Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2014 May 8

= May 8 =

"these dark Satanic mills" vs "those dark Satanic mills"
In adapting William Blake's poem into the hymn "Jerusalem," Sir Hubert Parry quite definitely changed the line "these dark Satanic mills" to "those dark Satanic mills," as is noted here. Is anyone sure why? Have any literary critics (or musicologists?) taken a crack at what the rationale behind the change was? I suppose it could have been unintentional. After all, it breaks the poetic parallelism of the verse. Once you change "these" to "those," the only way to preserve the parallelism would be to change "here" to "there," so Parry's full second verse would best read:"And did the Countenance Divine, Shine forth upon our clouded hills? And was Jerusalem builded there, Among those dark Satanic Mills?" But if it were unintentional it seems as if the change would have been caught early on. Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 02:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * And here is a performance of "Jerusalem" that sounds as if it uses Blake's original "these" rather than Parry's "those." It's the only one I've come across so far. Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 02:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I've just looked up the text in two hymn books: one retains Blake's "these" and the other uses Parry's "those". Perhaps Parry thought that those mills were no longer "Satanic"?    D b f i r s   08:51, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That was my thought as well, and the only plausible reason I can come up with for the change being intentional. Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 13:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know if anyone ever asked Parry this while he was alive, but my speculation is that Parry's milieu (or that of his audience) was the posher parts of London and the South East, and from that perspective, the dark satanic mills of the Midlands and the North were "there" and "those mills", not "here" and "these mills". Marco polo (talk) 16:26, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Mmm. Yeah, I see the logic there. In that case, though, why not go ahead and change "here" to "there?" Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 17:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That would rather imply that he believed Jerusalem had been built in the North of England. I don't know that Parry understood Blake to have meant by "mills", but Blake almost certainly wasn't referring to soot-stained factories. BTW, I don't see any conflict between "here" and "those", where "here" includes those things that are (or were) "here", but identified as alien to "Jerusalem" (i.e. the ideal city/nation): essentially the question is: "how can it have been here, among those things". 'These' and 'those' both work. Paul B (talk) 18:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Blake was absolutely referring to soot-stained factories. Looie496 (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * So you think saying so makes it so? How silly is that? Have you even read Milton: a Poem? I have. He repeatedly uses the term "mills" in contexts that clearly do not refer to factories at all. Any Blake scholar will tell you that. Paul B (talk) 13:59, 9 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It may have been purely because he felt it sounded better (see Ma Baker!), or even a simple mistake. The verses were sent to Parry by Robert Bridges, who agreed to set them as a wartime patriotic song. It wasn't Parry's personal choice, and he wrote the music in a single evening, if I remember correctly. The words were not well-known at the time, so it wasn't, as it were, a "canonical" work of literature. It does appear to have been Parry's own decision (or possibly mistake). The lines appear with the original "these" in Bridge's own 1915 publication of French and British "great thoughts" The spirit of man: an anthology in English & French from the philosophers & poets. The line is clearly written as "those" in the original 1916 publication of the sheet music by Curwen & Sons. Paul B (talk) 18:11, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I think the explanation is far more simple. Both these and those are demonstrative pronouns. Just as  here'  is  geographically (or by some other metric) closer to there. Thus those is correct because it refers to the subject over there and not over here. Blake was first and full most an artist that also wrote a little poetry and not a poet that could draw and and paint a little.--Aspro (talk) 23:35, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Nobody seems to have pointed out yet that "there" and "those" are simply wrong. God's countenance might have shone on the clouded hills, but that isn't where the Dark Satanic mills were built.  They were built in the valleys. Looie496 (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * This comment is beyond ridiculous. Blake had no knowledge of valleys, except those in the vicinity of Felpham, where he lived at the time, and where there were no factories. Paul B (talk) 14:10, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * What were the "mills," then? Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 21:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Whichever mills Blake was thinking of (these or those), he obviously had an abysmal knowledge of geography, because the line begins with the question: "And was Jerusalem builded here?" (referring to England)... the answer (as anyone here at the Reference desk could have told him) is: "No, Blake, Jerusalem wasn't builded in England... it was builded in Israel, which is thousands of miles from England".  And while Jerusalem was builded to include the threshing floor of Ornan the Jebusite within its walls, we can hardly call that a "Mill" (Satanic or otherwise).  Blueboar (talk) 22:25, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Yep. And "builded" isn't even a word. The proper past tense of "build" is "built." Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 00:44, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * See poetic licence. HiLo48 (talk) 00:47, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * My reply above was facetious. I think/hope Blueboar's was too. Duncan nailed it below. Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 00:50, 11 May 2014 (UTC)


