Academia

I do not get the feeling that academics here in Iceland live with the same horrifying, stupifying, demoralizing, negativity that tells every PhD student in the humanities in the United States at some point in time or another that they are a drag on society, an unproductive and unnecessary burden that stands on the shoulders of working class people, a privileged elite that has no understanding of what makes the world go round. Instead here in Iceland academics (and authors) are almost celebrated, the raison d etre for the rest of the society, the thing which gives meaning to life.

I am really overdoing the rhetoric here, because in fact neither of these things is ever said in exactly these terms. But American PhD students in the humanities are constantly warned that they may never, ever, ever get a secure job, that they may have to reconcile themselves to the fact that a PhD is absolutely not a means to a career unless they scrape one together themselves. New graduates are supposed to feel incredibly lucky to spend 5 years at a string of one year appointments all over the country teaching undergraduate composition. We are told to do everything possible to publish so that we can beat out the competition if and when the rare tenure track academic job opens up. And why might that be? Because American society does not value PhDs, especially PhDs in the humanities. Even if that is not always the case, the feeling is that we are the most expendable, the first to go, in any sort of financial crisis, because we are extra, we are baggage. But if you are in a field where new machines are invented or new medicines found, well then no matter how mediocre your PhD might have been, you will certainly get a very well paying job and live comfortably the rest of your life.

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