't want to further hijack this thread, but I don't mind continuing the conversation.

I posted the FT article because it puts nicely why the debate we're having now is ongoing. Sure Berger is outdated, but there's a reason he's still taught in undergrad-- both for theoretical and historiographical reasons.

@crossedfingerscrossedeyes Now if only that would do for my SOP!

[runaway]

It looks like a big spacious room when you are all talking together (and crying a little) - but the sphere of those fascinated by contemporary artists is a tiny, well-insulated bubble - perhaps small even among art historians.

If that's your attitude towards art outside your preferred time period, you'll have a ball when it comes time for Quals. I'd stay away from CUNY.

[Hegel's Bagels]

It looks like a big spacious room when you are all talking together (and crying a little) - but the sphere of those fascinated by contemporary artists is a tiny, well-insulated bubble - perhaps small even among art historians.

Well that says a lot about your 'knowledge' of the current art historical field. So I'll end up my part of the discussion here since there doesn't seem to be much point arguing with you. Sorry to everyone else for hijacking the thread!

To change the subject and go back to this, I offer some advice one of my reccomenders gave me: "They know you are interested in art history, otherwise you wouldn't be applying." Talking about one's passion doesn't show your approach to studying art history, nor what you want to do within it. He emphasized that the focus of the statement should be your take on the current state of the field, and what you plan to do given that.

This a million times! Having a passion for art is not a reason to go into graduate school. Having a passion for thinking critically about art and the desire to bring the field in new directions are the right reasons. I think part of the reason why my field (Renaissance) is viewed as a dead one is due to its previous dominance (and continued dominance in the canon)...Is there really anything new to say about Michelangelo? Is there really a need to continue debating what on earth Giorgione's Tempesta is about? (Although as a sidenote I should say that Stephen Campbell's article on the Tempesta is a great example of addressing a worn-out topic in a really provocative and thoughtful manner.) And oh god, please, I was about to poke my eyes out if I had to read another undergrad paper on Artemisia Gentileschi. I hope I didn't offend anyone if these are their areas of interest. I'm not really saying there's absolutely nothing write about...I'm just making the point how important it is to think of a new and interesting way to approach these canonical topics. Thinking critically is what separates our field from art appreciation. Anyways, I guess that is MY motivation for starting a PhD program next fall. I believe that there are a lot of interesting things to be said about the Renaissance (really! I swear!) and I can't wait to share that with the rest of the art history community. That and also because I wanted to be a PhD student ever since I find out in 7th grade that I could be PAID to be in school.

[AClarke]

Having a passion for thinking critically about art and the desire to bring the field in new directions are the right reasons.

This is actually part of what got me excited about art history in the first place. I've always been interested in 17th C. Dutch art, but a real turning point for me was taking an upper level course on 17th C. Dutch visual culture as an undergrad. Without going into specifics, my prof had some really new and exciting ways of looking at visual culture as a whole (including Dutch map making - which I hadn't yet considered alongside painting at that time). That was the point at which I realised that Art History was not just comparing and contrasting formal qualities of old paintings.

I think this is part of the reason that this topic got hijacked earlier and this flame war broke out - not to return to that. But part of Art History is obviously critical frameworks and the lenses through which we look at art.

[Hegel's Bagels]

my prof had some really new and exciting ways of looking at visual culture as a whole (including Dutch map making - which I hadn't yet considered alongside painting at that time). That was the point at which I realised that Art History was not just comparing and contrasting formal qualities of old paintings.

I think this is part of the reason that this topic got hijacked earlier and this flame war broke out - not to return to that. But part of Art History is obviously critical frameworks and the lenses through which we look at art.

As someone who is turning in their thesis tomorrow, which is on maps, I was very pleased by this post!

So add that to my list of motivations: I want to continue to seriously study 16th c. cartography and topography.

[GeneralistAdventurist]

While I'm not applying/didn't apply this go around, I've gone back and forth on the advanced degree option. I'm leaning mcuh much more towards a PhD and I'm positive my driving force is to be a professor in a university setting.

Background-I've worked at some major museums in NYC, as an intern, paid intern and educator (sometimes in that order). I love the museum world, but I find myself fascinated with my adult audience/college aged audience. The conversations and getting people excited about those amazing details that don't necessarily involve the date of a work or the medium...having a group of adults practice some sumi brush art after seeing Keith Haring...these are things I want to do.

It's hard, I don't necessarily have a specific area I want to focus on-I'm such a generalist and find myself getting excited researching and talking about Asian art one day, Vermeer another and modern the next. Which is why I held back on applying this season. Anyone out there like me? I'm thinking CUNY-Grad for certain...but I have A LOT of other 'maybes'

ugh. You all have my well wishes for the rest of this application season!