Last week I presented a paper at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities. There were approximately 600 presenters over a four day period, presenting on a wide variety of topics. It is also an excuse to blow off the conference and enjoy the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii.
Academics are a particular breed of self-absorbed introspective intellectual braggarts; I mean this as an utmost compliment, because we need to be. The trick is to know when to shut up, and interact with other human beings without over-analyzing the minutia of every day occurrences. Turning the focus back on to our varied topics is necessary in order to succeed. Success being measured by the creativity of our ideas. Creativity itself does not pay the bills, unfortunately, as the real world will quickly and harshly remind you.
I will present my paper, “Death and Dying in the Satanic Worldview” at the Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities this week. Click on the photo to view full program details.
On the itinerary are watching lectures, blowing off other lectures, lounging on the beach, snorkeling, hiking a volcano, sleeping in, lounging by the pool, attending a luau, drinking at Tiki bars, mailing postcards to make people jealous (jealous, oh so jealous!), and finally, applying sunscreen, thickly and often. How do you say “academia score!” in Hawaiian?
An interesting piece by University Affairs, which discusses the high propensity of graduate students to exhibit signs of major depression – usually brought on by stress.
There is another factor however that certainly also influences burnout (affectionate term I use for the physical and mental exhaustion experienced by grad students); the eventual payoff for time/effort/money invested is a long way off. In other areas of life, the dividends are faster in coming, which helps to stay motivated. Grads instead make a 10 year investment without any real guarantee that your effort will pay off, with lots of pitfalls along the way. Even graduation does not offer any type of financial security, given the state of low-paying part-time faculty teachers.
So, yeah, it’s a bummer all around. Unless you love it. Which you should, if you’re going to get through it with any kind success and mental sanity. And as my friend J. comments, it’s bummer even if you DO love. Full article below:
From November to March is prime time for academic burn-out in graduate programs — I’m convinced of that. Perhaps it’s a seasonal thing; it can be easy to sink into a trough of exhaustion and stress, and not climb out of it for months. But rather than just the seasonal doldrums, my sense is that clinical depression, extreme anxiety and other mental health issues are becoming more common in graduate programs as well as in undergraduate education.
I asked one fellow student her opinion of this, and she replied, “it seems like everyone I know in academia is depressed.” On another occasion when I was very unwell, I was told that “everyone” has some kind of breakdown during the PhD; my troubles were nothing to worry about!
Is this a serious structural (and normalized) issue rather than an anecdotal one, and if so, why is no one discussing it? When I sampled the Twitterverse, I received many replies reinforcing and elaborating the impression that yes, this is a problem — perhaps now more than ever — and that it can’t be reduced to students’ individual propensities and “weaknesses.”
In the current context, there are plenty of structural issues that contribute to the PhD as a time when students are vulnerable to stress.
Within their programs, students face a more intense workload than in their undergraduate degrees, and they may for the first time be around students with as much academic aptitude as themselves. These factors can contribute to “imposter syndrome,” the sense that one is about to be “found out” for not really being smart enough. As adults being placed in a subordinate position, some PhD students experience a sense of infantilization alongside the conflicting expectation that they develop a professional identity.
In terms of the student’s academic experience, the PhD emphasizes a transition to autonomous work that is often a new challenge. The lack of structure, and unclear boundaries about responsibilities, mean that some students are unsure what help they “can” ask for from supervisors. This is compounded by the lengthy isolation from peers that often occurs in the later stages of research (in the humanities and social sciences at least).
Career-related pressures in academe have intensified in the face of recession and long-term political economic changes that have affected the university and its governance. Graduate programs in Canada and elsewhere have increased enrollments often without proportional increases to the tenured faculty who provide supervision, or to non-repayable funding. The shortage of funding can lead to student debt and other financial difficulties as well as more intense competition for grants and teaching positions, and pressure to “complete” sooner. Fewer tenured faculty means that students may need to compete for academic mentorship and support as well. And all these changes have helped to feed further competition in the form of a tightened market for academic (i.e. tenure-track faculty) jobs; this kind of competition can be depressing and stressful.
