#the good news is my prof said John and his fiancee lived happily ever after

[oncillabrigade]

Meanwhile in the humanities... I was told a horror story by my history prof about someone he knew when they were both earning their PhDs. Medieval history is such a male-dominated field that I'm gonna give everyone names so the pronouns don't get confusing. My professor's friend will be John and the man who didn't like him will be Richard. Warning: this story is gonna be somewhat inaccurate bc I'm remembering it from a second-hand account I heard 10 years ago.

So! It's a beautiful day university town in Southern France, and a medievalist conference is in progress. Our hero John is giving his first ever conference presentation. His fiancée is with him, but not at the conference (because she correctly deduced that academic historical conferences are boring unless you are one of us). For those who are into the field, though, Johnny boy is presenting a very important and interesting new theory! His PhD research has unearthed some evidence that might upset the current widely-accepted theory in a certain cul-de-sac of early medieval Anglo-Cymric (Welsh) relations. This is a big deal! The thing is, because we have so little written evidence for that period of British history in general that no theory is ever rock solid, and tiny shifts in perspective can create huge ripple effects. So people were HYPED! The room was packed! Everything was going great!

UNFORTUNATELY. One of the people in the audience was Richard, creator of the theory being potentially overturned.

Now, historians are meant to embrace new evidence as giving us a fuller picture of our field, just like all academics. And also like all academics, they don't do that. They get petty AF. They get MEAN. So Richard waits until the first non-intro slide in John's presentation and then starts asking questions. Again. And again. And again. Poking holes in every bit of his research, even where there were none—John just hadn't been able to explain why yet because he kept being interrupted by this asshole. It went on for like 12 of the 15 minutes allotted to the presentation. One of Richard's closest colleagues was literally trying to yank him down into his chair and get him to shut up. The moderator tired and failed to interrupt him. John was being SHREDDED in a way he had NEVER experienced, and it just. wouldn't. stop.

Finally, it gets so painful that John starts to cry. John is a British man in his late 20s/early 30s, and it's the 1990s. He considered crying in front of a room full of your peers to be worse than being shot. And there he was, sobbing, trying to leave the presentation room as Richard continued to hurl questions and insults after him.

When John made it out of the building, there was his fiancée, excited to take him out to a celebratory lunch at a nice French restaurant. That did not happen. And John did not come back to the conference for the afternoon sessions that day.

Oh, btw, John's theory was correct. But he didn't publish for another 3 years out of fear that his work wouldn't be airtight enough to stop this maniac from attacking him in public.

Something is seriously wrong with academics.

there’s something endlessly hilarious to me about the phrase “hotly debated” in an academic context. like i just picture a bunch of nerds at podiums & one’s like “of course there was a paleolithic bear cult in Northern Eurasia” and another one just looks him in the eye and says “i’l kill you in real life, kevin”