After Reading Roth: English Departments, Bitterness, and the American Dream

Bitterness is an odd thing to describe.  I used to think it wasn't anything bad, given that bittersweet chocolate was my favorite.

After months of reading nonfiction, I've finally picked up a novel, Philip Roth's The Human Stain.  It's hardly what could be termed an academic novel, as it's really so much more an exploration of race and identity (among other things).  And while I am obviously fascinated by the intricate relationships, prejudices, and issues of conformity Roth questions, I've found myself reacting most strongly to the fleeting academic moments.  Today on the bus coming home, I read about Coleman Silk's memories of his first encounters with Delphine Roux, the French professor who has been sending him anonymous letters about his affair with Faunia Farley.  For the sake of this post, quoting at length is necessary.  Delphine has just been offered a temporary adjunct position at second-rate college, a far cry from the Ivy League post she was hoping for:

"Her fellow foreign graduate students tell her that she's too good for Athena College, it would be too declasse, but her fellow American graduate students, who would kill for a job teaching in the Stop & Shop boiler room, think that her uppityness is characteristically Delphine . . .To get the second job, the fancy job, she first needs this Athena job, but for nearly an hour Dean Silk listens to her all but talk her way out of the Athena job.  Narrative structure and temporality. The internal contradictions of the work of art.  Rousseau hides himself and then his rhetoric gives him away.  (A little like her, thinks the dean, in that autobiographical essay.)  The critic's voice is as legitimate as the voice of Herodotus.  Narratology.  The diegetic.  The difference between diegesis and mimesis.  The bracketed experience.  The proleptic quality of the text . . . He thinks: Why does someone so beautiful want to hide from the human dimension of her experience behind these words?"

This passage struck painfully close to home this afternoon, with its mockery of Delphine's pretensions and aspirations, as well as by what it suggests about academic departments.

In the fall of 2011, Gordon and I were both busy applying for graduate school.  My third year in Poland ended up being my happiest, but prior to that year, I'd gotten tired of teaching English as a Second Language at schools that were more businesses than academic environments.  I decided I needed a graduate degree in order to get a decent job living in the United States.  I applied mostly to Art History programs, given that that's what my B.A. was in, but applied to a few English programs.  As I studied for the GRE in Literature, I realized I was loving it.  I was working full-time and studying in every free moment, but I loved reviewing literary terms and reading books I might never have picked up (they were too daunting), like Moby-Dick and The Sound and the Fury.  I knew my parents didn't have too high an opinion of present-day English departments, but I secretly began hoping I'd get into one of the English programs.

As luck would have it, I did--I got into my first choice, Boston University.  When I'd done my research, BU had stuck out.  It was a fairly small program, and as I browsed the previous course titles, one thing was apparent: this was a program that still read books.  Most of the schools I'd looked at had strayed so far from traditional literature that they'd my skin squirm.  The majority of programs suggested my parents' fears weren't unfounded; English programs were no longer about literature, but about everything else that could be used to deflect condemnation from opponents of English programs. My first boyfriend had once laughed when I'd toyed with the idea of doing my B.A. in English, explaining that English wasn't "useful" and in no way benefited the world.  I was too young to know that there were a lot of objections that could be leveled against this sort of criticism.  But in 2011, I knew better.  I wanted to study what I loved.

And so, in 2012, I began my Master's in English at Boston University.  It's not an exaggeration for me to say it was one of my happiest years.  I was, like all my classmates, often overwhelmed by the sheer volume of reading.  Unlike many of the other students, I hadn't studied English as an undergraduate, and there were major gaps in my knowledge.  Gordon spent countless hours helping me untangle Marx and Bakhtin, and I stopped reading for pleasure.  Luckily, I loved almost everything I read for class (with the painful exception being Sir Walter Scott's The Heart of Midlothian).  It was exhilarating to feel my brain working so hard.  I talked incessantly to anyone and everyone about what I was reading or thinking about or what paper topics I was considering.  I was determined to apply for a PhD the following fall.  In the spring, I decided to sign up for four graduate seminars, instead of doing the typical three plus one undergraduate class.  The amount of reading I had to do was unbelievable, but again, this was a happy kind of busy.  One of the professors with whom I took a class on Byron and the Shelleys had a reputation for being strict and tough, and I made it my mission to impress him.  In the middle of my resolve to wow him, I became fascinated by his class.  I found Percy Shelley a perfect writer on whom to concentrate my linguistic and literary interests.  I decided I would apply to PhD programs in Romanticism, and elicited from this professor the promise of a glowing recommendation.