While only a relatively small proportion of PhD graduates obtain permanent faculty positions, in many PhD programs there is still a deeply-held assumption that students can or should strive to engage in research-oriented academic careers. Thus the definition of success tends to be rather narrow, making it easier to feel like a “failure.”
The culture of academic replication — the inculcation of certain academic goals above all others, in spite the “reality” of the larger job market for PhDs — has been roundly criticized, even compared to a cult. Taking on an awkward double stance, many students are engaging in a process of translation and re-valuation of themselves and their work that continues until long after the degree is over; some must overcome a long-held sense of exceptionalism with regards to their academic chances.
And of course, alongside the professional pressures there are also the so-called “personal” issues and events that affect everyone, and which can throw one’s entire degree (and life) off-track if they occur — a break up or divorce, for example, which can itself result from relationship problems triggered by the academic lifestyle.
A larger problem is not only the context described above (and its effects), but also the thickly oppressive silence that surrounds it. Not coincidentally, I think, there is a parallel silence around the issue of attrition. Considering the high rate of attrition from PhD programs and the cost of graduate education, you’d assume there would be a plenty of research on the reasons why students “drop out.” But according to Chris Golde (2000) we still don’t have much information on why students leave PhD programs, partly because PhD attrition “looks bad” for everyone involved (responsibility for this “failure” is usually transferred to the student). I wonder how many students simply leave due to mental health and related issues brought on or exacerbated by the psychological minefield of the PhD process — and how much of this is preventable.
Grad school and civilian life have saturated my time this semester, so the posts here have been meager. But in keeping with my chosen area of “expertise” (that is, my prime area of academic interest is Satanism, specifically the Church of Satan), here are a few interesting updates on popular depictions of the Church of Satan.
To begin, the following article by TMZ titled, “Church of Satan: Tim Tebow’s Delusional … BUT IT’S WORKING“. This short piece is concerned with the recent attention received by Tim Tebow, an athlete in the midst of football winning season, who attributes his team’s winning streak to a direct link to God’s favour. TMZ, most likely assuming that they would get a response pitting God versus Satan, contacted by email the Church of Satan for commentary on Tebow’s position as a divinely blessed athlete. Peter H. Gilmore, the high priest of the Church of Satan, instead provided commentary on how useful the idea of a god can be to one with talent and drive. Full article below, comments in brackets are my own:
God is not helping Tim Tebow … this according to a rep for The Church of Satan [Small correction: throughout this text the reporter presents Gilmore as a representative, that is, one of many. But more accurately he is the sole high priest.].
But there is a devilish twist … the rep tells us Tim’s faith COULD actually play a significant role in his success on the field.
TMZ spoke [emailed] with Magus Peter H. Gilmore — a [the] high priest in the Church — who tells us it doesn’t make sense to say God is helping Tim win games … because that would mean God’s actively making other teams lose … and why would God do that?
But what does make sense is Tebow’s mental state — Gilmore tells us, “Those who have a winning attitude tend to do better, and whatever fuels such team spirit, be it religious fervor or simply an overwhelming desire to succeed, is the real source for success.”
Gilmore adds, “Satanists are atheists, and we would consider any triumph to rely on a combination of skill and luck – most certainly not in any form of supernatural intervention from either Heaven or Hell.”
Gilmore highlights the Church of Satan’s atheistic worldview, but with the additional qualifier that the notion of divine interference helps mentally. That is, fervently believing that you are divinely gifted can enhance your performance. The idea of a god is a tool. A tool to be used to achieve your goals. It is a theistic twist on having a positive attitude that helps with winning, as any sports psychologist will insist.
Another tidbit of popular representations of the Church of Satan comes from the comedian John Hodgman – entertainer, Daily Show correspondent, the “PC Guy” from the Apple adverts, and author of the book, That is All. Promoting his book on the Craig Ferguson show, Hodgman details his correspondence with the Church of Satan.
