Former Professor of Music History and Theory J.P.E Harper-Scott explains why he’s leaving academia and offers advice to prospective musicology professors.
After sixteen years of working in the Music Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, I decided in summer 2021 to leave academia and begin a second career. I do not leave the profession with any sense of loss, or failure, or frustration that I could not do more of the things I have done in my career. It feels like a completed work, and I am hugely grateful to the very many people – colleagues, friends around the world, students, publishers, and administrators – who have made this such an enjoyable career. In the Music Department at Royal Holloway, I could not have been blessed with a more friendly, stimulating, or supportive environment in which to work, and the many students I have taught, particularly those whose PhDs I supervised, made me feel that my work was worth something in human terms, and I cherish the memory. But despite all of this, I am content to leave it all behind.
My decision has stunned quite a few people, and this note is an attempt to clarify my reasoning. I also hope that, like the biographical note that I wrote for my website in 2010, it might offer some comfort to PhD students or recent graduates who despair of securing an academic job and feel that they will in some tangible sense be a ‘failure’ if they do not land one.
After sixteen years of working in the Music Department at Royal Holloway, University of London, I decided in summer 2021 to leave academia and begin a second career. I do not leave the profession with any sense of loss, or failure, or frustration that I could not do more of the things I have done in my career. It feels like a completed work, and I am hugely grateful to the very many people – colleagues, friends around the world, students, publishers, and administrators – who have made this such an enjoyable career. In the Music Department at Royal Holloway, I could not have been blessed with a more friendly, stimulating, or supportive environment in which to work, and the many students I have taught, particularly those whose PhDs I supervised, made me feel that my work was worth something in human terms, and I cherish the memory. But despite all of this, I am content to leave it all behind.
My decision has stunned quite a few people, and this note is an attempt to clarify my reasoning. I also hope that, like the biographical note that I wrote for my website in 2010, it might offer some comfort to PhD students or recent graduates who despair of securing an academic job and feel that they will in some tangible sense be a ‘failure’ if they do not land one.
My plan to leave academia was a long time in the making, and the reasons for it were almost entirely intellectual ones... Keep reading on J.P.E Harper-Scott's blog.