5. A Manifesto on Earning and Awarding a Ph.D.
Religious Studies Beyond the Discipline - On the Future of a Humanities Ph.D. - Russell T. McCutcheon
Andrew Ali Aghapour [+]
National Museum of American History
Andrew Ali Aghapour earned his Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and is Consulting Scholar of Religion and Science at the National Museum of American History; he is also a comedian and artistic producer.
Shannon Trosper Schorey [+]
Shannon Trosper Schorey, who earned her Ph.D. at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is a Principal Communications Specialist in the tech industry as well as a freelance writer and editor of fiction and nonfiction. Her work has appeared in The Dread Machine, Punk Noir Magazine, Machines in Between, and Religion Dispatches.
Thomas J. Whitley [+]
Thomas Whitely, after earned his Ph.D. at Florida State University, worked in university administration before transitioning to politics and local government; from 2018-2022 he served as the Chief of Staff for John Dailey, the mayor of Tallahassee, Florida, and he is currently the Director of Strategic Innovation for the City of Tallahassee.
Vaia Touna [+]
University of Alabama
Vaia Touna is Associate Professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa. She is author of Fabrications of the Greek Past: Religion, Tradition, and the Making of Modern Identities (Brill, 2017) and editor of Strategic Acts in the Study of Identity: Towards a Dynamic Theory of People and Place (Equinox, 2019). Her research focuses on the sociology of religion, acts of identification and social formation, methodological issues concerning the use of the category of “religion” in the study of the ancient Graeco-Roman world, as well as the study of the past in general.
Russell T. McCutcheon [+]
University of Alabama
Russell T. McCutcheon is University Research Professor and, for 18 years, was the Chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Alabama. He has written on problems in the academic labor market throughout his 30-year career and helped to design and run Alabama’s skills-based M.A. in religion in culture. Among his recent work is the edited resource for instructors, Teaching in Religious Studies and Beyond (Bloomsbury 2024).
Description
Relying on the collaborative input from doctoral graduates in the study of religion who have gone on to successful careers outside of academia, this essay offers a critique of the field for not adapting far quicker to the changing economic conditions of higher education over recent decades but also provides a variety of practical suggestions for how programs in our field can make tactical and substantive changes to better prepare graduate students for a far wider variety of professional futures, inasmuch as we all know that few, at least for the foreseeable future, will ever be hired as tenure-track faculty members.