field notes...
I have degrees in English and Philosophy. While, as I've mentioned before, I love my job, I sometimes miss school. What I don't miss is this shit, as exemplified in an article on the UC Santa Barbara film school.

For all of my professors who wondered what chased me away from grad school in English (none of whom read this Web page), I give you that article. I was scared away by the thought of being in classes with people who thought about books as "signifiers" rather than art.

Still, the bf is thinking about pursuing a PhD in English, but I think he might be a bit of an oddball in the field. He plans to read actual books and do real research on authors, rather than mentally masturbate to literature.

For those who want to know if there's any real work left to do in literature, I point you to the scholarship done tracking down this author. For those who want to see new things come out of Philosophy, this is a pretty accessible work. (For thse of you who don't want to click, the books are "A Bondswoman's Narrative" by Hannah Crafts and "Darwin's Dangerous Idea" by Daniel Dennett.)