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Writer's pictureMedievalitas

New MLA volume on changing graduate education in the humanities


While the humanities remain as necessary as ever, the shrinking academic job market has led scholars to rethink the nature and purpose of graduate school in these fields. Highlighting examples of innovative approaches, this volume aims to provide resources and inspiration for a sustainable, thriving, and even joyful future for the humanities.

The essays in this collection offer a framework for doctoral education and postdoctoral careers rooted in concepts of abundance, collaboration, community engagement, and personal well-being. They emphasize the role of the humanities in helping people analyze texts, imagine others’ perspectives, make ethical decisions, and sit with ambiguity. They propose graduate programs that respond to student and community needs and lead to a variety of career paths. Finally, they envision opportunities for meaningful, fulfilling work in the service of a larger purpose.


Happy to have a collaborative essay in this volume, written with Anna Stenport. Here is the full TOC:



Part One: Engaged Curriculum (21)


A Twenty-First-Century Doctoral Curriculum: Praxis, Scholarly Communication, and Capacity Building (25). Sidonie Smith


Collaborative Ethics: Practicing Engagement in Our Academic Communities (41). Jenna Lay and Emily Shreve


Reforming and Revalidating the Humanities Master’s Degree at a STEM-Driven University (57). Anna Westerstahl Stenport and Richard Utz


Purpose and Vocation: Rethinking the First-Year Graduate Proseminar (75). David Pettersen


Experiential Learning and the Humanities PhD (91). Tiffany Potter and Elizabeth Hodgson


Part Two: Civic Engagement (107)


New Pathways for Access, Inclusion, and Public Engagement in the Land-Grant Humanities PhD (113). Todd Butler, Tabitha Espina, and Richard Snyder


Graduate Students and Their Communities: The Obermann Institute (133). Teresa Mangum and Jennifer New


Generative Collaboration and the Digital Humanities (151). Will Fenton


Working Knowledge: Narrative Theory in the Real World (165). Marcia Halstead James


Sustainability and the Posthumanities (179). Alex Christie and Katie Dyson


Humanities in Action: Centering the Human in Public Humanities Work (195). Veronica T. Watson and Laurie Zierer


Part Three: Joy and Well-Being (213)


Cultivating a Joyful Workplace through Trust, Support, and a Shared Mission (219). Katina L. Rogers


The Agony and the Ecstasy of Literary Study at the Graduate Level (233). Donald Moores


Finding Joy in the Graduate Internship (245). John Lennon


Bodies of Knowledge: Toward an Embodied Humanistic Praxis (259). Manoah Avram Finston


Humanities under Quarantine: A Reflection on Isolation and Connectivity in Graduate Education (275). Yevgenya Strakovsky


Joy and the Politics of the Public Good (291). Stacy M. Hartman and Bianca C. Williams


Radical Collegiality and Joy in Graduate Education (309). Paul W. Burch, Brooke Clark, Sonia Del Hierro, Meredith McCullough, Kelly McKisson, and S. J. Stout

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