Dr. Victoria Fanti, PhD in Italian Literature

In this episode, we discuss Victoria’s unexpected path to pursuing a PhD in Italian Literature and her doctoral work on killer queens in Italian Renaissance tragedy, her reflections on the ways academia is often poorly equipped to support diverse needs, and her take on the importance of taking time to examine your personal values and goals when it comes to planning your next career step.

Hosted by Lois Dankwa

To connect with Victoria and to learn more about her story, visit her page on the PHutures #100AlumniVoices Project website.

Transcript

Lois Dankwa

Hi. I'm co-host Lois Dankwa and this is the 100 Alumni Voices Podcast, stories that inspire, where we explore the personal and professional journeys of a diverse group of 100 doctoral alumni from Johns Hopkins University. Today we're joined by Victoria Fanti, PhD in German and Romance languages and literature. Hi Victoria.

Victoria Fanti

Hi Lois. Thanks for having me.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah. How are you today?

Victoria Fanti

Oh, I'm doing well. I live in the Netherlands and you know spring in the Netherlands generally brings a lot of rain and we have, we had a moment of sunshine today, so you know, take the wins where you can get them.

Lois Dankwa

That's really cool. I'm in DC and it's a sunny day in DC, but I've never been to the Netherlands and you're selling it, so that's exciting. Well, so I'm excited for this chat and I think I first want to start by hearing little about what made you want to pursue a PhD in German and romance languages and literature and just hear a little more about your graduate work at Hopkins in general.

Victoria Fanti

Sure. So, I think I would probably say that I don't necessarily have the most traditional path toward a PhD in the humanities. I sort of stumbled upon the opportunity and thought, why not? In college, I majored in comparative literature and part of that major involved actually required taking courses, literature courses in a foreign language. And so, I chose Italian because my dad is Italian. He immigrated from Italy to the US before I was born and it was a language that I was already familiar with. So, through the course of taking these, you know, kind of required course required classes I found that I guess I was quite good at writing and analyzing literature and the prospect of a PhD in Italian was sort of suggested to me by one of my advisors. And it was not something that I had ever thought of doing, and actually the first time that he suggested it, I kind of laughed in his face. But I don't know. One thing led to another. Actually, I worked a short stint in PR in New York after graduation, and I think that experience sort of made me realize that I, you know, I missed school in some ways, and so I I applied for the PhD and ended up joining the Italian section at Hopkins. And as as far as what my dissertation work was about, or what my graduate work was about I focused mainly on the Renaissance. You know, this was years ago, but Game of Thrones was really at the height of its popularity, I wanna say. And I think as any graduate student knows, I assume this this was true for past graduate students as much as graduate students present, you'll do basically anything to to take your mind off your studies. And so, I was a devotee of the Game of Thrones TV show. And I decided I just wanted to write a dissertation about, you know, that kind of. And so, I ended up writing about killer Queens in Italian Renaissance tragedy.

Lois Dankwa

Ohh interesting. I I have so many questions. I think my first what does that mean writing about killer Queens?

Victoria Fanti

Yeah, I basically, I don't know. I don't know if this was the rage I was feeling at the, you know, interminable PhD, but I just I'm really interested in pop culture in general and so this idea, you know, there's this popularity of, like, the transgressive woman and especially, you know, women who who kill. They're kind of like perceived as a different breed or something. You know what I mean? And it turns out that during the Italian Renaissance, one of the genres that was kind of being revived was tragedy, and it's not a it's not a corpus of literature that's been studied extensively, but I kind of started looking into it and a lot of these tragedies have these I mean literal Queens or or noble women or princesses or whatever who part of what's tragic about the tale is that they sort of, you know, either crack and lose their minds and, you know, kill some people or are murderous, homicidal, just just, you know, by nature, by character. And so, I for me, it was a nice sort of connection between past and present.

Lois Dankwa

Interesting. You know, I I understand what you're saying, where it's kind of these characters, or the like Rage is manifest in such a remarkable way in certain depictions of these types of women, and I think it's really interesting how you started by mentioning just what brought you to even pursuing a PhD was realization that you really liked comparative comparative literature and that you liked to write. And it almost seems like you drew on multiple parts of just yourself growing up and that influenced how you existed in your doctorate program. And I'm curious how beyond you focusing on the Italian section, kind of what, how did you notice kind of elements of yourself when you were younger influence how you chose to engage with the components of your doctorate while you were pursuing it, but then also how you aimed to learn different things in it?

