The End of an Academic Dream (opinion)

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When I look back on the final months of my Ph.D. in comparative literature at the University of Edinburgh, I remember a strange duality: the thrill of intellectual accomplishment and the gnawing dread of what would come next. I had spent years immersed in research, convinced that my work examining gendered urban spaces in Turkish literature mattered not just to me, but to the world. I believed, perhaps naively, that universities and other academics in the humanities would recognize my passion and reward my dedication. Like so many others, I had internalized the myth of the noble, wandering academic , of the scholar who sacrifices comfort and security for the life of the mind, who hops from conference to conference, who finds meaning in precarity and purpose i