Resources

People frequently ask me for recommendations of resources and background reading on graduate education reform and career paths for humanities scholars. Here are a few of the things I often suggest (with the caveat that this page is infrequently updated).


I’ve put my best thoughts and resources in my book, Putting the Humanities PhD to Work: Thriving in and Beyond the Classroom (Duke University Press, July 2020).

My public Zotero collection will have more up-to-date resources; all are welcome to browse.

As part of my work with the Scholarly Communication Institute, I completed a study on career preparation and graduate education. Read the report in Digital Humanities Quarterly or view the data and instruments.

Imagine PhD is an excellent resource for current and recent graduate students, created by Annie Maxfield and the Graduate Career Consortium.

The MLA’s Doctoral Student Career Planning Toolkit offers practical, concrete advice, particularly for faculty members.

#alt-academy contains reflections on a wide range of topics related to varied career paths.

The Praxis Network features a small few like-minded, differently-structured programs that are all rethinking humanities pedagogy and scholarship. It’s a great place to get new ideas.

These three pieces by Bethany Nowviskie:  “Two and a Half Cheers for the Lunaticks,” “It Starts on Day One,” and “The #alt-ac Track: Negotiating Your ‘Alternative Academic’ Appointment”. For a collection of Bethany’s work on DH and libraries, check out Micah Vandegrift’s ebook remix.

Reports and resources from SCI’s 2012-2013 meetings on the graduate education.

The executive summary [pdf] of the CGS/ETS study, Pathways Through Graduate School and Into Careers. This study is great for contextualizing employment issues across a broader range of disciplines.

This section of Hacking the Academy.

Jennifer Polk’s site features a Q&A series with PhDs working outside the professoriate, in addition to other resources.

I Need a Library Job and Archives Gig offer job resources.

Muse Weekly, from the University of Delaware’s Museum Studies program, offers professional resources, job opportunities, workshop announcements, and more.

From Shannon Mattern, a set of resources on “How to be a happier, stronger, more excellent grad student.”

Scenes From the Life of a Graduate Adviser,” a fabulous piece full of thoughtful recommendations by Sharon Marcus, Professor of English and Dean of Humanities at Columbia University.

#tacitPhD, an invaluable hashtag started by Aimée Morrison, Associate Professor and Associate Chair, Graduate Studies, University of Waterloo. (Here’s a Storify compiled by Jennifer Polk of From PhD to Life, too.)

7 replies on “Resources”

[…] How can my professional organizations help me navigate these career options? While the Doctoral Career Planning Toolkit from the Modern Language Association is geared for departments and faculty, there’s lots of helpful information in there for students, too, alongside their Connected Academics blog. The American Historical Association interviewed recent PhDs in alt-ac careers who were trained as historians. The American Studies Association’s roundup features resources resources from institutional efforts to individual efforts, highlighting organizations like Versatile PhD, and individuals such as Dr. Katina Rogers’ fantastic database of alt-ac resources. […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *