PhD Life
A Tumultuous End to the First Year
The past few months have been chaotic in more ways than one. Much of this academic year has been filled with increasing uncertainty about the sustained outlook of my PhD program and it seems to have culminated as this term came to an end.
-Photo by Dana ward on Unsplash. Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-wooden-book-shelf-with-books-6JffLQi_XqY.
Although it has been a time of difficulty, I was in three classes this term, all of which I found value in. In Conceptual Approaches to Religion, we examined theories of translation—both textual and metaphorical—and wrestled with concepts like the meaning of authorship, who the audiences of translations are, and to what degree one should maintain foreignness in their translations. The second course was on Aristotle’s Metaphysics and left my head spinning most of the time. What does it mean to exist? Is there anything essential about humanity? What is matter and how does it inform concepts of essentialism? These were just some of the ideas that I was presented with in this class. Overall, it was enjoyable and valuable, not only because Aristotelean thought influenced the world in which Christianity arose, but because it is something that is still very much with us today. The last class was the Philosophy of the American Tradition and it was my favorite course of the term. We met outside near a patch of evergreen trees and a towering horse chestnut, reading the works of 19th-century American writers like Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, and Walt Whitman. Much of the class focused on the Transcendentalists and their emphasis on nature, self-reliance, and awareness of the universal being. I appreciated the opportunity to delve into writings from this era and revisit a time period that I have long been interested in—my first master’s degree was in history with a focus on U.S. history and I’ve long held a passion for American literature and history.
The coursework was rigorous in its own way, but what made this term especially difficult was that the Religious Studies Department at my school was dissolved. This was the result of a long process that seems to have been in the works before I even started my PhD and which has many interweaving and contributing factors. Some of these are institutional—the unfortunate reality that the school is in a major budgetary crisis—and some of them are related to broader pressures from the current presidential administration, a reduction in the number of people attending college, and the erosion of people’s belief that the humanities, religious studies included, are valuable and vital to the educational system. My PhD program is not the only one to encounter issues like this, as many similar programs, even at major institutions, have opted for department closures and institutional restructuring.
While the closure of the Religious Studies Department was becoming more clear as the year progressed, it was not certain what that meant for me and my fellow students. Was the entire program being closed? Would faculty be relocated to other departments within the university? Will the number of classes offered be severely limited? There was not much clarity on this, and I briefly looked into transferring to another school, but this came with its own issues. I had already missed the application deadlines for next academic year, which meant I would have to take a gap year. There was also not a guarantee that all of the coursework I did this year would transfer to another school. And it would mean moving again after my wife and I already moved across the country last year. In the middle of all of this, I was dealing with some minor health concerns, my wife’s job seemed like it might cause us to move back to Virginia, and we had to tell our apartment that we were not renewing our lease for another year since, at the time, we thought it likely that I would have to transfer.
Ultimately, I decided to stay put. There are still some unanswered questions that will likely only be answered as the next year unfolds. But I now know that at least some of the faculty that I’ve been working with are getting relocated to different academic departments within the university, which should enable me and my fellow students to still finish our PhDs in Religious Studies, even though the department will no longer exist.
I mentioned in a previous PhD Life post that much of what makes getting a PhD challenging is not the academic rigor in my opinion. That part of it can be hard, but for me the difficulties of this season have been other things: financial limitations of being a PhD student, the unmoored nature of moving to a new place, navigating the impacts of AI in the humanities, and most recently, departmental closure and the uncertainty that comes with it.
But as I reflect on the year, I can’t help but feel thankful and maybe even dare to feel optimistic about what’s next. There were a lot of great things that happened this year, despite the ups and downs. As I look ahead, I’m slowly piecing together my coursework schedule for next year—the last year I will ever take college classes! In addition to continuing to work on my dissertation this Summer, I already have a few exciting interviews with some prominent scholars lined up for all of you subscribing to Contingent History on topics like the Gospels, apochryphal texts, and slavery in the ancient world.
By way of closing, I just want to emphasize the importance of the humanities and religious studies as a field of inquiry. Studying religion involves engaging with history, the lived experiences of people with different worldviews, and vital aspects of the human experience that have shaped and continue to shape the world we live in. Much of the same can be said about the humanities more broadly, and we need to continue to find value in those spaces beyond the monetary and efficient. It is in the humanities that we ask questions of meaning and connection, and where we consider the world around us afresh, encouraged by those we converse with and the stories we read and see ourselves within. The humanities are not about techno-infused “progress” or fiscally motivated rat races, but about vital interpersonal skills, an openness to wonder, and the curation of a vibrant life.
I’ll do another PhD Life post in the Fall. In the meantime, keep an eye out for more Contingent History articles and video interviews as the Summer progresses.