Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #quittingacademia
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Why are the #humanities dying? Why is enrollment dropping precipitously, why are departments shutting down from lack of funding and support? A 🧵by a former English professor:
The answer: the humanities are becoming more and more irrelevant, and its stakeholders are refusing to critically address its irrelevance.
A case study from my former field, #literarystudies: the central object of analysis in literary studies has not changed for century: only novels, poetry, drama are acceptable. Everything else is either on the margins or relegated to another department.
Things I do not miss about academic discussions now that I’ve left, a 🧵:
- In most discussions I’ve been in I see that participants are often barely listening to one another. They are just waiting for their turn to speak and show off their brilliance.
- In most discussions I’ve been in I see that participants are often barely listening to one another. They are just waiting for their turn to speak and show off their brilliance.
It’s why these are often not real discussions, because participants rarely deeply engage with one another. It’s mostly peacocking.
- Courtly manners. In more sanguine environments, most discussions take place whereby the participants make superficial nods to one another’s work, for the seeming purpose of showing what an intellectual powerhouse is currently at the table.
I ugly cried when I first read this email from my book publisher @EileenAJoy about Alternative Historiographies of the Digital Humanities, upon learning that my book with @dorothyk98 won the @AmerStudiesAssn #digitalhumanities book award: a thread 🧵 
The recognition with the prize has been really healing. The toxicity of my field caused me a lot of mental health stress and started a debilitating depression.
Because I called out the racism of the digital humanities, senior white members of the field blackballed me and said I was toxic, warned junior colleagues no one would ever publish again if they worked with me. This was part of the reason why I left.
