Introduction

Abstract

This volume is the by-product of an ongoing conversation between its editors. It attempts to answer a question that preoccupies us both: How do you build a life in the humanities? The book is both a companion to and the logical outgrowth of Greg’s earlier work, Graduate Study for the 21st Century: How to Build an Academic Career in the Humanities. And yet, the questions of constructing a career and a life are distinct, if inevitably interwoven. It’s one thing to say that scholars should work many hours each week, for example, but how are they to do so while trying to raise children, maintain a home, deal with personal crises, or manage the daily stresses of the office? Just as the practical advice in Graduate Study is grounded in the conviction that there’s nothing commonsensical about the professional activities of a humanities scholar, this volume approaches the difficulties of managing life as an academic as peculiar and in need of serious discussion. Moreover, while various forms of professional advice are readily available and widely disseminated, the issue of building an academic life remains comparatively underexplored. Graduate students and new junior faculty are amply oriented to their institutions, but not to the possible lives they might construct for themselves within the academy. This book is designed to provide such an orientation.