In Summer 2015, Humanities Without Walls organized its first Alternative Academic Career Workshop for pre-doctoral students in the humanities. To kick off our school year, we gathered in the Alice Kaplan Institute for the Humanities and hosted a panel of workshop participants, including Ira Murfin (NU – Theater and Drama), Kantara Souffrant (NU – Performance Studies), Bill Hutchison (University of Chicago – English), Robert Smith III (University of Minnesota – American Studies), Tyler Miller (University of Illinois at Chicago – History), and Kei Hotoda (University of Illinois at Chicago – Philosophy), along with a workshop organizer, Ian Blechschmidt (NU – Rhetoric and Public Culture), who helped plan the workshop while a fellow at the Chicago Humanities Festival. In a conversation facilitated by Ruth Martin, the panelists discussed what attracted them to the workshop, what they did during it, and what they’re taking from it – take-away’s that included everything from “do informational interviews,” to deeper knowledge of viable non-/para-/alt-academic career paths, to reinvigorated interest in their dissertation projects.
As one panelist noted, many participants were drawn to the workshop because they were “trying to figure out what would make us happy…our intellectual passions…our ethical concerns – and what would pay the bills.”
For more about the workshop, see the 2015 schedule and resources here: http://www.humanitieswithoutwalls.illinois.edu/initiatives/pre-doctoral/schedule.html.
Northwestern students interested in applying for the 2015-16 workshop can find more information here: http://