 * "Builded" would be what I believe is called a hypercorrection, and it scans better. Anyway, Jesus of course came to Cornwall and Glastonbury as a young lad (with his Uncle Joe), and that, together with ideas of the New Jerusalem was what Blake was on about. DuncanHill (talk) 00:50, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * A quick check of the Authorized Version and the "Battle Hymn of the Republic" suggests that "builded" was the simple past tense of "build" at one point, while "built" was (for a time) exclusively the past perfect form. Franklin Delano Roosevelt used it in a speech on the Hoover Dam as well. Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 01:02, 11 May 2014 (UTC)


 * David Crystal's blog has an interesting piece on builded/built in the Authorized Version here. DuncanHill (talk) 00:22, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

And as for dark satanic mills, our article And Did Those Feet does mention the Albion Mills, which seem a likely inspiration. See also, e.g. this and this for more on the mills. DuncanHill (talk) 01:11, 11 May 2014 (UTC)


 * So, what does this boil down to. Sir Hubert Parry had a better grasp of English grammar than did Blake.--Aspro (talk) 22:22, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I think it's likely a difference in intended meaning. Neither "these" nor "those" is grammatically incorrect, but I still maintain that substituting "those" for "these" breaks the verse's ideal parallelism, something Blake tended to pay a lot of attention to. Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 00:10, 12 May 2014 (UTC)


 * "These dark satanic mills" has a greater immediacy than "those..." - the mills are here and now and among us, not "over there somewhere" where we can ignore them. DuncanHill (talk) 00:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Exactly. So "those" mills (whatever Blake meant them to be and whatever Parry understood them to be) were, for Parry, at a somewhat more comfortable distance than for Blake. Evan (talk&#124;contribs) 00:17, 12 May 2014 (UTC)

Jakob Lorber
Hi. Still working on Jakob Lorber, and having trouble finding personal info about him. Susan Youens' digression about him is great and answers some questions, especially how he made a living, but is there any record of him getting married, any romances, children, anything like that? The only accounts I can find are very partisan and theosophical.

Thanks Adambrowne666 (talk) 04:04, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I've moved this to the bottom, and restored the Reference page formatting you deleted when you asked this question. Rojomoke (talk) 05:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

About the 30-day SSI rule - could I just visit a US diplomatic mission once a month to get around it?
So I can't leave the USA for 30 consecutive days and still receive SSI. There are plenty of safe countries where $721/month would go quite a bit farther and leave me a more comfortable life.

Now, at first, I thought of living in a border town near the US so I could walk over for a brief monthly visit, in order to stay within SSI guidelines. However, I can't live near the border in Canada because their rents are probably too high! I could live near the border in Mexico (what are their home or apartment rents anyway?), but I don't know of a "safe" border town. I could still walk across for a monthly visit as long as I had my passport. However, we know border towns are where the drug cartels conduct a lot of activity to get their products across. I'd hate to get robbed and such, or even have the fear of it, by the drug cartel gangs. Anyone looking American would be deemed an easy target to mug.

That's why I thought of instead, living in Belize. It has that exotic combination of English being the official language, lower suicide indices, higher happiness indices, and a lower cost of living. What say I live close to a US Embassy or Consulate, and pay them a visit once a month in order to not run afoul of SSI's 30-day rule? After all, a US diplomatic mission is considered "sovereign US soil," which makes me assume that as soon as I walk onto US diplomatic mission grounds, it's like walking back into the United States, thereby making good on not staying out of the USA for more than 30 days at a time. --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:44D3:8C1D:83B3:61C5 (talk) 10:48, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You would need to contact a lawyer. Wikipedia cannot give advice in this realm.  -- Jayron  32  11:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Embassies are not the sovereign territory of the incumbent nation, US or otherwise. See Diplomatic mission.  Rojomoke (talk) 12:17, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * So I suppose if Social Security doesn't count setting foot on embassy grounds as "returning to the United States," what say I live in a Mexican border town and revisit the other side of la frontera once a month? --2602:30A:2EE6:8600:F54B:B279:33F6:C1D7 (talk) 12:27, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Does it count as legal advice to remind someone their IP address is permanently attached to their potential plan to milk the government? If it does, I won't. InedibleHulk (talk) 12:47, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Except for disability claims, SS is basically them giving back money you contributed while working, so it seems like the reverse, that them refusing to return your money because of where you choose to live is them milking you. StuRat (talk) 13:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Aye, both sides milk each other. But one has a lot more milk, and decides most of the rules. This is like the "I'm not touching you" defense, if the kid explained to the world throughout how his finger was only almost in your eye, so you're powerless to resist. In a strict legal sense, he's right. But in another sense, the rulebook goes out the window. Maybe a bit farfetched.