Victoria Fanti

Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think probably the most defining element of in terms of, you know, the trajectory from my childhood to to ending up in, well, to ending up pursuing a doctorate is just I have, you know, vivid memories of my mom always saying, you know, education is the most important thing. No one can ever take your education away from you. I actually, you know, I really both my sister and I really absorbed that ethos. My sister is an assistant professor, so we really both got, you know, sucked into academia, and I think that the choices I made along the way, maybe to my own detriment, you know, really capitalized on this you know this intellectual curiosity, and I, I mean, I I hate the phrase, but love of learning. And in a way, doing the PhD felt, you know, quite selfish because you're just, you know, spending years indulging your interests, reading about what intrigues you, finding new things that interest you, trying, you know, maybe dipping your toes into other disciplines, seeing what works, embracing what doesn't. Yeah, as far as my childhood goes, it's it's always felt like my family, I mean both my mom and my dad, but my mom had this sort of like saying. They really just always emphasized education. And then once, once you had your education, you could basically do what you wanted, which of course you know, once you become an adult, you kind of realize that's that's not true either, but.

Lois Dankwa

You know what's funny is that you mentioned I can identify with growing up in a household where education was kind of pushed as a top thing. My mom was talking about that yesterday, actually. And and it was like, OK, but then it's funny because you also mentioned how the phrase love of learning is not your favorite, but how so easily that phrase can be something that you end up saying as someone that grows up in a household where education is pushed on. So, it's like a nature versus nurture situation, like which came first, me loving learning or them saying education was important? You know.

Victoria Fanti

So true. 

Lois Dankwa

I'm curious if you have envisioned then different, like if not love of learning, what's a way that you've thought about a desire to keep honing in on your own interests and stuff like that?

Victoria Fanti

To be honest, I think the the issue I take with the phrase is more that it feels like it oversimplifies what learning entails, right? When I personally hear or use the phrase love of learning, I just have this visual of skipping out into a spring field filled with tulips and you like, pick some flowers and it just feels like a cakewalk. Whereas, you know you can have the intellectual curiosity, but it also requires a lot of work to learn new things in general. I mean that applies anywhere whether you're in university, academe, on the job training, trade school, I think and probably part of my mixed feelings about the phrase stem from the fact that I think to be honest, I'm not sure if this was the case decades ago, but currently, certainly I think that a lot of doctoral students conflate the opportunity that they're you know, that they have to train in a discipline that they presumably want to be training in, and that passion right, that we bring which really is I think more often than not, intellectual curiosity, that, that, that tends to be conflated with that students think they don't have the the right to expect certain, you know, dignities from their from their workplace or from the career trajectory they're on. So yeah, I just I've found myself feeling more and more conflicted about the language we use when we talk about intellectual pursuits in academia, because I think that to a certain degree that they've been weaponized to, I mean, weaponize feels like a very strong word, but, you know, used to encourage people to accept bad working conditions.

Lois Dankwa

Right. That's such an interesting point how you it I love that you mentioned it simplifies something that is very complex, that learning is it's not just showing up and absorbing like there's a lot of effort that goes into learning and it it makes me curious how kind of that your I'm trying to think if it's an acknowledgement or recognition. I'm just gonna say both your acknowledgement and recognition of kind of the fact that learning is more complex as it more complex than it is sometimes presented as influenced how you saw yourself kind of existing professionally after your doctorate program? Like, did that influence your ideas about how you saw yourself contributing to spaces?

Victoria Fanti

Oh yeah, certainly. I mean, I will say, look, I'm fully cognizant of the fact that there are people for whom learning is not difficult and like, congratulations to them. I wish them all the best. Those are the geniuses among us. But yeah, I mean it. Memorization is not the easiest thing for me. There are certain other elements to learning that, you know, maybe one year you're having a really good year and you can speed through your work, and the next year you're having problems in your personal life or problems on the medical front or whatever and you know, life goes on, the doctorate goes on, work goes on. And so, I think that some young people are fortunate to maybe they've never had to think about all the sort of external factors that can affect not just how successfully you learn, but whether you learn at all, right, whether you're presented, whether you're able to, whether you're presented with those opportunities and then whether you're able to capitalize on them.

