What Do Artists Know?

9. The PhD Degree

1. James Elkins, Artists with PhDs: On the New Doctoral Degree in Studio Art (New York: New Academia, 2009). 2. Practice-Based Doctorates in the Creative and Performing Arts and Design (Lichfield: UK Council for Graduate Education, 1997) 13–24; Christopher Frayling, Research in Art and Design, Royal College of Art Research Papers 1, no. 1 (London: Royal College of Art, 1993); Frayling, “To Art and Through Art,” in A Curriculum for Artists (Oxford: Laboratory at the Ruskin School of Drawing and Fine Art, University of Oxford; New York: New York Academy of Art, 2004), 38–41; “Shared ‘Dublin’ Descriptors for Short Cycle, First Cycle, Second Cycle and Third Cycle Awards,” working document from a JQI meeting, Dublin, October 18, 2004; Newton Harrison, “Art Practice: A Whole Systems Approach with Global Reach,” proposal for a PhD program at University of California, Santa Cruz, excerpts chosen by the author, April 2009; Artistic Research, edited by Annette W. Balkema and Henk Slager, Lier en Boog 18 (Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2004); The Art of Research: Research Practices in Art and Design, edited by Maarit Mäkelä and Sara Routarinne (Helsinki: University of Art and Design, 2006); Tom Holert, “Art in the Knowledge-Based Polis,” e-flux, no. 3 (2009), http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/40; Robert Zwijnenberg, “Interterritorial Explorations in Art and Science,” in CO-OPs: Interterritoriale verkenningen in kunst en wetenschap = Exploring New Territories in Art and Science, edited by Kitty Zijlmans, Robert Zwijnenberg , and Krien Clevis (Amsterdam: Uitgeverij De Buitenkant, 2007); Alain Findelli, Denis Brouillet, Sophie Martin, Christophe Moineau, and Richard Tarrago, “Research Through Design and Transdisciplinarity: A Tentative Contribution to the Methodology of Design Research,” in “Focused”: Current Design Research Projects and Methods (Geneva: Swiss Design Network, 2008), 67–91; University of Art and Design, Helsinki, Dissertations 1991–2005, http://www .stonesummertheoryinstitute.org/images/pdfs/ SSTI_2009/9-08-Helsinki.pdf. See further: John Hockey, “Practice-Based Research Degree Students in Art and Design: Identity and Adaptation,” JADE 22, no. 1 (2003): 82–91; Sally Morgan, “A Terminal Degree: Fine Art and the PhD,” JVAP 1, no. 1 (2001): 6–15; John Hockey and Jacquelyn Allen-Collinson, “The Supervision of Practice-Based Research Degrees in Art and Design,” JADE 19, no. 3 (2000): 345–55; Fiona Candlin, “Practice-Based Doctorates and Questions of Academic Legitimacy ,” JADE 19, no. 1 (2000): 96–101. This was the last seminar of the week, but it was on the subject most of us had wanted to talk about all week long. The PhD degree is still a small phenomenon in North America, but it is common and even prevalent in other parts of the world. In Malaysia and Australia, jobs teaching art at the college level commonly require the PhD. In 2003 it was estimated that the UK had two thousand students enrolled in programs that could culminate in PhDs. For this seminar, the group read the book Artists with PhDs (that book is presupposed in the conversation that follows)1 and several dozen other documents.2 James Elkins: Welcome, everyone, to the axis of evil. For most of the art world, the PhD in art practice is irremediably compromised, if not actively evil. It may be worth bearing in mind as we go through that the PhD is a tiny minority interest, and when it comes up in conferences it is often greeted with choruses of boos. But it’s what most of us have wanted to talk about all week long, and I think it’s definitely the case that the PhD presents the most interesting conceptual problems. I’d like to suggest we have an abstract discussion: let’s stay away from problems of practicality, plausibility, probability, and inadvisability—let’s speak theoretically or idealistically about the conceptual forms of such programs. I don’t 9. THE PHD DEGREE 00i-228_Elkins_4p.indb 103 9/14/12 1:17 PM what do artists know? 104 3. Artists with PhDs, 72. 4. The discourse of research continues to expand naturally and exponentially, making it decreasingly likely that any forum can remove the concept. See Mapping Landscapes for Performance as Research: Scholarly Acts and Creative Cartographies, edited by Shannon Rose Riley and Lynette Hunter (London: Palgrave, 2009). The book contains an excerpt from Artists with PhDs, but not on the subject of research. 5. Artists with PhDs, chap. 9, especially 117ff. 6. My contribution is an essay, “Why Art Historians Should Learn to Draw and Paint,” available at http://www.jameselkins.com/#page14 (accessed...