 * But if they have the rule, they obviously want you shopping domestically. That chocolate bar from the gas station across the river once a month is technically fair, but just a phallic gesture. In the other hand, there's this and these. Again, maybe farfetched. InedibleHulk (talk) 14:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * A few points related to living inexpensively:


 * 1) Yes, there are cheap places to live abroad, but those are generally not places an American would want to live, and tend to lack the basics, like indoor plumbing, reliable electricity, window screens to keep bugs out, access to medical care, internet, etc. There are also nice places to live abroad, but those are more expensive.


 * 2) There are many cheap places to live in the US. The cost of living here in Detroit is quite low, for example.  Many rural areas are also inexpensive.  Perhaps you might consider US territories, like Guam, the Marshall Islands, and Puerto Rico.  Presumably staying there would satisfy the SS.


 * 3) For $721 a month, you'd probably want a room-mate, or to rent a room, rather than a whole apartment. Cars are also a major expense, so you might want to find a place where you can get around on foot, bicycle, or public transportation.  StuRat (talk) 13:38, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You didn't mention your age, but in many parts of the US, there are subsidized rental units for seniors that set your rent at 25% or so of your income. Often, there is a waiting list of a year or two for such units.  You might try moving to a region with low costs that is walkable or has good public transportation.  (Though low costs and good public transportation tend not to occur together in the US, so maybe your best bet is a town or small city small enough to be walkable but large or regionally important enough to have a range of services, maybe someplace like New Bern, North Carolina.) Then live there with one or more roommates while you wait for your subsidized unit to become available.  I have a relative in this situation, and he supplements his income with part-time work, even though he is 79.  That might be something to consider too, if possible. Marco polo (talk) 16:21, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The OP is asking about Supplemental Security Income, not the actual Social Security (United States) which seems to have no residence requirements. Rmhermen (talk) 18:44, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Which of those two does your "which" refer to? --   Jack of Oz   [pleasantries]  20:18, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * added comma. Rmhermen (talk) 20:45, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Preferring faith over personal evidence?
Has there ever, in recent history, been any notable cases where a religious person has seen by their own very eyes something that is in conflict with their religion, but still rejected their own personal evidence and continued to believe what their religion says anyway? J I P &#124; Talk 17:57, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Believing in a religion, a heliocentric round world, and evolution myself, I'd consider this a matter of "science versus pseudoscience" instead of "science versus religion", but modern flat earthers and geocentrists usually claim quasi-religious grounds for their belief (although even St Augustine would have to say they must be reading the scriptures wrong if they have to argue against mainstream science). I could also bring up evolution (particularly Theistic evolution) versus Young Earth Creationism, but the YECs usually respond that the "evidence" for evoluion is either misunderstood, the devil's lies, or only proof of "microevolution" (YECs being the only people who think that acknowledging that microevolution's 2+2=4 doesn't also acknowledge macroevolution's 2+4=6 or 4+4=8). Ian.thomson (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The classic example is Galileo's telescope and the moons of Jupiter. Many Catholics refused even to look through it, but of those who did, many decided that they preferred to believe the word of God's chosen leaders rather than the evidence of this instrument whose workings they did not understand. Looie496 (talk) 13:17, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Of course, Galileo's telescope was quite lousy, so it took some faith to actually see the moons of Jupiter ;-). --Stephan Schulz (talk) 13:29, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * In their defense, if they didn't understand how the telescope worked, it wouldn't make logical sense to just assume that Galileo hadn't rigged the whole thing. Scientists' personal observations also require some faith. The "canals of Mars", for example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 15:09, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Seems like that was a case of too much faith in one's own imaginations, not too little. --Bowlhover (talk) 15:30, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The point is that you must not just "see" the facts with your eyes, you must also have an honest mind. Huge numbers of evangelical christians have the evidence of evolution all around them and have had it explained to them, but they still believe otherwise. For a notable case, pick any currently notorious televangelist. Similar situations hold true with most other religions, many political beliefs, and even amongst sports fans (cf. famous fans of the Chudley Cannons!). Most people lie to themselves most of the time. RomanSpa (talk) 17:41, 9 May 2014 (UTC)
 * To be fair, the phenomenon of rejecting facts that conflict with ones firmly held beliefs is not confined to religion. It happens in politics... people often reject a fact that conflicts with their political viewpoint.  It even happens in academia, when new facts emerge that causes doubt as to the accuracy of a long accepted theory.  There is a natural human tendency to ignore, dismiss and reject "facts" that don't fit one's world view... no matter what field of endeavor you are talking about. Blueboar (talk) 03:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Indeed - you'll see that I specifically mentioned politics above. Academia is slightly different, in my experience. I think every academic has his own view of the world, and will subscribe to a particular set of theories. However, an "honest" academic will change his view if evidence to the contrary arises. This isn't always an easy thing to do, even for the very open-minded. It usually takes me several weeks to change my mind on something, even once I've been shown the evidence, because I hate admitting I was wrong. I can only think of one or two cases where I've changed my mind about something in an instant. The point, though, is that academics do change their minds in the face of evidence against their position - that's kind of the touchstone for being an academic. Indeed, you might make the case that the fact that some "academics" have no meaningful way of identifying whether a proposition is true or false and thus cannot be persuaded from one position to another by rational means is an excellent indicator that they are really charlatans. RomanSpa (talk) 07:43, 10 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Surely every time a prayer doesn't work is evidence against religion. HiLo48 (talk) 03:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * "The Lord works in mysterious ways", or, more graphically, "Zeus was so worn out be Hera that he fell asleep".