There is a fantastic essay by Anton LaVey titled, “The Whoopie Cushion Shall Rise Again”, from The Devil’s Notebook, which speaks to the emphasis on humour within the Satanic worldview. In it, LaVey concludes:
“Too long have curses and anger been wasted on deserving victims whose most devastating insecurities could be brought forth by a harmless practical joke — one which a more secure person would accept with mild annoyance at worst and amusement at best. Those who deserve ridicule have been living in a climate that provides relative immunity while their pomposity has gone unchallenged and even encouraged. Satanists are anathema to the pious, the sanctimonious, and the hypocritical. They should also be the nemeses of the pompous. Satanists — Atten-shun! Right shoulder Whoopie Cushions!To the rear — harch!”
I am not surprised that the Church of Satan championed Hodgman’s sense of humour. Many times I have come across Satanic literature that laments self-righteous and sanctimonious attitudes. Life is serious enough. Find humour wherever you can.
Finally, the Church of Satan has recently updated their online presence with a Tumblr News Feed, and an Official Church of Satan Facebook Page. There are many FB pages claiming to be the Church of Satan – none are in any way affiliated with the CoS except the one linked here.
As far as popular representations of the Church of Satan go, the past month has demonstrated some rather accurate portrayals. Internet feedback being what is it, grossly uninformed or downright ridiculous commentary is always present. It cannot be avoided, but it can be relegated to the category of essentially useless data.
To conclude, in the spirit of the season – that is, gluttony and greed and sloth, those wonderfully indulgent mortal sins – Merry Christmas!
“We are all alone, born alone, die alone, and — in spite of True Romance magazines — we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonely — at least, not all the time — but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don’t see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.”
― Hunter S. Thompson, The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967
During adolescence I was often alone. I sought quiet time away from family and friends. Even among welcome company, I reached a saturation level rather quickly, my sociability needs rather minor. This stood in stark contrast to one particular friend, who despised being alone. Feared it, even. She could not stand to be alone in her family home, and would fill the time with phone calls if she could not arrange for after-school company.
I could not relate.
There are culturally determined predispositions for ideas on aloneness. Western cultures are often pushing for autonomy, individual thought and pursuit, and the idea of the self, the person, is the prime consideration. A person wanting to be alone is not in and or itself a sign of trouble, unless it is coupled with other symptoms that could indicate issues. Merely stating your desire to be without company is often a reflection on the busyness and chaos of everyday life; it is the decompression, the quiet processing time necessary for eventually restarting the hectic schedule.
Eastern-European, Middle-Eastern, and Asian cultures have a different approach. Expressing a desire for aloneness is often met with suspicion and questions. Are you angry at the family? Have we offended you in some way? Why else would you want to read your book alone in your room? Come, sit here with us; we will be quiet, but we will all be quiet together, as a family.
There are, of course, exceptions to the general rules of broadly applied behaviour to Eastern and Western ideas on aloneness, and I will not go into the historical threads that contribute to them.
I introduce the topic because Halloween celebrates fear. And what is our most basic fear but the fear of being alone? The Online Merriam Webster dictionary defines autophobia as the, “morbid fear of solitude.” But for those of us who recognize and embrace our desire – nay, a base and foundational need essential for survival – for aloneness, there is no such fear. It is something in which we bask. It is the time dedicated to knowing ourselves, the time that aids us in discovering who we really are. And every time someone expresses an unease or discomfort with the idea of being alone, I wonder, what is it, exactly, that you are so afraid of discovering about yourself?
Next week is Open Access Week, a global event promoting the growing movement to make academic research readily available to everyone. It also marks the second anniversary of the founding of Spectrum, Concordia’s very own online open access research repository.
In 2010, shortly after Spectrum went online, Concordia’s Senate passed its landmark resolution on open access, which established the university as a leader in the open access movement in Canada. “There was overwhelming support at every Faculty council and at Senate for the resolution,” recalls University Librarian Gerald Beasley.
The resolution affirmed Concordia’s commitment to open access, and positioned it as a leader in the movement in Canada. But the work to make the university’s academic research readily available to everyone doesn’t stop with resolutions, Beasley says. “Some people think that open access is going to grow inevitably, but it won’t grow without effort. We actually have to put our shoulder to the wheel and demonstrate our commitment to it again and again.”
To this end, Concordia recently launched an Open Access Author Fund to cover author’s publishing fees charged by some open access journals. The fund is so new that it’s impossible to gauge what effect, if any, it is having on open access publishing at the university, but Beasley insists it’s an important aspect of Concordia’s strategy to encourage researchers to allow open access to their peer-reviewed work. As he explains, there is still some resistance to open access publishing among academics.
