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The Work of a Professional Scholar 2: Supervising PhD Dissertations

May 3, 2012

BDEhrman2020-04-03T19:45:08-04:00May 3rd, 2012|Bart's Critics, Teaching Christianity|

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16 Comments

  1. AdamPanacci May 3, 2012 at 12:41 amLog in to Reply

    I’m glad you started this series. I just got home from work and was seriously planning on asking you somehow what the typical day in the life of Bart Ehrman looks like. I’m curious because you do so much writing, debates, radio shows, and teaching. I’m curious about what drives your energy and passion.

    When I was doing my Master’s in New Testament at U of T what drove me was curiosity. Like you I was very evangelical in my teens and went to MBI. I thought alot about why I pursued continued to pursue this area of study later as a nonbeliever, but part of it I think is not only has Christianity shaped the world significantly but it has shaped my life. Also, I realize that there is a lot at stake for me as a nonbeliever is evangelicalism is right, so I wanted to make sure I was making the right decision being a nonbeliever.

    • BDEhrman May 3, 2012 at 10:56 pmLog in to Reply

      I sometimes am too! I hope you enjoy the posts.

  2. JordanDay May 3, 2012 at 12:56 amLog in to Reply

    Would the “full examination of the history of the Greek manuscripts of Paul’s letter to the Galatians” happen to be that of Stephen Carlson?

    • BDEhrman May 3, 2012 at 10:56 pmLog in to Reply

      Yes indeed! Terrific piece of work.

  3. Dennis_Steenbergen May 3, 2012 at 11:29 amLog in to Reply

    Makes me want to go back to graduate school….. *sigh*…. University days.

    • rbrtbaumgardner May 4, 2012 at 12:38 amLog in to Reply

      I had the same feeling. I still correspond occasionally with a beloved professor I had nearly 30 years ago. Much thanks to Prof. Ehrman for writing on this.

  4. fergmcb May 3, 2012 at 1:17 pmLog in to Reply

    Indeed, the opportunity to learn from your students is one benefit of being a professor that had not occurred to me.

  5. Bill May 3, 2012 at 3:17 pmLog in to Reply

    Was good to read this. In my retirement I have decided to give real attention to the NT and early Christianity…so reading about what these students are doing gives me cause for cheer. I certainly would love to know more of what the person who is doing the Matthew/Mark study has discovered.

    For some ‘fun’, I am leading an Easter session of the diversity of the NT/Jesus at the church my wife is the interim pastor…these adults there are gobbling it up.

  6. Rice May 3, 2012 at 8:24 pmLog in to Reply

    Thanks for the post. Are these dissertations published or to be published anywhere for reading once they are finished? Some sound very fascinating.

    • BDEhrman May 3, 2012 at 11:00 pmLog in to Reply

      Well, all the students very much hope to have them published. The majority of the dissertatoins I have directed — in a remarkably wide range of areas (my students are very wide-ranging, not to mention smart!) — have been published as monographs.

      • bamurray May 4, 2012 at 4:18 pmLog in to Reply

        (Perhaps you will discuss this under scholarship.) I’ve always wondered about the differing customs in scholarly publishing in the humanities versus the sciences. In the sciences (well, at least in biology [my field] and astrophysics [my daughter’s field]), it seems that the journal article is almost the exclusive form for publication of new primary research. Books and monographs are almost exclusively formats for summaries and reviews of research. On the other hand, in the humanities it seems (at least from afar) that the book is the primary mode of scholarly publication. So, two questions:

        1) Is this in fact true? To what extent are journal articles used for scholarly publication in the humanities, and how do they compare with books in evaluation of scholarly productivity?

        2) Any ideas why there is this difference between fields (if it in fact exist)? Is it anything more than just tradition?

        Thanks,

        Ben Murray

        • BDEhrman May 5, 2012 at 8:10 pmLog in to Reply

          It’s a good question. In the humanities, both scholarly articles and books/monographs are important for promotion, tenure, and for getting one’s views heard. But books/monographes generally are thought of as having greater cache, at least when published by major university pressses (on the other extreme are vanity presses; and there’s a lot in between the two). Generally a book in my field that appears from Oxford University Press, Harvard University Press, Princeton University Press, etc. etc. can be trusted to have been vetted quite seriously and to have been not just peer reviewed but deemed of very high academic quality by senior scholars in the field.

  7. aigbusted May 4, 2012 at 6:35 pmLog in to Reply

    Cladistics? Sounds like he was inspired by Darwinian biology!

  8. med May 6, 2012 at 7:05 pmLog in to Reply

    What Bart is too modest to mention, of course, is that working with Ph.D. students entails a great deal more than “just” supervising dissertations. It means helping students prepare to actually begin their dissertation projects, sitting on exam committees for students other than those whose dissertations he’ll be advising, doing general mentoring and assisting in students’ professional development, hosting reading groups and appearing on panels … and of course writing copious amounts of recommendations for everything from fellowships to postdocs to jobs for students. It’s a boatload of work — and we really do appreciate it 🙂

  9. bamurray May 9, 2012 at 5:29 pmLog in to Reply

    What’s the career path for your Ph.D. students? Do they all head for academia, or are there other possibilities?

    • BDEhrman May 9, 2012 at 10:05 pmLog in to Reply

      In virtually every instance, their goal is to teach at the college/university level. And the ones who finish the program (with all its rigors) for the most part find teaching positions. But in the current climate (cutbacks because of the economy) it’s very hard, as positions are scarce.

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