some notes on the humanities ph.d. now that i am tenured

ten undisciplined theses

10. It really is that hard. To read and “read until you understand.”

9. It really is that simple. You must read and “read until you understand.”

8. Your reading journey is yours, no one else’s. No one can tell you the best way to read. People will suggest that you gut the book, that you read this part or that part, that you skim this or that. But only you will be held accountable for what you know and don’t know. If you need to read cover to cover, read the books cover to cover. Until you understand.

7. Consider that the university is wrong and the best way to read is not to “gut” the book. Which is to say, the discipleship of humanities scholarship is not limited to enrolling in graduate school at a research university. I know non-university affiliated or trained scholars who have read more and more deeply than I ever could. Don’t let the clock of formal educational structures fool you. Don’t let it change the soul of your reading—which is to know the words, the texture, the craft of writing; to investigate the soul of a scholar; to be in community and communion with the kin-group of scholars the author comes from; to inhale footnotes; to investigate acknowledgements; to let the text be a springboard into deeper knowledges, to let it be a seed that plants itself somewhere in your brain and sprouts fire. If you had the time you needed, how would you read? Remember that answer and never give ground.

6. If you are university enrolled, you don’t have time to read. You will never have time to read. Kerry Ann Rocquemore told us this already. Do not let it make you forget the soul of the work (#5), but do learn to hack the timeline where needed and necessary.

5. Black history, Black studies, Black literature, Black cultural studies, African diaspora studies, Caribbean studies, and on and on—these are some of the hardest fields of study on the planet to become proficient in. More and more, the foundational knowledge that will allow you to develop as a scholar is being banned, erased, criminalized, and distorted at the undergraduate and K-12 level (although it continues to live in the streets, see #7). It would be dangerous to underestimate the amount of base level, foundational, textbook content and reference material you need to catch up on to get to where your peers studying French empire or electoral politics or “Western civ” are simply because we are being trained in an educational system that treats the history of the First World as default history and ships that history out to be taught and learned around the world over and above local, regional, and Global South knowledges. Resolve this contradiction. Buy the textbooks. Buy two textbooks. Read them cover to cover. Scour the encyclopedias. (Speak to the people). Take notes. Make timelines. Make graphs. Make data visualizations. Be a student of the word. Humble yourself before the gravitas of doing humanities in a time of fascism.

4. Front load the learning of facts. A fact is a fact and won’t change. An event happened in a year and in a place. 1619. 1865. 1965. 2008. Learn the events that happened in the years and in the places sooner rather than later and you will never have to learn them again. The time you spend on learning the facts at the beginning of your discipleship will pay off by freeing you to mobilize those facts to imagine, create, connect, and analyze as your lifetime of reading commences. Remember #5 and do not underestimate how much the facts will be hidden from you and hard to find. Do not underestimate the gaslight to come.

3. Scholarship is a relationship between scholars. This relationship is not affectionate or even always pleasurable. You don’t have to like the scholars you must be in a relationship with. You don’t have to believe in or abide by the canon. You do have to understand how their work fits into a matrix of ideas. You do have to understand how, in all of its gory and brutal power, a text becomes canon and a scholar becomes a god. Now, “mortals don’t like to think that their gods can die.” They can. “Their sibilings can kill them, if they are strong enough.” Get strong enough. Learn also to define for yourself who is a scholar and who is fundamentally unserious and therefore resides beyond scholarship and in the realm of propaganda. (We will be told we should engage with everyone; the truth is, everyone is not engaging with us. But that is for another day)

2. Every idea under the sun began somewhere beyond the university. Failing to read beyond the academy will impoverish you. Read scholars (university affiliated and non-university affiliated) who published in journals of historical societies, in journals that are no longer available or out of print, books that can only be purchased third-hand, the scholars who left the academy in a rage, the scholars who never went to the academy on principle, and the online venues that exist only on Internet Archive. See #7 and #5 above. Release yourself from the culture of Discovery. You are not and have never been the first.

1. Good reading is good writing. And vice versa.

National Museum of African American History’s Slavery to Freedom Exhibit (Image Credit: JMJ, 2016)

Update: 2026-01-05: Removing the paywall on this post (posts are paywalled after one year) because I have been told it has become a useful resource for professors, students, and teachers. May it guide you as you dive into the life of the (humanities) mind. - jmj