Sheltered workshops

Among other excuses not to mark more law essays on a cold grey wet day -

bull terriers talking about Sein und Zeit and PhDs - here. [For perspectives on postgrad dogs using strong language see Heanes v Herangi [2007] WASC 175; Houda v The State of New South Wales [2005] NSWSC 1053; Jolly, Sean Graham v R [2009] NSWDC 212; Hill v Police No. SCCIV-01-1728 [2002] SASC 28 and Walter Christopher Saunders v Wesley James Herold [1991] ACTSC 82; (1991) 105 FLR 1]

an editorial exchange on 'Book Reviewing and Academic Freedom' [PDF] in (2009) 20(4) European Journal of International Law 967-976

and from a Inside Higher Ed review of Adam Ruben's Surviving Your Stupid Stupid Decision to Go to Grad School (Random House, 2010) -

While most doctoral programs have some sort of orientation, the focus on such matters as required courses, time to degree and dissertation goals may diminish opportunities to consider really important matters -- such as how to wander into a colloquium at which food is served, timing your entrance so you don't need to listen to the talk. ...

There are more professorial types to avoid, in Ruben's world, than to cling to. You want to watch out for the "jet setter" (she's "giving the keynote address at a different conference every week" and so doesn't believe in such duties as "hand-holding" or "clarifying" or "anything"); the "deaf optimist" ("Bad news about your research? Say no more, No, really -- say no more, because she won't hear it."); or "the founder" (the longest serving faculty member in the department... "think Strom Thurmond meets George Burns, but without the racism or the entertainment... well, maybe a little racism.")

There's a dissertation hiding in a rigorous study - preferably an acerbic one - of the 'guide for postgrads' genre, including the 'what to do now that you have a useless [ie humanities] degree' subgenre. Who reads these books? Who buys them, and why (self-help by the depressed and desperate? presents from inept but well-intentioned friends and parents, postgrad resource units that really don't have a clue)?

and from the ODNB's biography of Patrick Cotter (1761-1806), professional giant -

Cotter ... grew to be more than 8 feet tall (accounts vary from 8 feet 3 inches to 8 feet 7 inches), and from his late teens was exhibited in England as the Irish Giant. He was originally tied to a showman who gave him £50 a year for three years for the right to show him, but after a disagreement Cotter was thrown into debtors' prison for a fictitious debt. He was bought out by a benevolent stranger, and thereafter exhibited himself for his own profit. ... Like other Irish giants of the period, he took the professional name O'Brien, claiming descent from Brian Boruma, king of Ireland, and has sometimes been confused with another giant, Charles Byrne, who also took the name O'Brien. Cotter displayed himself around the country for some twenty years ... Extraordinary size had its conveniences: it is recorded that 'once in Bath, on a cold night, he terrified a watchman by quietly reaching up to a street lamp, and taking off the cover to light his pipe'

[H]e made a tidy sum from his career, and in 1804 retired into private life. But Cotter's size had more disadvantages in an era which regarded physically exceptional individuals as freaks: the same source observes that he seldom went out during daylight, to avoid comments and taunts. ... In his will Cotter left legacies of more than £3000, mainly to his mother, Margaret Cotter, and strict instructions as to the details of his burial. Like Byrne, he was afraid that anatomists would seek to acquire his corpse, which, according to the memorial tablet in the chapel of his burial, was 'buried in the solid rock at the depth of twelve feet, and his body was secured with iron bars, so as to render removal impossible'.