“The big claim against open access is you’re giving this stuff away. What about my academic freedom? What about my right to publish my work wherever I choose? But open access does not infringe on these rights and authors often retain more rights by taking the open access route,” Beasley says.
A contract with an academic publisher may stipulate that the researcher has to surrender his or her copyright. When they then want to distribute their research to students, load it on their webpage, deposit it somewhere else, or anthologize it, they can run into problems, because they no longer own the rights to their own work.
Beasley recommends that authors retain copyright when requesting a licence to publish their work in an open access environment. Even if they insist on these things, there’s a good chance they will still be accepted for publication in the journal of their choice.
“I think [open access] creates a balance,” he says. “It actually protects the creator, the author, the artist, and their rights, because it does not take any of their copyright away from them.”
In Beasley’s opinion it only makes sense that academics make publicly funded research publicly available, because it’s the public that funds their research efforts in the first place. “You pay for it through your taxes because it’s publicly funded, and again through your taxes when the library takes out a subscription to a journal. How often do you want to pay for it? It seems a bit odd to me.”
Beasley says he is personally committed to open access, because it falls in line with the values he holds as a librarian. “Open access is in line with traditional library values of openness, access to information, elimination of economic barriers to education, a social commitment that goes beyond academics reading academics, towards disseminating research that benefits developing nations and underprivileged communities in all countries. With open access all people need is an internet connection to have access to high quality research, whether it’s produced at Concordia or elsewhere.”
As a result of its Senate resolution on open access, Concordia was recently invited to join a prestigious group of institutions dedicated to promoting open access, known as the Coalition of Open Access Policy Institutions. The list of 22 universities and colleges in the coalition includes Harvard University, Stanford University, Duke University and MIT.
Just last month, Concordia’s Senate approved a recommendation from the Academic Planning and Priorities Committee that President Lowy sign the Berlin Declaration of Open Access. In doing so, the university joined a list of 300 leading international research, scientific and cultural institutions from around the world. The ninth edition of the Berlin Conference, The Impact of Open Access in Research and Scholarship, will be held in Washington, D.C. next month, the first time it is being held in North America.
Beasley says while the membership in the coalition and international recognition from other open access pioneers increases Concordia’s prestige, disseminating Concordia’s research is more important. “I assume Concordia’s research is making the world a better place, so I want the impact of Concordia’s research to be improved.”
This year, Open Access Week coincides with Concordia’s part-time faculty research showcase in the J.W. McConnell Library Building Atrium on Tuesday, October 25. The library will have a table for interested staff, faculty and students to learn more about Spectrum and the open access movement at Concordia.
What: Part-time faculty showcase
When: Tuesday, October 25, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Where: J.W. McConnell Library Building Atrium (1400 De Maisonneuve Blvd. W.)
The following article is reprinted from The Chronicle of Higher Education. The author, Karen Kelsky PhD, discusses the lack of support from advisers vis à vis graduate students. While academic advising is the focus, she laments that graduate students receive no professional advising; how to get work, how to build a CV, how to network, etc. In my department I can attest that this is a common occurrence. And, as I have heard from colleagues is different departments, if you have happen to have an adviser uninterested in students in general, you may not even receive that to a sufficient degree. Dr. Kelsky, a former professor at the University of Oregon, offers her own consulting services to fill this need: The Professor Is In.
I would disagree with Dr. Kelsky that professional services are the responsibility of the particular adviser. Instead, I would offer that the department and school itself should have resources available to students. Not simply a job post listing, but seminars and workshops and tools – applicable, transferable tools – at graduate students’ disposal. Recently my school, Concordia University, implemented a Grad Pro Skills department, specifically designed to answer to these type of needs. It is so far just beginning, but the possibilities and potential are great. Graduates should never simply expect to have immediate employment simply handed to them post-graduation – they have to work for it, hustle a bit, and demonstrate their competency. But there certainly needs to be more resources available in order to help transfer your acute ability to unpack complex, obscure, and ancient texts (in their original language no less) into employment that requires and heralds critical thinking.
