With a great deal of envy, graduate students in North America – except those, of course, who think that attending the Ivy League connotes a degree of relative superiority – look to England and Australia as wonderful, wonderful places to study: a doctorate (they even sound better: “D.Phil”!) takes between three and four years; you are admitted to the programme by your proposed advisor’s recommendation; and all you have to do – no teaching, no courses, no comprehensives – is write a book.
Meanwhile, us poor graduate students in North America normally go through a master’s degree (one or two years: two semesters of coursework and then research and write a thesis of about a hundred pages) and then through a doctoral degree (four to six years: one or two years of coursework, a year or two of comprehensive exams, a number of months preparing a dissertation proposal – or, even worse, at places like Berkeley, years preparing a prospectus – and then a long time researching and writing the dissertation; and, let’s not forget, semi-formal and fully formal oral defenses along the way). Oh, and let’s not forget that doctoral students in North American universities are required to teach if they want to eat and be able to pay tuition.
I am rather fortunate in my situation: I was admitted with advanced standing (one year of coursework instead of two) and with a decent external funding package (but for only thirty-six months of which this is the twenty-fifth) and with no expectation to teach (I am the first wave in the attempt to separate “research” from “regular/teaching” faculty, with the expectation that universities will slowly restructure themselves as either “teaching” or “researching” institutions – already begun at the faculty level with the Canada Research Chairs program).
Thus, as I expect to complete writing my dissertation proposal this evening (I say that every day – but certainly no later than tomorrow afternoon) in less than twenty-five full months, I find myself in a favourable position. The majority of my “cohort” only completed coursework this summer, some have completed their first comprehensive, none have completed their second comprehensive, and certainly no one has completed their dissertation proposal. The standard rate of progression through the programme puts me in a fourth-year equivalent. Insofar as my position is concerned, it is pretty good.
Still, I doubt that this is a very good system. It doesn’t seem to reward merit – the official story, of course: the best are well funded – as much as it rewards the acquisition of a scholarly disposition; the scholar’s habitus, if you will. It rewards the ability, in the first instance, to write a funding proposal. (Something, it seems, I have mastered.) Second, it rewards the ability to focus on a narrow specialty. (Something else I have mastered.) Third, it rewards the ability to identify projects that can be quickly completed: funding is for three or four years and your project “has” to be completed at that time. It certainly does not reward the ability to think; to produce projects of extensive detail and scope (Heidegger never would have gotten funded!); it emphasizes results – however mediocre they may be – over interesting work.
And, in a year, I start it all over again with a new proposal asking for money to pursue an entirely new line of research for a post-doc – an entirely new line of research that is expected to be completed within two years.
Insofar as the production of a scholarly habitus is concerned, does the North American system produce better scholars than the Anglo system? If it doesn’t, why do we bother with all these credentials and with all these competitions? Or, do we just idealize the Anglo system because it seems much nicer than our own?
(Note: the impetus for this half- or non-thought reflections is the imminent completion of my dissertation proposal, which, as the reader might suspect, has been a relatively large source of anxiety.)
5 Comments
Interesting observations. I know nothing about the Anglo system (is there a diary on your blog discussing it), but compare the North American system to the French system. Deleuze had already taught for a number of years before getting his doctorate of the state. He had written numerous books (his study of Bergson, Nietzsche, and I believe the short Kant book), and he submitted _Expressionism and Philosophy_ and _Difference and Repetition_ as his dissertation! This seems to be a more reasonable system… People have to eat and work, and it’s likely that the publishing system could do without the endless stream of studies and commentaries that tend to be produced as a result of how dissertations are written in North America. Those who do not write a dissertation in the French system can, presumably, continue to teach at the highschool level (imaging Deleuze as your highschool philosophy professor!) while those who do the highest level of work are given the time and opportunity to produce genuinely worthwhile work.
i so don’t agree!!! i have limited experience in the NA system, but isn’t there also normally a language requirement? plus you don’t know how lucky you are to actually do coursework and get to learn in a class-based environment!! being an autodidact is not fun.
i guess there is a different emphasis on learning vs research, which are different relationships to knowledge one is more about circulation and repetition while the other is about creating or translating knowledge.
hmmm, but you are right about the freedom aspects. I love being able to pick up whatever I want and read it, and read enough in the area to learn something. That is cool. But actually doing research is another problem altogether. I think a best case scenario would be to have what you are calling the anglo system with some so-called masterclasses on specific and highly related topics.
S- Glen who commented here has discussed aspects of his degree on his own site. He’s in Australia, which is quite similar to what you get in Britain. I do think there is some merit to the French system (do they still have the major/minor thesis distinction? Durkheim’s two theses were The Division of Labour and a commentary on Montesquieu; Foucault’s were History of Madness and a commentary on Kant’s anthropology; Althusser submitted For Marx and a commentary on Montesquieu – they should still be written in Latin for the minor thesis). It could be something in their gene pool, or it could be their system of competitive exams and long maturation periods, but they have produced two or three excellent generations of scholars. Can’t say so much for, say, Canada. (All of our noted philosophers studied outside the country, notably at Oxbridge – Kymlicka, G.A. Cohen, Ian Hacking, etc.) Forget just having Deleuze for your high school philosophy instructor: just imagine having it as a subject! (Althusser, for one, never received a university post despite having completed his Doctorat D’Etat.)
Glen – there likely are relative advantages, but it seems that in the Anglo model there is a greater emphasis on more or less formal reading/research groups than there is in North America, which can pick up the slack insofar as courses are concerned. Plus, you always have the option of auditing M.A. modules, should you feel compelled. Language requirements are hit and miss. Most programmes without language requirements want them and most with language requirements don’t want them. Personally, I don’t see how you can be a serious scholar without, at the very least, a reading knowledge of two other languages.
I’m down at Hopkins, and have an MA already, with the expectation that this doctorate will take me at least 5 years. I already have 3 languages and am expected to prove those over again, here. There seems to be a disconnect between the N. American and European systems, which has a lot to do with the nature of post-secondary education, at least that’s what I’m lead to beleive from my advisors. Must be nice to be getting a “research” degree, though I must admit I’d like to do some teaching and some research, since in my mind they’re fundamentally related…
The grass is always greener :) For myself, I look with envy at the North American system.
In the Anglo system, it’s true, there is an emphasis on reading groups and seminars. But it depends greatly on what university and department you’re in. Three years to write a PhD proposal, do your research, write the thing, edit it and submit is not enough time. In Australia it’s possible to go straight from a four-year undergraguate degree to a PhD, skipping an MA altogether. This is what I’ve done. I’m on a scholarship, am writing well, and I’ve got really supportive advisors who also give me paid work and publication opportunities. It’s great, but there are so many holes in my knowledge a few more years of coursework might have filled. Glen’s right, it’s no fun being an autodidact. I’m terrified of finishing the PhD too specialised, unable to teach basic classes in what I actually love (philosophy, critical theory) because I wrote on trans theory and (let’s face it) who’s going to employ a fulltime trans/queer studies lecturer? On paper, my academic expertise looks incredibly narrow. And then I look at people I know who are floundering in the middle of candidature and whose theses (if they finish) will die unread in some library archive, and who will end up working in call centres. About 50% of PhD candidates drop out here, and only 25% finish on time. Supposedly this is about winnowing the wheat from the chaff. It’s cruel, and it could be different if people were given more time and a more structured degree process. My uni is actually moving to the US system, and I think it will work better.
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