1/ I’ve been going back and forth about sharing this, but with #hautalk making a return on #AnthroTwitter, I think it might be time for me to share my experiences with anthropology graduate programs. Long thread and content warnings for abuse and suicide.
2/ I’ve had four PhD supervisors so far. I’ve been afraid to tell people that for fear of seeming like a difficult or bad student, but as certain events become more distant, I’m becoming more capable of not taking these things personally.
3/ I applied for PhD programs immediately out of undergrad (a huge mistake). When I got an email from telling me that I’d been accepted to Berkeley to work with a star anthropologist, I thought that I was hallucinating (I had mono at the time).
4/ I'd heard warnings about my supervisor (which were pretty common knowledge), but the chance to work with one of my academic heroes left me starstruck. My first year at Berkeley was everything I hoped that it would be.
5/ Despite rumors, my supervisor was supportive, both logistically and intellectually. I excelled in my classes and was told that I was one of his best students.
6/ The community around him, however, was full of cutthroat climbers. I was comfortable and complacent and missed the ruthlessness until it was too late. After a good group meeting, one of my colleagues awkwardly stuck around while the rest of us were leaving.
7/ It was like a flip switched. Less than an hour later, I received an email demanding my apology with no explanation. I had no idea what he was talking about. My confusion was taken as dodging responsibility.
8/ I never learned what I had supposedly done, but I never had a chance to see my supervisor again. Instead, over the following months, including my preliminary fieldwork, I received increasingly abusive emails. I was accused of being a "traitor," dishonest, and vicious.
9/ Emails would ask for me to return money that I had never received. They would feign surprise that I didn't attend a book launch I had never been invited to and wouldn't have felt welcome at anyways).
10/ I've been dealing with depression and anxiety for years (even coincidentally became the face of this article: bit.ly/2k8VumU), but these messages really started to make me feel like I was losing my grip on reality.
11/ I don't know what was said, but the department cut off from me. Administrators refused to meet with me to discuss the situation. Some committee members canceled my office hours appointments.
12/ Another formerly friendly faculty member publicly yelled at me about how I had wasted my time, that I was stupid, and had accomplished nothing but offend professors. I tried to kill myself later that day.
13/ I knew that I had to leave the department. I considered leaving academia but struggled to find a job that would let me stay in my apartment (the Bay Area is expensive).
14/ With the help of Lawrence Cohen, I was able to put together applications to other anthropology programs. He signed my letters of recommendation as my supervisor, making him my second. (Thanks as well to short-term committee members, Bill Hanks and Terry Deacon)
15/ I was able to turn my research proposal into a master's exam. With that, I moved to McGill, officially as a first-year PhD student with an MA, although I have never been enrolled in an MA program.
16/ I will always be enormously grateful to Tobias Rees for helping me get back to Montreal by becoming my third supervisor, even if I found it frustrating that he left the department a few years later, leaving me to find a fourth supervisor, Eduardo Kohn.
17/ McGill has been a great community within which to continue developing my research (shout-out to my cohort members @rinewithoutacat @afleisch_anthro @samantabasin). It has, however, not been immune to the kind of posturing seen elsewhere.
@rinewithoutacat @afleisch_anthro @samantabasin 18/ In Montreal, I was able to fall in love with my partner @emilyjessicaaa, secure a competitive fellowship through the Canadian government, and generally become a much healthier person. Given the frequent supervisor shifts, I feel like my research is genuinely my own.
@rinewithoutacat @afleisch_anthro @samantabasin @emilyjessicaaa 19/ That said, every time I look at job applications, I still wonder if things would be easier if I still had "UC Berkeley" attached to me. My least favorite part about conferences is running into old colleagues who look at me like some kind of zoo animal.
@rinewithoutacat @afleisch_anthro @samantabasin @emilyjessicaaa 20/ New Cal students proclaiming "I've heard about you!" like I'm some kind of fabled ghost. I'd be fine with people learning from my experiences (that's the point of this thread), but could do without the pity.
@rinewithoutacat @afleisch_anthro @samantabasin @emilyjessicaaa 21/ So what are the lessons of this? First of all, Elizabeth Dunn's response to #hautalk is absolutely correct (bit.ly/2ktI9pG): "Assholery structures the entire discipline from top to bottom."
@rinewithoutacat @afleisch_anthro @samantabasin @emilyjessicaaa 22/ Her article accurately describes my experience, and that's coming from a white, able-bodied, cis guy. I can only imagine the experiences of others. We have a long ways to go in creating genuinely welcoming, exciting, and vibrant communities.
@rinewithoutacat @afleisch_anthro @samantabasin @emilyjessicaaa 23/ Second, we must stop idolizing academic celebrities and prestigious institutions. My colleagues at McGill, Concordia, and elsewhere have been just as challenging to me as those at "elite" universities.
@rinewithoutacat @afleisch_anthro @samantabasin @emilyjessicaaa 24/ The most notable differences between those universities are (1) elitist gatekeeping, (2) engagement with trendy theories, and (3) available funding to support ambitious projects. Of those, only 3 improves the quality of research but is clearly unjust given 1 and 2. (END)
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