October 2024 marks the 10 year anniversary of what is perhaps the proudest achievement of my academic life.
In 2014 I submitted my Masters dissertation after what had been a trying two years of studying part-time while holding down an extremely stressful full-time job as a senior writer at a healthcare PR agency based in Whitstable. My family was also going through an intense period of trauma, the repercussions of which are still being felt to this day.
To make matters worse, I was being bullied at work by my boss (the business owner) who took quite badly to the news that I might want to leave my job, and so started a campaign of harassment against me. This culminated in the colleagues in my shared office being moved downstairs to leave me in an office on my own as some sort of ‘punishment’ for daring to suggest that I might want to leave.
It was a very tough time indeed.
Given this context, it wasn’t perhaps the best time to be doing a Masters. Even more so, given I had chosen to do mine back at my alma mater, Brunel University – for which I would have to commute 2+ hours each way every Wednesday for two years.
One of the main reasons for me studying at Brunel was that I had wanted to do their specialist module on Critical Theory, looking at Derrida’s The Animal That Therefore I am. I also wanted to continue my studies on biopolitical theory of Giorgio Agamben, alongside the likes of Foucault, Deleuze and Esposito.
However, things didn’t go to plan when it transpired that they would be cutting the Critical Theory module for the year that I was able to take it.
I was absolutely devastated. All of that money on the course[1], and all those weeks of crawling along the M25 and M26 at silly-o-clock in the morning, only to be told I couldn’t study the module I had enrolled at Brunel for specifically.
The result was that I ended up doing the two option modules that I perhaps wanted to do least of all: Postcolonialism and Queer Theory. The latter of which was a module of just two (yes two) students.[2]
So there I was – overworked, stressed, being bulled by my employer, suffering immense family trauma, caring for a member of my family and also suffering from what was then undiagnosed depression. Things were not looking good.
All I had to look forward to then, was my dissertation.
The dissertation
In fairness to Brunel, given how upset I was at them cancelling my module, they did at least assign me a supervisor suitable to my proposed project – despite the fact Prof. William Watkin wasn’t technically on the list of available supervisors.
Given the immense pressures I was on at work and the stresses in my personal life I was not able to engage with the process as much as I’d have liked. I also appreciate William was very busy at that time, and as a ‘good student’, I was sort of left to my own devices.
In the end, my sole interaction with the dissertation process was one initial meeting with my supervisor and then I just… wrote it. No further discussions, no draft submissions: nothing. I just spent every spare moment I had after work and at weekends working on what I still believe to be one of the best pieces of work I have produced.
The feedback I received still makes me proud to this day. So much so it takes centre place on my noticeboard at work, alongside my Pilkington Teaching Award.
You can also read the feedback on my research page here.
Moving on to my PhD
Given the feedback for my dissertation, and my passion for this area of research, it still hurts me somewhat that I haven’t been able to spend as much time working on this area as I would like.
While I was (eventually) able to get onto a funded PhD programme with supervisors who would be able to cover my quite interests, I am sorry to say that one of my supervisors essentially abandoned me on day one.
Again, I was heartbroken. I had given up my full-time job, moved across the country to a new city to study Critical Theory and Science Fiction, only for the Critical Theory supervisor not to really give me so much as a passing notice.
While I was at least able to talk about some of the concepts I had been developing around biopolitics, technology and the changing nature of sovereignty, I was not able to engage in the sort of community I would have liked during my PhD.
I think I met my Critical Theory supervisor perhaps four times in total throughout the entire three years of my PhD. That fourth and final time was when I waited for half an hour outside of his office to tell him that I had passed my viva…
Life in LUMS
Despite the numerous challenges I have faced in my academic career, I am nothing if not resilient. Having had some significant caring responsibilities during my Masters, and numerous mental health challenges that have taken me to some quite dark places, I am still going, and I am still trying to make my way in the world.
While I may not have had the advantage of supportive PhD supervisors that so many of my peers have benefitted from (nor indeed, did I get any support from my department), I have at least been able to take some matters into my own hands and carve out a place for myself as a Lecturer working in the Lancaster University Management School (LUMS).
While I certainly enjoy some elements of the work, it frustrates me immensely that my ‘other’ work here is not really valued at all. While I have made some inroads into some significant publications in fields relating to my central interests, my current employer does not value publications that are not listed on the ABS journal list.
So… the long and the short of it is I find myself in a weird sort of academic limbo.
- I teach marketing and I am very good at it. I have won university-level teaching awards and my teaching scores are exceptional.
- I enjoy being an academic and doing ‘academic things’. However, I do not have the freedom to research and write the things I always want to.
- I therefore find myself publishing across several different disciplines. These include literary studies, consumer culture, marketing, work-based learning and reflective practice. I am also in the process of writing a book about Advertising. Most of these publications do not ‘count’ towards my career progression within LUMS, and I find that many of my colleagues look down on the work that I do as somehow not relevant. This leaves me with a constant feeling of being undervalued and not respected within my institution – despite the fact that my literary studies publications alone surpass my (other) PhD supervisor’s own output in the years since I have been at Lancaster (!)
Looking ahead
Academia is not the place it once was. When I gave up my professional job in 2016 to pursue a career in academia, I had hoped things might be a little better than they are currently. Working in a management school in particular, we are overwhelmed with too much internal competition, too many ridiculous targets, and too little collegiality. Add to these challenges the declining standard of students, endless bureaucracy and an uncertain future for the HE sector in general here in the UK.
As I think back to my Masters and all that has happened since, I often feel quite sad – as if maybe I peaked ten years ago writing something that most people don’t value, and very few people understand.
But there is still a glimmer of hope… I have a book on the horizon and I am hoping I might be able to turn part of my thesis into a book also. I will also continue with my many consultancy projects, school outreach, and other engagement activities as a way of keeping in touch with the ‘real world’. Though these things may not be valued from a career perspective, they are really important to me, and are one of the genuine highlights of my current job role. If my Masters degree taught me anything, it is that I am nothing if not resilient.
[1] There weren’t PG loans back in those days
[2] In fairness, the Queer Theory module with Prof. William Spurlin was really interesting, and William is such a nice man. He even took me and my fellow student out for dinner to celebrate after the module was complete!