Ph.D., said Dr. Dalwhinnie as he sat at the head of the Kilchoman Entrance Committee, The Committee is firstly and preeminently curious as to why you’re an appropriate candidate for a Ph.D. You seem oriented to the world of business. You seem unfocused. You seem … odd. You must also know that we have extensive competition for only a few spots. Many of the applicants have a great deal of money.
I have connections in the government. That could get me grants.
Yes, yes. Grants. Determining everything these days. Well. Dr. Dalwhinnie paused and cleaned the wax out of his ears, piling it in orderly heaps and arranging them with absorbed interest. What do you want to do your Ph.D. in?
I was thinking of trying to figure out why people still take the Ph.D. seriously … sort of like, what the Ph.D. is because I don’t think anybody really knows.
Dr. Bladnoch, said Dr. Dalwhinnie.
Dr. Glengyle, said Dr. Bladnoch.
Dr. Dalwhinnie, said Dr. Glengyle.
I mean, I’ve discovered no correlation whatsoever between the number of degrees a person has and his or her ability to have insight into anything. It’s not that I think academics are necessarily stupider than, say, ferry boat operators or taxidermists or professional kidnappers or potheads, but that I’ve seen no evidence they’re any smarter either. It seems to me, then, that a Ph.D. isn’t about knowledge or intelligence or anything like that, but something else. I’d like to do my Ph.D. in what that something else is.
Have you considered something in the semiotics line? said Dr. Dalwhinnie.
Something like the semiotics of post-colonial rhetoric, said Dr. Bladnoch.
Or the rhetoric of post-colonial semiotics, said Dr. Speyburn.
Or even the rhetoric of post-rhetoric rhetoric, said Dr. Glengyle.
Very exciting, very exciting, said Dr. Dalwhinnie.
They’re the rage, said Dr. Scapa.
We could get you a Ph.D. if you did one of those, said Dr. Aberfeldy.
But if everyone’s doing that, wouldn’t it be good if I did something else?
Like what?
Like wondering what the Ph.D. is.
Mr. Peer. I’m not sure you understand the Ph.D. A Ph.D. requires the host faculty to have expertise in the student’s area of investigation. At Kilchoman U., we have no faculty who have specialty in your area of interest.
What exactly would I study if I did a Ph.D. in your areas of expertise?
You would read our texts.
And listen to us talk.
And analyze our words.
And pay us.
And pay us.
And write papers about us.
And talk about us.
And say how brilliant we are.
Then when you graduate, you’d write about how much you hate us.
That’s the academic way, said Dr. Dalwhinnie.
That’s the academic way, said Dr. Glengyle.
That’s the academic way, said Dr. Scapa.
And the doctors, horribly dressed and juggling mothballs, drank a lot more than a little and put on their gowns and moved in solemn procession, chanting—
We don’t like to talk, we like to semiotic;
never mind society when there’s pomposity;
the more obscure, the more de rigeur …
that’s the academic way!
The Ph.D. may be made of cheese (and not the best kind),
but who cares when you need cheese to get a job?
We’ll teach you to go to the Lacan and wipe your Derrida …
it’s a hackademic, always, a quackademic day!
We’re full of leftwing words but live in rightwing burbs
and fill the gap with our reputations and our bodkins
which we use for the good ol’ professorial out-in:
it’s office hour! pour it neat! unzip the flannel! share the knowledge!—
don’t be dolts or dummkopfs!—kneel and … sackademic clackademic clapidemic … pray!
So screw you bums who can’t spell simulacrum—
we can spell and smell it, we’re the sphincter and the pulpit
of pomo-ohmo-whippsygobbly-pomo-ohno-existence don’t exist;
we got genitals for cufflinks, eternal sinecure,
we got brain flognarde and brine ideas and Flydegger soufflé …
it’s the … crackademic wackydemic slackydemic way!
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