Dr Lida Amiri

Why did you start with a PhD?

I started my PhD in Melbourne because I lived in Australia at the time. After I graduated with my MA in Germany I was selected to teach at Melbourne university. There I met some of the PhD students, and to me it wasn’t that serious. I just jokingly applied for the scholarships because you had to get two of those; one for the university fees (50.000 AUD) which was ridiculous, and the second one was for the daily expenses of a student. I remember I applied for that and it was around the midterms period, while I was teaching. I won’t forget that my friend (with whom I've collaborated as well and is now an assistant professor tenured at Sydney University) sat me down to ask me what happened to my PhD application. I just told him I didn’t know, because I just didn’t have time. He told me I had to come up with a project and find a supervisor who is interested in what I considered worthwhile dedicating the next few years of my life to.

Once I got the approval and had the green light, I still needed the financial support because I was a first-generation student. I applied for the scholarship, just to try. I remember finding out after the meeting that I had about the PhD topic that I had just one week to submit that application, and this was during the midterms. It was very Hollywood-esque because I had to ask my mother to send me my physical MA documents all the way from Germany just so I could have them in time. I remember running through the rain to deliver the documents in time, just before the applications office closed. I handed them the envelope and told them it was my application while I was out of breath. Their response? They had just pushed the deadline three months back. I told them to just take it because I refused to have a second glance at all those application documents ever again!

What mattered to me most was whether I did or didn’t get funding. I could just go back to Germany because I actually had a supervisor waiting for me there, a professor at my alma mater. He was very kind, he was still like a good supportive mentor to this date. It was pretty difficult to tell him that I wasn’t coming back for the PhD, and instead I would do it in Australia.

How did you know you wanted to pursue a PhD?

To me it was just a natural continuation of what I had already been doing, something it turned out I could excel at. Because I had to. I had to be one of the top students to maintain my scholarships. In order to finance my life basically and at the time I had three side jobs while I was a full-time student. My supervisor approached me to ask whether I had any interest in a  scholarship, and I said what, what scholarship, like why? Why would I, I’m not going abroad, because in my head, I have to stay here to establish myself. 

Once I got the funding, went abroad and got the Fulbright scholarship, that was basically a game changer. It was an easy sign for anybody else to assess my knowledge and my expertise. Above all you just have to try it, try it and apply and apply! I think it’s just a trial and error game, just don't take it too seriously and don't take it personally if you get rejected, maybe you have to turn to another funding opportunity. I do think approaching life like that in general, makes it much more digestible not to take anything personally, because if you then do get accepted for anything you can celebrate it.

It’s really nice to hear from you as someone who actually needed the scholarships. Academia can be pretty daunting for a lot of people, because it’s a pretty elite system not just in terms of money, it’s also in terms of complications, because many students don’t even know where or how to start with finding scholarships. What would be your advice for that?

After the Fulbright scholarship they actually offered me to be employed at the university, but I had to reject it because I also got into Sorbonne; a childhood dream come true, because I was always obsessed with Paris! Once I got accepted as an exchange student, I found there was excellent student housing available for international students owned by the university. The price was so reduced, you could never ever imagine! I think I paid like 400 AUD at the time and there was even a lady who came to clean up on a weekly basis. I was really close with her and whenever she came over I told her to sit down and have a break, especially after I learned that she had a really tough life. I believe you should uphold the values and the ethics that you believe in and maintain that in your everyday life, outside of academia and your own writing.

Unfortunately I can’t tell you anything about Dutch scholarships, but I do remember one of my former students from close reading contacted me again about a recommendation letter, and I had to write it within like three hours. It’s not unusual but sometimes your students are so overwhelmed that something ends up on my desk very much at the last minute, like literally the final hours before the application closes. I hope that she succeeds, but I made sure that the application recommendation is supporting her to the best of her abilities. I also followed up with an email and told her where to live, and where to apply. She should certainly look into that because otherwise, I remember from my peers at the university that came from abroad, they had a really rough time, especially with those metropolitan cities. If it’s too good to be true, it’s always too good to be true and it’s a scam, and that’s something you don’t want to fall into. It’s very very dangerous. It’s something that if I can share as much as possible, yes I will do it, but that’s like my limitation, or anything about like a Dutch scholarship.

How did you feel about moving to a different country?

