Candid Conversations is a national video dialogue between humanities PhD students, faculty, and PhDs at work in the world. For this project, UCHRI asked two groups of four participants to record five-minute videos around the question of mentorship in the humanities. These conversations and the subsequent panel discussions at the MLA and AHA annual meetings in January 2017 provide opportunities to engage in open dialogue about the faculty-graduate student mentorship model, particularly as it relates to career training for diverse professions.
Heres how it worked: The first participant, a graduate student, recorded a five-minute video discussing faculty-student mentorships. Humanists@Work then sent this video to the next participant, a faculty member, who recorded a response. As each participant contributed, Humanists@Work forwarded the full video collection to the next participant, who had the opportunity to build on each idea and deepen the discussion. These videos have been given to panelists to guide a live discussion between students, faculty, and PhDs at work in the world at the 2017 annual meetings of the American Historical Association and the Modern Language Association.
In addition to responding to themes emerging from previous video recordings, participants were asked to consider the following questions:
- To what extent should faculty advisors address challenges that humanities graduate students face, particularly with regard to non-professorial career prospects and adapting their work to non-academic publics?
- To what extent are graduate students responsible for seeking additional mentors and developing diverse skillsets, experiences, and opportunities that go beyond traditional conceptions of doctoral work?
Jake Purcell
History PhD Candidate
Columbia University
Marc Matera
History Associate Professor
UC Santa Cruz
Rachel Feinmark
History PhD
University of Chicago
Michele Brewster
History PhD Candidate
UC Irvine
MLA Video Participants
The MLA video dialogues will be discussed at the Modern Language Association’s 2017 annual meeting in Philadelphia:
MLA Session 699
Sunday, 8 January, 8:30–9:45 a.m.
202A, Pennsylvania Convention Center