A year later, I've decided not to apply.

This has been one of the hardest, bitterest decisions I've ever made.

In the last year, I've seen countless articles with Dickensian-like narratives of English adjuncts who have died in utter poverty, without a cent to pay for their funeral.  Many of them suffered health problems they couldn't afford to pay for on an adjunct's salary.  It was probably sheer happenstance that so many of my Facebook friends began posting these articles, but deep down I felt as though they were pointed messages for me: DO NOT ENTER.  There were articles about how there are only ever a handful of tenure-track jobs available in any given year, and articles about how for that majority that can't find an academic job, an English doctorate is wholly useless for any other job.

Painfully enough, these posts have all echoed what many professors at BU themselves said.  At the orientation the day before classes began, a professor grinned when he told us if he were us, he'd get the hell out of the program.  He repeated the sentiment a few other times throughout the year, as did some of the professors who guest-lectured in our theory class.  I was always appalled by these blatant proclamations.  I couldn't believe that they dared look us in the face, knowing we'd taken out massive loans, and inform us that English departments were dying.  Our loans, which many of us would be paying off for decades, were helping keep them in a job, but we were wasting our time.  That was the message.

To be fair, none of the professors in any of my classes made these comments--it was always professors I encountered in different settings who made these jabs.  Two of my professors, my beloved Shelley professor Rzepka, and my 1950s America professor Mizruchi, were nothing  short of inspirational and motivational.  Professor Rzepka was of the opinion that I would be successful as a Romanticist and that I should by all means pursue that path.  Professor Mizruchi had a generally more optimistic outlook on English departments.  She refused to believe that book lovers would disappear entirely.  When I wrote to both professors this past fall to say I'd be postponing my studies as I'd recently been promoted to a salaried position at work and wanted to pay off my loans for awhile, they both understood and commended me for being realistic and reassured me that they'd write me letters the following year.

And here I am a year later, not applying.  I hate to feel like I am giving up on English departments.  I felt so at home at BU from the moment I first snuck in to see the building over the summer with Gordon.  It looked like an English department out of a book.  I loved everything about the building, my classes, my books, my teachers, my classmates.  For the year I was at BU, I felt like I could be the first PhD in my family and get to be a professor of literature.  This dream of mine seemed completely within reach.  I imagined doing interesting research and inspiring students the way some of my professors had me.

But there are painful realities to confront.  I've always had a tendency to dream, a fondness for fancy instead of prose, and I suppose it was inevitable that my confrontation with a harsh reality would hurt this much.  English studies do seem to be fading.  I hate to give up on them even more than I hate to forsake my own dreams and plans.  But in my first two years abroad, I struggled for money all the time.  I had the luxury of knowing my parents would always help me (whether by loaning me money, giving me money, or letting me live with them), but I'm too old to continue leaning on them so much.  Part of me feels like I've been failed by America.  You're supposed to be able to follow your dreams and all that jazz in America, but it's increasingly difficult to find a job, no matter how many degrees you have.  I no longer feel like I can pull myself up by my bootstraps or be anyone I want to be.  I will be paying off my loans for decades.  American politicians always say education is of the utmost importance, but my dreams are being sacrificed as a result of my expensive education.  I hate the thought of spending 5+ years studying what I love, only to discover I can't find a job.  If studying what I loved most resulted in my having to struggle all over again, my love would quickly become poisoned and tainted.  Even more terrible than having to struggle for a job would be to lose my love of books.

I feel full of bitterness, brimming over with it some days.  I snap at my husband or parents when they tell me everything will be okay, and feel shamefully jealous of friends who are working at their dream jobs.

And then I remind myself that I do really like my current job--I even love it sometimes.  I'm lucky to be doing Plan B now.  Some people end up stuck with Plan K or L.  B isn't so bad.  I was talking to a college friend a few days ago.  She is now a stay-at-home mom (which is not what she'd planned to do), financially okay but not more than okay.  We agreed that your happiness doesn't need to come from your job.  Your life can be happy if you make it happy.  And so, while I consider alternative routes to take my life on, I make myself happy.  I sit in my little urban balcony garden with my husband.  I play with my kittens.  I joke with my students.  I try out new recipes and I practice my Polish on my mom.  I take up ballet again and sing folk songs with my dad.  And I read and love my books.

A happy day