--Stephan Schulz (talk) 15:21, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Did you mean "God Moves in a Mysterious Way"? Alansplodge (talk) 17:44, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I was out for the meme, not the hymn... --Stephan Schulz (talk) 07:55, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Or evidence for the rather old position that God isn't Santa Claus and that prayer is meant to be meditative. Even Apollonius of Tyana (purportedly) taught that, and accounts of his life are completely unbelievable. Ian.thomson (talk) 15:33, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Tell that to the Christians who publicly pray for very concrete (and often quite selfish) things. Is their faith tested when their god doesn't deliver? HiLo48 (talk) 22:58, 10 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The point is that the Bible doesn't promise that God will say "yes" to a prayer; I could give you plenty of examples if you cared. Please remember that the RD isn't a soapbox, however.  To go back to the original question, you may find the Great Disappointment relevant.  I'm not sure, though, if that's the case: those involved in the incident soon began to believe a modified idea (if they didn't leave the faith); they began saying that the basic Millerite idea was right, but that Miller had been quite mistaken in interpreting the result.  A vaguely comparable event happened in 1914, when the Jehovah's Witnesses said that Jesus would return; they later announced that he'd returned in a not-so-physical way.  Perhaps this is what you mean, or perhaps this is the opposite because the beliefs got modified.  Nyttend (talk) 14:04, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * It doesn't matter what you think the Bible means. Many think differently. Some ask for concrete, selfish things in prayer. They don't get them. That seems to match the OP's question pretty well. HiLo48 (talk) 20:56, 11 May 2014 (UTC)
 * That wasn't your phrasing though. It was that "every time prayer doesn't work" (as if that is the sole purpose of prayer) "is evidence against religion" (in general, as if all religion is founded primarily upon the concept of praying for things).  "When people pray for things and do not get them can lead to examples of persons preferring faith over evidence" would have been a non-soapbox-y phrasing.
 * It's as soapbox-y as if someone asked "are there ways faith and science cooperate," and someone replied with "when a person practices meditative prayer, their health improves." Yes, there can be some small benefits for certain persons, but it's a broad overstatement meant to push a unilateral (even fundamentalist) view of an extremely complex subject.  Your remark that "It doesn't matter what you think the Bible means" cuts both ways.  Ian.thomson (talk) 00:36, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * You have chosen to interpret what I wrote in an extreme way. Read it again, and don't assume the worst. HiLo48 (talk) 00:48, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * My old next-door neighbour was an evangelical Christian. She used to pray all the time, for the most minor things. Every time she went to the mall, she would pray for a good parking spot. I remember asking her once if the times that her "parking" prayer weren't answered proved that god wasn't listening all the time (I didn't have the heart to make the claim that it meant that god did not exist - she was a nice lady after all). Her answer was that god listened to all prayers all the time - just that the ones he didn't answer "weren't a part of his grand plan for you/the universe/whatever". Now why god would be worried about parking at the mall I don't know, but the point is that anything can be rationalised anyway very simply if you want. Her faith in god was totally not shaken when her prayers weren't answered. I know this because she often told me that her prayers went unanswered. I think if you look at prayer anyways it is not a demand but a request. Your parents don't always buy every Mars Bar you ask them for, and Christians feel that they have the same kind of relationship with god, as far as I can tell from the Christians I've been associated with. 59.167.253.199 (talk) 05:24, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I have had excellent results in my prayers to Transportia, who is a "found goddess" ("Found Goddesses: Asphalta to Viscera" by Morgan Grey and Julia Penelope (New Victoria Publishers, 1980)). I suspect she is one aspect of an overarching goddess of travel, serving as guardian of public transport. In her aspect as Asphalta she handles parking spaces, roads, and traffic; in this aspect her presence is readily identified by her priestesses, who carry the holy "Stop/Go" sign and wear the sacred day-glo orange jacket. If we are simply going on empirical evidence, I should note that Transportia has come through for me far more often than any Christian god or saint, though the requests tended to be for different things, so it may not be a fair comparison. Still, it's promising anecdotal evidence to start with... RomanSpa (talk) 09:14, 12 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Even very intelligent people can be quite obstinate in clinging to their beliefs rather than evidence. I've found advice can be quite unwanted if it conflicts with peoples beliefs even when it saves many millions of pounds, a case which only changed because a new manager came in, or can avoid unnecessary injuries, where I just had to give up. Religion is particularly strong that way, is a good example of where you even have trained geologists who believe the earth was created 4000 years ago, Wikipedia has an article Flood geology on this phenomenon. Dmcq (talk) 12:18, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The book When Prophecy Fails describes what happened to a doomsday cult after the world did not end as predicted. There probably have been similar studies of other such cults.  FreeKresge (talk) 17:30, 13 May 2014 (UTC)

