Reading Cathy Davidson’s The New Education had a nearly therapeutic effect on me. Her warm writing style is at once optimistic and edifying as she breaks down several of the major issues facing higher education in the United States today. Rather than adopting a doom and gloom outlook, as many critics (and, I might note, defenders) of Academia, she offers a nuanced examination of such issues as rising tuition, technophilia, technophobia, and accessibility, grounding her analysis in the stories of real-world educators and innovative programs. I found her thoughtful consideration of the future of MOOCs to be particularly impactful as she explores the potential for networked learning that defies the normal order of the classroom, for example. As a current student and (hopeful) future educator, I found her book lays out a challenge as I think about my career in Academia thus far, and my future in it.

In particular, the companion chapters “Against Technophobia” and “Against Technophilia” struck a chord with me. I found myself thinking back to Judy Wajcman’s 2015 book Pressed For Time in which the sociologist examines the “time crunch” we often feel trapped in today as technology competes more and more for our free time. She argues that rather than making our lives easier, there is evidence that technology has instead simply enabled us to do more work, which, together with constant connectivity, creates a sensation of harriedness that defines our current era. However, Wajcman’s analysis is no condemnation of technology; instead, she suggests that we approach technology in a different way. She asserts that technology is simply a tool that humans can wield for different purposes. She warns against technological determinism, reminding the readers that there is nothing inherent in digital technology that creates the time crunch we perceive. Rather, it is simply the strange social contract that we have accepted and ratified in which we are expected to be constantly productive and always tethered to our work.

As a graduate student today, I can only imagine the new forms of technology that might be at our disposal. Like the MOOC model, these technologies could be detrimental to the profession of higher education, seen from one point of view, or as revolutionary in ways that are not imaginable now. It is up to us, as students, educators, researchers, and administrators to define their use and wield them effectively. Artists and creatives, argues Davidson, are irreplaceable in the face of Artificial Intelligence and automation (139). She asserts that humanists may, in the long run, be in better shape than those in the STEM fields due to their higher immunity to automation, in a sense. I think, therefore, that the only outlook we can have as students in the fields of Performance Studies, Languages and Literature, and Creative Writing is to remind ourselves that we must be artists. We must transform our research and teaching into art. This perhaps seems obvious in the fields of Performance Studies and Creative Writing, but I argue that it is no less necessary – and perhaps more so – in the fields of Language and Literature. It is far too easy to think of the study of Language and Literature as a tweedy, solitary endeavor. What are some steps we can take to move our scholarship to the artistic? How can we guarantee, in some capacity, the irreplaceability of educators in our field? I came to NYU after beginning my doctorate at a large state university. Shortly after signing my offer letter, and full of energy to embark on the long path towards a PhD, the administration laid out plans to cut the graduate programs in Spanish, Comparative Literature, Cultural Studies, and Theater. Of these four, only Spanish survives after a drawn-out battle with administrators in which we had to prove to them that our existence was worth something. At the end of the day, however, it was not innovative research or scholarly contributions that saved our department from the chopping block. Rather, it was the realization that graduate students represent cheap labor to teach language courses, a prerequisite for undergraduate students. Knowing that the university was more concerned with the balance sheet than publications, we as graduate students had to stoop to that level, begging that our program be continued so that we could continue offering cheap labor. Cultural Studies, Comp Lit, and Theater did not have that same easily monetized narrative to push.

I bring this up because it was clear that, at least in the case of that particular university, as graduate students and scholars in the humanities, we are replaceable as soon as it become financially feasible to do so. I have no doubt in my mind that if there were a cheaper, effective MOOC course to teach basic Spanish in order to fulfill the undergraduate language requirement, the graduate program would cease to exist. So, to return to my question, what are some concrete steps to become irreplaceable? How can we use technology and turn it on its head in order to propel the humanities to new heights? In a way, I want to propose a decolonial theory of technology. How can we decolonize these technological advances to invert them and use them for our own ends, rather than simply participate in the what seems to be the nefarious goal of neoliberal university, that of maximizing the production of marketable (employable) students at the lowest cost possible?