Dr Matthew Wade graduated with an ANU PhD in 2016. He is currently a post-doctoral fellow at Nanyang Technological University's School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Singapore.

We spoke to Matt about his research, the ANU, and his thoughts on pursuing a PhD.

Q: What degree did you complete at the ANU?

I completed a Bachelor of Arts/Commerce between 2006 and 2009, then Honours in Sociology in 2010. My Honours thesis explored the Hillsong Church as a total institution that infuses consumer capitalism with new meaning. In part, this is achieved through their prosperity gospel teachings – ie. that God wants you to enjoy the material fruits of your labour – along with the emotional labour elicited from devotees. For my doctorate, I took a sharp left turn into a genealogy of moral neuropsychology, looking at experimental models of moral functioning within the brain, and how these findings are then taken up in outside the lab.

Q: What are some of the main themes in your research?

I move between several different areas of study, which can be fun, but also quite taxing. One thread that connects a lot of these interests is exploring contemporary expectations of virtuosity. Our bodies, minds, intimacies, collegialities, productivity, consumption, pleasure-seeking, sense of citizenship etc. all these expanding sites of ‘social credit’ and ‘human capital’ are being turned for purposes of both governance and marketization.

What gets measured, what accumulates worth, who determines such metrics, and our reflexive uptake or resistance against these markers are urgent matters for study, for they constitute new modes of governance. Much of this is achieved through digital technologies, platforms especially, which can simultaneously achieve intimacy, precision, and mass aggregation. So, whether it comes in the form of the ‘platform capitalism’ of much of the developed Western world, or what could be loosely described as ‘nudge authoritarianism’ emerging in China’s social credit system, our life will increasingly come to governed through such ever-present surveyors of our virtuous conduct.

At the moment I’m conducting a study of crowdfunding in times of personal crisis, where virtuosity is turned for both profit and social instruction, with those in desperate need presenting their cause to the ‘crowd’. Under such circumstances, the human capital accumulated over a lifetime is really put to the test, and the stakes can encompass life itself. Crisis crowdfunding requires constructing a narrative of moral worthiness that will appeal to the crowd. To put it somewhat flippantly, it is the art of being pure of heart, requiring labours demanded at the very moment a person may be at their most vulnerable. This entwinement of precarity and virtuosity is something I hope to explore further in various contexts.

Q: Why do a PhD at the ANU?

Well, there is no denying that the academic job market is rough at the moment, and graduate students should know that going in. But should this dissuade anybody from doing a PhD? Absolutely not. If fact, now more than ever, we should protect this space for dedicated scholarship in a world that seems increasingly hostile to close inquiry and measured argument.

Anyway, what’s the rush towards getting a ‘real’ job? Currently, there’s a seemingly irresistible creep of casualization, zero-hour contracts, gig economy exploitation, workplace surveillance, escalating metricization, the threat of automation, along with all the other ‘bullshit jobs’ that have long been with us (as anthropologist David Graeber described them). The sole kindly quality about these jobs is that they will (probably) still be waiting for you if you decide to leave the academy.

So, if you are fortunate enough to be able to keep a roof over your head, have a supportive crew, a great institution (ANU, of course) and a topic that feels urgent and understudied, then you practically have not only an opportunity, but an obligation to shoot for a doctorate.

Q: What tips do you have for successfully surviving a PhD?

In all honesty, rather than dispense my muddled advice, the best tip I could give is to check out The Thesis Whisperer’s blog and other resources (from ANU’s own Associate Prof. Inger Mewburn). There are guiding bread crumbs there for just about every roadblock you are likely to encounter.

But still, one small thing I will mention, perhaps for the benefit of first-year PhD students, is to appreciate that not a single sentence you write during the first year is likely to arrive untouched in your final thesis, but that every word was necessary to produce the finished product. So, in that first year, read as much as you can, and write without fear.