Crafter too good, King cripples him.
I am trying to remember where a tale is from. I think it is from Norse Mythology, but I might be wrong. My google-fu has failed me.

A craftsman (a dwarf?) does some amazing craft work for a king (a giant?). The king wants no one else to have this crafter, so the crafter is crippled and forced to work for the king. The crafter eventually builds a new set of legs and escapes.

Any ideas? Tdjewell (talk) 18:00, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Isn't that the opening plot (roughly speaking) of Iron Man? -- Jayron  32  18:15, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Isn't that the opening plot (roughly speaking) of Genesis? --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 19:01, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It sounds familiar to me - also a sculptor blinded by the king comes to mind. I wouldn't know it from Iron Man, pretty sure either Norse or Greek. But, alas, for once my Google-fu has failed me too. DuncanHill (talk) 18:36, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It was parodied in The Colour of Magic. The craftsman built silver golems for a king, then was blinded. He learned to use his other senses to craft and built a great palace, only to have his right hand cut off. He built a new hand, then after his next project he was hamstrung, so he built a flying machine from bamboo and silk to escape. After completing his next great work he was shot through the chest with an arrow. His last words, after inspecting the tip of the arrow, were "shoddy workmanship." Unfortunately I don't know the original source of the story either. K ati e R  (talk) 19:42, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * L-space has a couple of suggestions for the origin, neither of them are quite what I was thinking of. DuncanHill (talk) 19:56, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * It's often associated with the architect of St. Basil's Cathedral in Moscow. Ivan the Terrible supposedly thought the onion domes were so impressive, that he had Postnik Yakovlev blinded to prevent him from building anything superior. The legend probably predates Ivan, I suspect. OttawaAC (talk) 21:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I guess that's what happens when you try to gain a psychopath's favor. You can't win. Or maybe he could've saved his eyes if he had held back. He wanted to enjoy his passion and the 1560 Russia alternative of working for the king (farming) was so boring to geniuses, you almost can't blame him. I wonder if most geniuses didn't put a full effort till only a few hundred years ago, at least for the crazier kings? Especially (ironically) after the period (Renaissance) that planted the seeds of end of common torture? By not being obsessed with religion and not having to expensively write each book by hand when only like 1% were literate, that made hearing of a story like this more likely. How much has this set humanity back? Maybe even in technological development, not just art? (see what mechanics skill supposedly got the 1490 guy below) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:49, 10 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The crippled craftsman is a fairly common motif in mythology. See, for example, Wayland the Smith (possibly the example you're thinking of) or Hephaestus. --Carnildo (talk) 02:46, 9 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Wayland the Smith is what I was looking for. I remember now it was specifically hamstringing. Tdjewell (talk) 11:28, 9 May 2014 (UTC)


