On Becoming A History Lecturer

Last week, a student asked me for advice about pursuing a career as a history lecturer. After I replied, I kept thinking about what I had written. Here is an expanded version of my thoughts.

Most people know that a PhD is essential.

But not everyone knows a lot about the application process. History Lab (a postgraduate network which does events on PhD applications and preparing for an academic career) is a resource I wish I'd known more about during my PhD. In the transition between my masters' and PhD, I remember being surprised by how early the deadlines were--it felt like I'd barely got started on my MA before I was applying for my next degree. If you want to go straight on from the MA to the PhD, it can be worth speaking to your programme leader, or a lecturer whose module you are enjoying, within the first few months of your studies because application deadlines for doctoral scholarships are often very early. Taking a break between the two degrees could help you save money, explore options, or find the right fit. 

Speaking of fit, some people stay at the same institution for MA and PhD and some people move around. Some people will stay at the same school for their BA, MA, and PhD. The right choice depends on your project and circumstances. In my view, choosing the school that is truly the best fit may require moving. Your PhD supervisor should be someone you are genuinely excited to work with and someone who will be supportive of your research and career. Making contact with a potential supervisor several weeks before any deadlines, to discuss your project and get a feel for the institution is expected and helpful. When I was considering moving to Leeds for my PhD, I found it incredibly helpful to talk to my supervisor's students too.

To explore what doing a PhD is like, I recommend The Thesis Whisperer, an approachable website on how to do a PhD, which is also a valuable source of information about doctoral students' needs and experiences.

So after you get your PhD, you become a lecturer. Right?

Well, not exactly. In the humanities, you get a string of temporary research and teaching jobs first. Getting one of these jobs is the first challenge: once you've gotten one, you're more likely to get others, but your good luck can run out at any point. The longer you go without getting your foot on the first rung of the ladder, the harder it is to get anywhere. And even people who do have a string of prestigious temporary posts can fall short in the end. To get a permanent job as a history lecturer, you need an outstanding record of research, publication, and teaching, and to be in the right place at the right time. Lots of people have the first but not the second.

As a fan of distance running who currently follow the careers of several elite American marathoners, I see several similarities between academia and sports. Many people want a professional career but very few make it to the top level. Athletes and academics can wreck themselves spending their twenties and thirties trying to get their big break, but there are always just enough success stories to make it seem worth trying. 

A wonderful intersection of the two is the story of McKale Montgomery, an assistant professor at Oklahoma State University who competed in the trials for the US Olympic marathon team. Her story, while amazing, is wildly, wildly atypical of most academic careers. Getting a position at the same university where you did your postgraduate degrees is extremely unlikely, especially in the humanities. There are many more aspiring lecturers than there are jobs and securing a position is even more difficult for people of colour (especially black women), people with disabilities, and people from working class backgrounds. 

Additionally, the employment landscape has changed radically over the past twenty years. One has only to look at a site like the Academic Job Market Support Network to realise how difficult it has become, and the Professor is In blog is especially good (and grim) about jobs in North America. As this moving essay by Mateusz Fafinski emphasises, opportunities are simply not available in the way that they were for scholars of previous generations.

But I can beat the odds, some people say.

And of course, some people do beat the odds, otherwise we wouldn't have any history professors. But you have to be prepared to make a good life if you don't beat the odds. I advised my student that they use their MA and PhD to explore lots of different sorts of projects and opportunities. Someone who is most excited about the idea that a lecturer teaches might explore an advocacy group for their subject like classics for all or apply for a job working with tutoring group like the brilliant club. 

Those who are most excited about the research side of things should apply for small grants to fund conference or library or archaeological site trips (building a record of getting people to give you money looks good on an early career academic CV). Now more than ever, aspiring history lecturers are expected to have publications coming out as they finish their degree and start applying for their first jobs, so learning how to write for academic audiences is very important. Getting started might see daunting but there are a lot of great resources out there. Rowena Murray's Writing for Academic Journals was the book I used to write my first article, and the blog Patter is a wonderful source of wise advice about academic writing.  

I'd also say that any aspiring academic who is attracted to the profession by the opportunity to research and write should pursue every opportunity to write or speak in different styles and for different audiences. My current favourite publications which publish history writing for general readers are Public Books, JSTOR Daily, the Public Domain Review, and Contingent Magazine. 

It is important to share your work, publicly and often.

But it's also important to keep your eyes on your own paper. Let me explain.

Another thing academia and athletics have in common is that it's all too easy to fall into a comparison trap regarding someone else's accomplishments and your own. When I was a PhD student and met someone whose work I admired, I would Google them and read their university webpage and CV. Through this I found out about a number of small research grants in my field. And at that time, I found it useful for understanding what a successful academic career could look like. 

While I'm increasingly confident in the shape of my career and don't feel the need to look at other people's achievements to decide what opportunities to pursue, I still find it incredibly helpful to listen to other scholars talking about their work. Especially for aspiring lecturers, it is important to go to as many seminars and talks as possible. This gives you a sense of the key figures and developing research areas in your field, which can be inspiring and useful.

 

Presenting to an audience becomes an important part of an aspiring lecturer's journey fairly early on. Typically, people who want to become a lecturer will give their first conference presentation as a masters' student as part of a student conference hosted by their university or degree programme. A robust record of presentations at nationally and internationally significant conferences is critical for anyone who wants to become a history lecturer. Most of the time, these opportunities are gained by application--you submit an abstract, a short summary of the work you will present, and sometimes also a CV. When I started doing this, I found this post on writing abstracts exceptionally helpful, and I still refer back to its' formula when I'm writing new abstracts.

 

One of the best parts of a conference is meeting new people and hearing about their work. Shortly after I started presenting at conferences, I created a profile on the researcher networking site academia.edu.  Other sites include ResearchGate and Humanities Commons (there are some academics in LinkedIn, but it tends to be more useful for other careers). A basic profile on one or more of these sites (Academia and Humanities Commons are the best for historians) helps you keep up with new work by people you are interested in. Many aspiring academics also use Twitter for sharing news and information.

 

But I prefer mailing lists.

It might be old fashioned, and it certainly fills up my inbox, but I'm still a sucker for a good listserv and mailing list for finding out about new publications, ideas, and opportunities. My current favourites are:

• Ancient Jew Review: a great to go place for imaginative teaching ideas 
• Late Latin Poetry Network: a terrific source of information about this wonderful area of Latin literature
  
• Later Roman Empire Listserv: a lot of cool things get advertised here, including funding for PhD projects, conferences, and new publications
• Mary Jaharis Centre: nominally Byzantine, but also brilliant for news about publications and conferences on Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages
  
• Society for Classical Studies Blog: concise and informative essays about the field
  
• Virtual AHA: an online platform sparked by the pandemic, which has consistently hosted interesting talks and content

Final Thoughts

Given that the academic job market is and will remain extremely difficult, anyone who gets a PhD has to face the very real and likely possibility that they will not achieve their goal of becoming a history lecturer. I intended to become a history lecturer but I am now a history librarian, who is lucky to work in a place where I am allowed to teach on the side. I have a number of advantages that make my own level of activity possible, not least that I work in a university, have a generous amount of paid leave, and am willing and able to research and write in my free time. Even if they want to continue to research and publish outside of academia, many people do not have the time, resources and energy to do so. In preparing to become a history lecturer, you have to be ready to pursue other careers, too.