This post was prompted by my own independent experiences, but it just happens to be about the same things Laura was talking about in her post below, so it is in some ways a response to that post.
I have lately been thinking more about pursuing further studies, most likely in English literature, at the master's and/or doctoral level. The problem is, it seems like you need to have a pretty good idea of the area you want to study and your dissertation topic, especially for doctoral studies, and I can't pin down one area that I'm especially interested in. I was looking at the websites for the English departments of some well-known universities, just browsing to see if there were any professors whose research interests sounded like something that I would be interested in studying further. After some time, a subtle sickening feeling began to steal over me. I had had this experience before, when I was trying to decide on a major before settling on PLS and thus was reading the topics of the professors' research in several different fields, including English, psychology, and a few others. The sickening sensation, I think, was the result of plowing through heaps upon heaps of what sounded like hopelessly pedantic and narrow research topics, things that no one in their right mind would ever think to spend a lot of time learning about because they were so narrowly focused. My impulse then, as it still is now, was for greater and greater broadness, for expansion rather than narrowing. My ideal, I later came to realize, was that of the Renaissance man or the "gentleman" in the Pascalian sense, the man who is not necessarily an expert on anything but who knows a lot about many different things.
The trouble is, I want to learn it all. Almost everything seems interesting to me, but this prevents me from choosing any one thing to focus on in great detail and depth, at the exclusion of other things. At the same time as all of these professors' research topics sound interesting, I don't want to learn any of it, and it all seems like vanities upon vanities.
This way of expansion seems to be contrary to the way of the scholar, or at least the professional scholar. Perhaps it is the way of the auto-didact, the self-directed and free scholar, such as I imagine Erasmus, Pascal, and virtually every other great figure in the history of thought were. The more I think about it, it seems that almost none of the truly great, original thinkers, none of the most remembered and renowned artists and poets, were university men. From the little biographical reading I have done about famous writers and thinkers, it seems that most pursued jagged and erratic career paths. Some studied at universities for a time, some earned graduate degrees, but usually, they eventually at some point broke from the well-worn rut of academia. They took the road less traveled.
Perhaps it is possible, as I said in my first response to Laura's post, to pursue the academic career path but to retain your integrity, to expand and broaden rather than narrow yourself, to hold the best of yourself in reserve. Perhaps it is possible to be in academia without being of academia. I can think of professors I have had who seem to fit this description somewhat (Weinfield comes to mind). But it is probably exceedingly difficult. Then again, it is also exceedingly difficult to pursue one's own self-directed program of learning while fully involved in the real world, contending with the intractable and insistent pressures of time and economics. Ah well, c'est la vie. We were condemned to labor under the sweat of our brows.
-Joey
P.S. Lilly, I'd be interested in reading the pensee you wrote for Munzel.
I have lately been thinking more about pursuing further studies, most likely in English literature, at the master's and/or doctoral level. The problem is, it seems like you need to have a pretty good idea of the area you want to study and your dissertation topic, especially for doctoral studies, and I can't pin down one area that I'm especially interested in. I was looking at the websites for the English departments of some well-known universities, just browsing to see if there were any professors whose research interests sounded like something that I would be interested in studying further. After some time, a subtle sickening feeling began to steal over me. I had had this experience before, when I was trying to decide on a major before settling on PLS and thus was reading the topics of the professors' research in several different fields, including English, psychology, and a few others. The sickening sensation, I think, was the result of plowing through heaps upon heaps of what sounded like hopelessly pedantic and narrow research topics, things that no one in their right mind would ever think to spend a lot of time learning about because they were so narrowly focused. My impulse then, as it still is now, was for greater and greater broadness, for expansion rather than narrowing. My ideal, I later came to realize, was that of the Renaissance man or the "gentleman" in the Pascalian sense, the man who is not necessarily an expert on anything but who knows a lot about many different things.
The trouble is, I want to learn it all. Almost everything seems interesting to me, but this prevents me from choosing any one thing to focus on in great detail and depth, at the exclusion of other things. At the same time as all of these professors' research topics sound interesting, I don't want to learn any of it, and it all seems like vanities upon vanities.
This way of expansion seems to be contrary to the way of the scholar, or at least the professional scholar. Perhaps it is the way of the auto-didact, the self-directed and free scholar, such as I imagine Erasmus, Pascal, and virtually every other great figure in the history of thought were. The more I think about it, it seems that almost none of the truly great, original thinkers, none of the most remembered and renowned artists and poets, were university men. From the little biographical reading I have done about famous writers and thinkers, it seems that most pursued jagged and erratic career paths. Some studied at universities for a time, some earned graduate degrees, but usually, they eventually at some point broke from the well-worn rut of academia. They took the road less traveled.
Perhaps it is possible, as I said in my first response to Laura's post, to pursue the academic career path but to retain your integrity, to expand and broaden rather than narrow yourself, to hold the best of yourself in reserve. Perhaps it is possible to be in academia without being of academia. I can think of professors I have had who seem to fit this description somewhat (Weinfield comes to mind). But it is probably exceedingly difficult. Then again, it is also exceedingly difficult to pursue one's own self-directed program of learning while fully involved in the real world, contending with the intractable and insistent pressures of time and economics. Ah well, c'est la vie. We were condemned to labor under the sweat of our brows.
-Joey
P.S. Lilly, I'd be interested in reading the pensee you wrote for Munzel.
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