RadicalFutures | Meet Dr Paul Yachnin, lead author of the White Paper on the Future of the PhD in the Humanities

Paul Yachnin is Tomlinson Professor of Shakespeare Studies at McGill University.

He was Director of the international project, Early Modern Conversions (2013-2019). Before that, he directed the Making Publics project (2005 to 2010). His ideas about the social life of art were featured on the CBC Radio IDEAS series, “The Origins of the Modern Public.” In 2009-2010, he served as President of the Shakespeare Association of America.

For the past eight years, he has been working on higher education practice and policy. He led the project, Transforming Graduate Studies for the Future of Canada, which brought together 26 universities to consider ways of making the PhD better. Dr Yachnin was asked to project himself in 2070, see the world as healthier than it is, and imagine what may have done right.