Discussion about this post

User's avatar
BasicB's avatar

Re: Dr. Smell:

Why do people write English Literature PhD theses on topics that most non-academics would consider obscure and useless? To demonstrate to their PhD committees that they possess sufficient analysis, synthesis, and contextualization skills to obtain a doctorate. Most literature PhD's then go on to get jobs teaching Freshman Seminar.

Why do kids in college take Freshman Seminar and other literature courses? For that matter, why do kids who never go to college study literature in high school? Is it so that they can go out and lecture others about the Christian symbolism of food imagery in Ulysses? Mostly, no. A handful of those kids will go on to get weird PhDs so that they can teach Freshman Seminar themselves, but most of them will go on to get regular jobs. Why might some kid who is destined to work at a bank benefit from spending a few semesters in college trying to bang out ten pages about the portrayal of Patriarchy in the Brontes and Jane Austen? That is because it is generally good for adults in a literate society to possess reading comprehension and writing skills.

Reading comprehension is the ability to look at a work of literature, journalism, or other writing and to understand not only what literally happens in the story, but also extract broader themes, put the writing in its proper social context, and put forth a well reasoned argument about it. These skills are useful in many vocations, but also help the broader population avoid such pitfalls as freaking out about an incendiary headline that obscures the content of the article beneath it, or declaring that a book is "racist" based on reports that, at various points in a narrative about main character overcoming prejudice in an unjust society, some racist antagonists do and say some racist things.

In short, teaching literature to students is designed to help the general population be more astute consumers of the written word. So when a bunch of randos online read the title of this woman's thesis, and, with no other context, declare her life's work to be useless and irrelevant, and certainly nothing they could benefit from learning, well, Alanis Morrisette could write her PhD dissertation about that.

Edit to add: What she is doing in her thesis is similar to a session musician making a demo of himself playing "Mary had a Little Lamb" in 20 different musical styles. The original content doesn't matter. It could be anything. It's about demonstrating that she has the skills needed to obtain this degree.

Expand full comment
Toiler On the Sea's avatar

Dr. Ally rode her hate all the way to the bank . . .too perfect😆

Expand full comment
29 more comments...

No posts