On Friday, September 17 at 1:00-3:00 PM ET, the Columbia University English and Comparative Literature Department is hosting a virtual event, “Career Pathways and Curricular Reform in Humanities Graduate Education.” Please join us for a dialogue that builds on existing efforts, across higher education institutions, to respond to the ever-shifting landscape of employment possibilities for graduate students in the humanities. This event brings together a diverse group of panelists in conversation about opportunities and strategies for graduate programs, faculty, and graduate students themselves to reconceive humanities
graduate education beyond the traditional ambit of the tenure-track path. Our panel features Ashley Cheyemi McNeil, Katina Rogers, and Veronica Watson, with a response from Diana Rose Newby. The event will be moderated by Jenny Davidson. Please register for this Zoom event here. Closed captioning will be provided. For questions related to disability accommodations, please email Diana Newby ([email protected]). Columbia University is committed to creating an environment that includes and welcomes disabled individuals.
Ashley Cheyemi McNeil earned her bi-national dual Ph.D. in literature and American Studies in 2019. She was the senior postdoctoral fellow at the University of Iowa’s Obermann Center for Advanced Studies where she helped build a new interdisciplinary humanities Ph.D. program, Humanities for the Public Good. Currently, Dr. McNeil is the ACLS Leading Edge fellow at Full Spectrum Features, a non-profit arts and film organization, where she manages public engagement and curricular development for the Hidden Histories program.
Katina Rogers is an educational consultant with over a decade of experience as a researcher, administrator, and educator. She is the author of Putting the Humanities Ph.D. to Work: Thriving in and beyond the Classroom (Duke University Press, 2020), and holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from
the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Veronica T. Watson is Professor in the Department of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Director of Graduate Studies in Literature and Criticism, and Convener for The Frederick Douglass Institute Collaborative (FDI Collaborative) of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education. She is co-author of the forthcoming “Humanities in Action: Centering the ‘Human’ in Public Humanities Work,” and she teaches, publishes and presents on a range of literature focusing on 20th century African American literature, Southern American literature, and critical race and critical whiteness studies.
Jenny Davidson and Diana Newby are co-authors of the draft manuscript for a handbook provisionally titled Finding Work: A Survival Guide for Humanities PhDs in the 21 st Century. In Fall 2020 they co-piloted the graduate seminar “Work Inside and Outside the University” in Columbia University’s Department of
English & Comparative Literature, where Jenny Davidson is Professor and Chair and Diana is a Ph.D. candidate.