Dear faculty members: I sell Ph.D. advising services on the open market. And your Ph.D. students are buying. Why? Because you’re not doing your job.
Lest you think that by advising, I mean editing research papers and dissertations, let me disabuse you. I offer those services, but rarely am I asked for them.
A former tenured professor at a major research university, I am now running an academic-career consulting business. That’s right: I am doing graduate advising for pay. I am teaching your Ph.D. students to do things like plan a publishing trajectory, tailor their dissertations for grant agencies, strategize recommendation letters, evaluate a journal’s status, judge the relative merits of postdoctoral options, interpret a rejection, follow up on an acceptance, and—above all—get jobs. And business is so good I’m booked ahead for months.
As my own former Ph.D. advisees would happily tell you, I am not infallible. Your students don’t come to me because they think I’m the perfect adviser. They come because I’m available and you’re not. And because I don’t sugarcoat the truth and you do. When their work is bad, I tell them. Point blank. “Your essay is truly awful,” I’ve said. Or, “Has no one ever taught you how to write a grant?” Most important, I highlight the career stakes of their errors: “This job letter is no better than a B+, which in this job climate, may as well be an F. Do it over.” And they do.
When I ask them why they come to me—and not you, their Ph.D. advisers—the answers never vary. “Oh, my adviser? He’s supportive about the diss. But in terms of my career? I’m totally on my own.”
Why am I the pinch-hitter for an absentee professoriate?
Let me be the first to tell you, your advisees are working hard. They have certainly gotten the memo: Jobs are impossible, so publish before you finish. Network. Professionalize. They just don’t have the foggiest notion how to do any of that.
Cultivate a letter-writer? Do the elevator talk? Tailor a job letter? You are sending your Ph.D. students out onto this job market so unprepared that it would be laughable if the outcome weren’t so tragic. Meanwhile, when students ask for help with their job search, too many of you respond with some version of “not my problem” or “the Ph.D. is not professional training.” When one of my clients asked her adviser for career help, the professor accused her of trying to “game the system.” Incredibly, one of you told another of my clients, “Jobs come up all the time! It’s not like there’s a season for them!”
To be sure, my clients tell me that advising occurs—endless advising of “the dissertation project.” As if that project, and its minutiae of citations and shades of meaning, is the point of graduate school. It is not the point of graduate school. It is simply a document that demonstrates a mastery of a discipline and a topic. The point of graduate school, for the actual graduate students themselves, is preparation for a career. A career like yours, with benefits and a retirement plan.
That kind of career derives far less from a thick wad of dissertation pages than from the quantity of one’s publications, the impressiveness of one’s grant record, the fame of one’s reference-writers, and the clarity of one’s ambition. I don’t find it problematic to say any of that openly. But apparently you do. You reject it as “vulgar” and “careerist”—as if wanting to have health insurance is vulgar and wanting to not go on food stamps is careerist.
That is pure intellectual snobbery. To acknowledge your graduate students as people in a workforce requires you to acknowledge yourselves as workers, and to do that you must finally abandon the self-delusion of the ivory tower—that scholarly work is “above” capitalist exchange and anything as gauche as money. And that you will not do. The irony of faculty “work” (“I’m working on a project on death and the abject”) is its scrupulous denial of any acknowledged kinship to the actual wage-work for which you do, indeed, draw a salary.
For years now, many professors have used the abysmal job market as an alibi to entirely neglect career advising for their doctoral students. “Well, the job market’s impossible,” my former colleagues would say, airily, “of course I always tell them that.” And for too many professors, that’s where their sense of responsibility to their advisees’ career prospects seems to stop.
But I write this today to argue otherwise. Your responsibility to your advisees extends to telling the whole truth about the academic enterprise at this time. Tenure-track lines have been evaporating for years. Aiming for a tenure-track job is, for most students, unrealistic. For those students who wish to try, the effort requires years of methodical training and calculation of career chances, from the point of arrival in the graduate program through the dissertation defense and beyond. Your job is to look up from your students’ dissertations, and assist them in mastering those skills and calculations.