Why not? Why not try it? That was something that my mom said to me at the time, because both of my parents are refugees from the war in Afghanistan and she never got to finish her higher education or get her degree. She was a second year undergrad student when they had to flee the country, so to her it was very close to her heart that her children could excel. My father, who is illiterate and I’m never ashamed of saying that, wouldn’t even consider that a hard choice. I was born a refugee, because my mom was pregnant with me once we got off the plane in Germany. My parents fled there because they already had a child, my older sister, and it was the safest place to go. 

I think this is applicable to anybody as a student. Why not try it? If you don’t like it then just move elsewhere, or you move back home, then you reorient your life. I started my PhD in Melbourne, but I completed it in the UK with a Fulbright scholarship so I moved there. My mom really helped me get over the edge by telling me to just try it because they would always be there for me, and I could come back home if it didn’t work out. I think that really was the encouragement that I needed to dare to study abroad. I kept telling her as an undergrad that I would come back next year, but she kept encouraging me to continue, so I never did. 

It also happened naturally because when I came back from Australia as a student with a scholarship to Europe, I had time to interview very important Afghan voices. One of them was Atiq Rahimi, an award-winning French writer and filmmaker. I went to see him, which was really interesting! I read his work as a child when I was still in school, which was by pure accident, I just picked it up. Once I met him I actually had all the questions because I read his work anyway. So once we came together we talked about the status quo of the diaspora and about Afghanistan, complex discussion beyond his life. When I returned to Australia, I had to present my research. I came back with an abundant amount of knowledge and research and everything that I conducted.I knew I had to conduct a complete dissertation on this topic, but there was no one working with a complete comparative approach in Melbourne. 

If it’s about comparative literature, you go to the source; BCLA, the British comparative literature association. I actually met with one of the leading professors of comparative literature who came as a guest speaker to Melbourne. I actually approached him and we had a cup of tea and a talk where I could bounce my ideas off of him. He was very appreciative and helped me with the feedback, as head of comparative literature studies. I’m not sure whether I should have googled him beforehand, but I don’t think I would have dared to reach out to him. I basically ripped apart all of his research but he was just appreciative and liked that I was critical of what he believed in. I reached out to him again to ask him if he would be interested in accepting me as one of his PhD students, because I knew I needed someone who was unmatched in comparative literature. However, he didn’t work across time zones, so I had to leave Australia and come to Europe- a no brainer for me! I basically respectfully thanked everyone there, bought a one way ticket and left everything behind.

When I got to the UK, I first approached someone for a job, to have some sort of financial support, and then once I was there I googled the funding you could get once I was settled there and had an understanding of what was going on. I applied to get the funds for women graduates, which had the intention of supporting womens ideas and approaches and their research goals. You just have to apply for it and see what happens!

What was your relation to your PhD supervisor like? 

German is actually the perfect language to describe it; in German a male supervisor is called Dr Vater, a female supervisor Dr Mutter; doctor father and doctor mother, because they are as close to you as your parents. Some of my peers would even tell me that they would cry after or during the meetings they had with their supervisor. It is a challenge, and you grow with every challenge. These supervisors are there to help you, to guide you. You of course have to do the work and come up with the answers, but they will support you and provide you with feedback.

Your PhD is basically decided by who your supervisor is. Your most important choice isn’t choosing the institution but the supervisor, and that’s something that you have to be very much aware of. Melbourne university is a wonderful institution and the number one of Australia, but it was not a great fit for a comparative dissertation. You have to move and pick your supervisor based on the direction you want to go with your research. It’s a personal process, but it's also collaborative in the way that they shape you, and you shape the research in a way.That’s why picking the supervisor is the most important, not the institution itself.

There is the institution, then the environment, the department itself, what it is known for. If you get to know the institution, then that’s wonderful; but even among those academics you have to look for that specific one that fits with your dissertation. I do think academia is an environment that is intended for the upper classes, but I don’t care. You have to disrupt places, all the time, so what, now I'm here, what are you going to do about it?

How did your Phd trajectory affect your mental health?

Being a first-generation was very daunting. I detached myself from my immediate surroundings, because I thought that I would not belong there. I wasn’t naturally part of the cohort, that’s what I heard of course. The parents of other students were highly educated and I felt like to them I didn’t know anything, because I just didn’t grow up with that. We were just happy to survive! You just have to get used to it, and sort of acclimate yourself as a student. Meeting different kinds of PhD students will help you with that. I do think that a cohort and being active with the cohort and exchanging ideas, whether it is like good times or bad times, I do think that’s important. So yeah, I do think that shame has no place in that discussion, because you are sort of surrounded with like minded people, who will have to invent something that nobody has ever come up with. 