 * For another example with blinding: Prague astronomical clock dates to 1490 as "legend" but I've read it elaborated by a 20th C. author, probably European.
 * Or Nicolas Fouquet who built a stunning mansion at Vaux-le-Vicomte to impress Louis XIV, but only incurred royal jealousy and was banged-up with the Man in the Iron Mask for the rest of his life. Louis went off and built Versailles so as not to be outdone. Alansplodge (talk) 17:41, 10 May 2014 (UTC)

Funding PhD students
The topic of funding for PhD students arose at the end of a symposium and apparently at my university:
 * the majority of science PhD studentships are paid (students gets money)
 * the majority of humanities PhD studentships are unpaid (student gives money!)

How are the humanities students funding their studies? What are their motivations? --129.215.47.59 (talk) 18:50, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Which country are you referring to? Paul B (talk) 19:03, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * IP geolocates to Edinburgh. Don't know how the humanities people are funding themselves, but I would think the reason is that there is far more money for actual research than for humanities studies. Rightly so, of course. Fgf10 (talk) 19:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * I don't know how it works elsewhere, but in Canada I got tons of funding for a humanities PhD. I think it was something like $20,000 a year, or a bit less I guess. But of course the school greatly encourages you to win funding from the government or from other scholarships. Adam Bishop (talk) 19:40, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The easiest way to find the answer to that specific question is to check the website for your university. It should provide information about the nature, size, and requirements of the funding packages for its various graduate programs.  Better universities guarantee a survivable stipend for their graduate students, but not all schools do.  Students that aren't provided a (full or partial) stipend from funds provided by the university, their department, and their supervisor are expected to make ends meet by applying for scholarships, bursaries, and grants, and by teaching (generally undergraduate courses).  Students who can't come up with enough funding from those sources are left with the same options they had during their undergraduate years: part-time jobs outside the university, relying on the largesse of relatives, and accumulating personal debt. TenOfAllTrades(talk) 21:46, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm sure someone, somewhere, has done a PhD in "funding models and motivations of doctoral students in the humanities". DuncanHill (talk) 21:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * Motivations can be so broad... for a mature student who is mid-career, a humanities PhD can be a good career move and well worth the investment. Remember, humanities encompasses a wide range of fields in addition to the liberal arts.... having said that, I've known people who took out huge student loans to fund liberal arts PhDs, then faced limited job opportunities and ferocious competition. I'm not sure what the allure is in those situations. OttawaAC (talk) 21:55, 8 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The thrill of the hunt! The thrill of doing pointless research no one will ever read! (I actually do love that second one.) The job search in my field was once compared to dating, which is more terrifying than anything else. Adam Bishop (talk) 23:23, 8 May 2014 (UTC)


 * In the United States it is not the case that the majority of PhD studentships are unpaid in the humanities. Most PhD students receive funding with a small stipend guaranteed for a certain number of years, typically requiring teaching, research, or other activities. Anecdotally, of the maybe 50-60 current or former grad students I know well enough to have this information, the only ones that paid their way through a program did so because they were working a separate job at the same time. --&mdash;  Rhododendrites talk  |  06:05, 9 May 2014 (UTC)