How? By teaching your Ph.D.’s how to write a CV; to cultivate prominent scholarly supporters; to pursue grant money with a single-minded purpose; to apply for national awards; to publish, publish more, publish higher, write a stellar application letter, and do the elevator talk.
And when, even after doing all of the above, the tenure-track job doesn’t materialize, as it often will not, instead of averting your eyes in shame from their so-called “failures,” you step up, professors, and work with your Ph.D.’s to transfer their skills into some sector of the economy that is not contracting as badly as your own.
Your job is to tell them the truth. And to extend an ethos of care beyond your advisees’ writing and research to encompass their material existence. Because your students need work, even when it’s not the coveted tenure-track job. Work is good. You work. So should your Ph.D.’s.
Karen Kelsky is a former professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the University of Oregon who left academe in 2010. She now runs a consulting business and a blog called The Professor Is In.
Satanism is a subject that has always drawn a lot of media attention
as well as interest from the general public. Scholarly studies of the
subject, however, have more often focused on socially constructed “Satanic Panics” than on Satanism as a religious alternative in itself. Recently, this has begun to change, and anthologies such as “Contemporary Religious Satanism” (Ed. Jesper A Petersen, Ashgate, 2009) have started to fill the gaps in scholarly knowledge concerning Satanism. A further attempt to remedy the situation was made when the first ever international scholarly conference on Satanism was organized in Trondheim, Norway, in 2009. The conference was a great success, and resulted in an anthology that will be published by Oxford University Press later this year. In September 2011, we welcome you to Stockholm, Sweden for the follow-up to 2009′s gathering of specialists.
Keynote speaker: Marco Pasi
Unfortunately, I could not attend. I had heard about it a little too late to submit a paper and then collect the funds. In two years there will be another one, and I will plan ahead of time. Rarely will I get an opportunity to be exposed (or even present my research) to other scholars working on the same topic, albeit with different foci. Hashing out ideas among peers is the best way for any scholar to hone their analytical skills, force you to become more precise, concise, and clear, and to readjust your positions if the evidence suggests it necessary. Some of my classmates/colleagues tend to shy away from academic debate, but I have always welcomed it. The true challenge for any scholar is to consider different perspectives, and when you disagree, to ask yourself if you fully understand what it is you oppose? And why? Academic conferences are one of the few places where scholars can voice ideas in progress, receive feedback, and ultimately produce more critical work.
From a local paper, the Montreal Mirror that prints a column called the Rant Line™, which is ostensibly a call-in voicemail where readers talk about the local music scene. In reality it is a depository for rants n’ raves of all sorts, and recently has run a mini-series about Satanism.
This is a relatively common claim. For the record, law enforcement (notably the FBI Lanning report) have investigated these types of accusations, and have never found any evidence of a Satanic group regularly abusing children. The great majority of claims have turned out to be the debunked “Recovered Memory Syndrome“. The question then becomes, why are people so convinced of incidents that never appeared to have happened?
Another commentary in response to NVP, seemingly not from the original ranter, on Sept. 22, 2011:
True, there is no goat sacrificing, or animal sacrifice of any kind. It is actually strictly forbidden. As for massive orgies, people are free to engage in sexual activity however they chose, between consenting adults. If that includes orgies, the Church of Satan has no commentary on the private lives of their members. If your chosen lifestyle is monogamy for 40 years, the same thing applies; it is your business, and only your business.
When people find out about my topic of research, I get asked about the orgies all the time. I usually provide them the answer above. It has been five years of pursuit of this topic, off and on. Never in that time has anyone suggested, even in the slightest, that group sexual activity was prescribed in order to become a member. Neither has anyone ever asked me to part of an orgy, or even hinted at it, in any way whatsoever.
Unless…of course…they do engage and I am excluded? Could it be that they have orgies all the time and I am just not invited? In which case, I may refuse, but it would be nice to be asked. Scholars can be kinky, too.
Currently finishing an MA in Religious Studies. My broad areas of interest are Christianity, New Religious Movements, and Ritual Theory, with focuses on performance theory, religion and popular culture, and modern Satanism. I am writing my thesis on the construction and development of the notion of "evil" in New Religious Movements. I have published, lectured, and received various media attention regarding my specialty, the Church of Satan.