The process can seem extremely daunting. Your support network is very important to help you through it, but also coming together, attending these open talks, attending these conferences. Visit places where you can openly talk about it, address it, write poetry, perform it, talk about. Put yourself out there and become more comfortable, day by day, until you have the courage to attend an academic conference. Then you submit your application, your proposal, and if they like it and you fit in, you are more than welcome to attend and present your work to see the response. Then you can go back to your work and use that feedback. You definitely have to make a lot of notes, anything that anybody says, certainly take note of that.

The scary question; what comes after a PhD? How easy was it for you to find a job?

It was not easy. I was in touch with my supervisor and his department, but they didn’t have any work. I was lucky enough that one of my friends from the PhD had a contract for me. She reached out and I said that I’d do anything to figure out where I was going. During covid I had to leave the UK and move back to my parents, because I had no idea what to do. I just thanked my supervisor and left a gift for him as a thank you with a handwritten note, and then I basically left the country. 

When I ended up back in Germany, I was challenged again. I had quite a few teaching opportunities across the UK and I was again offered an opportunity for a job at my Melbourne university, but I rejected that. I wanted to go above and beyond and see how far I can get, gambling with my luck. I was flattered and thanked them for the opportunity, but I felt it was too safe and didn’t think didactic specifically was my department; I was more intrigued and interested in literary study. I was still teaching languages (mostly German) online because of Covid. I got rejected to teach part-time at BCLA, I was then also recontacted by comp-lit again because they had a single open position, which I just barely didn’t get because I got second place in the application hierarchy. However, after that I got the opportunity to join in the second block of the year, on the condition I moved to the Netherlands. I was added to the close reading cohort teaching group; I’m still very grateful for their support during that period. I had to start teaching, and could only stay at a friend’s house in Den Haag for two weeks, so I had to find a place to live as well. Thankfully it worked out, and after teaching part-time for a few years they offered me a full-time contract. So yeah, it can work out really randomly. 

When you finish your PhD, you can go in a lot of different directions. Most of the ones I stayed in touch with stayed on board in academia. Some that I’m not in touch with anymore, they went into teaching in high school, others into publishing. I can’t say how much my experience corresponds to the situation now, because I got my PhD during covid. Not everybody finished their PhD so it’s very difficult to say, because I finished and they didn’t and we both lived through the same pandemic.

You will have down times, you will feel overwhelmed, and you will feel like you’re not supposed to be here, especially as a woman. I do understand that, especially for someone like me who is visually ‘the other', because I don't look European so I never introduced myself as German. I do think it's hilarious, especially when I was teaching in the German departments across the globe, that had students enter and then walk out of the room, because they didn’t think that I would be teaching. I’ve seen it all, I’ve heard it all, and I can tell you you shouldn’t take it personally. Even if it may be hurtful, it’s not coming from you, it’s not your circus. If they try to make a problem out of it, they just have to expand their horizons. Colleague or student, what's the difference? 

Do you have anything that you would advise students to avoid?

I don’t; trying is part of the process of learning and growing as a person. I would recommend everyone to go ahead and try it. There’s nothing wrong with making mistakes or wrong decisions, because every decision is an experience that helps you with understanding which pathway you will select. You can absolutely back out of it if it’s not what you want to do. That’s what I told myself every day, even during the dissertation; If I woke up the next day and I didn't want to do it, I would resign, I would stop, and I would not do my dissertation. That assurance really helped me to power through and finish my project.

I think you have to sort of play with yourself, with your mind, because it’s such a difficult time. It’s emotionally taxing. To me it was very personal because my research was tied to post 9/11 media and literature which was either neo-colonial or the exact opposite. It was a personal endeavor, especially once I had to learn to read and speak Persian fluently, because some of the words were written in Persian, and if you don’t write the translation, the translator rewrites a brand new piece, so to me I was pushed over the edge to learn. I got to meet Atiq Rahimi, and he has become a confidante to me because we both believe in expanding the consciousness of the world, accepting the other and not rejecting them by stereotyping them or us.

It really shapes you. I believe you have to be courageous enough to be made uncomfortable. When you remain in your comfort zone, you’re not pushing enough, you have to make yourself uncomfortable. You have to disrupt these stages, these places, these institutions, why not? They are missing your voice! I would recommend everybody to just do it. Because it’s so hard, it may feel actually impossible; that’s why you have to do it.