Lois Dankwa

You know, I'm curious about so you mentioned how I appreciate that you mentioned how sometimes the yes, there are certain people that struggle to learn whatever a specific thing is, but there are other people that it comes very easily to. But, it can often be a pressure point where people feel as if everyone is able to learn something easily, especially when they are not able to whether it's being in like a statistics class or learning qualitative research for the first time and feeling like you are the only person that is not able to understand a certain technique or approach to evaluation, and I'm remembering back to how you mentioned you almost just stumbled into doing a PhD because someone mentioned you should pursue this topic, and I'm curious if in your past and your career so far, you've received any type of advice to deal with the fact that we're all coming from different places to engage with sometimes the same exact information or the same exact approach, but we're different people.

Victoria Fanti

To be honest, I think that that's been, you know a bit of a self-directed epiphany for me over the over the past several years. You know most of I'll be the first to admit that I grew up very privileged. I mean, and I was in a supporting loving, stable household. And then kind of as soon as I hit college, I started some chronic health issues started cropping up. My first, I remember my first month of being a college student I had this growth. Well, I had this kind of lump in my throat, right. And I go to the hospital for an evaluation and the doctor just tells me straight to my face, well, you probably have thyroid cancer, but it's the best cancer to have. 

Lois Dankwa

Wow.

Victoria Fanti

It's just kind of like I it's this is a bit of a roundabout way to sort of get to get to the point I'm making, but yeah, it was just this really, like, preposterous experience, which for me kind of encapsulates this start of what has been a very long learning process that has been totally, well, not totally separate, but I mean it's been happening simultaneous to or, it was happening simultaneously to my studies. Where I just sort of had to learn along the way that everyone is dealing with their own stuff and everyone like you said is approaching maybe like a similar item, so, like you know the school work or an attempt to, I don't know, land that summer internship. They're all they're all approaching it from very different, very different life experiences and perspectives. And so, I think you know I college was I I turned out not to have thyroid cancer. Sorry. I feel like I should have clarified that earlier. There was no thyroid cancer.

Lois Dankwa

OK, thank you.

Victoria Fanti

We’re good. I wish there were a way to, like, go back in time and put that into the when I originally brought that up, but yeah, the suspense was there for me as well in college for a year and a half, I want to say, where they just could never really like tell me one way or the other until I had surgery and they just, you know, removed half of my thyroid and then the definitive answer came back. But you know that was that was really my first lesson in you know things happening, real world things happening while you're trying to be a student while, you're trying to learn the techniques of how to do qualitative analysis. You know that that academics are not the be all end all. Sometimes you're just trying to get by.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, yeah, that's I think one of the most remarkable things that I've been noticing in a doctorate program that life and sometimes very real aspects of life is happening at the same exact moment as you writing your proposal and it makes you consider, or perhaps reconsider what you want to do with the degree after you've had it, because your life looks different than how a past version sometimes a lot more naive version of you might have envisioned. So, it's a weird thing to notice that even if it was exciting for you both to start a program and even during a program, you realize that you want to use the degree differently than you thought, which isn't always a bad thing.

Victoria Fanti

Yeah, you really hit the nail on the head with that with that summary.

Lois Dankwa

I love a summary.

Victoria Fanti

Extraordinary eloquence. 

Lois Dankwa

Thank you. Well, yeah, go ahead.

Victoria Fanti

That's completely it, right? I mean, I I started the the doctorate with let's say cautious optimism. You know, it wasn't my life dream to become a a professor. But the more I did, the further along I got in the program the more interesting of a prospect it became, right. I love research. Teaching took took a bit of time to get used to, but I eventually actually, to my own surprise, came to enjoy that as well. Students are by and large great. And, you know, even the whole even now I finished in 2021. I defended. I I look back on, you know, the actual doctoral work as just a really I mean painful, but also enriching and wonderful intellectual journey, you know. But in the course of in the course of doing it, however much the topic interested me and the sort of the elements of working in the humanities in academe, you know, all the pieces I like. But then when I started to look at the not just the almost total lack of job prospects, but even the way that that the jobs that existed were structured, it became very apparent to me that I would never be able to thrive were I to remain in academia, because it's not, or at least as it is now, it's not an environment, it's not a yeah, an environment that has figured out how to in my opinion accommodate diversity particularly well. And I say that not just from the perspective of disability, but also, I think you know more broadly it's universities are, I think, really struggling to adapt to the times.

Lois Dankwa

Hmm, I'm glad that you mentioned that. So, I have, I do have two more questions for you. And I think that what you've just been saying has me thinking about the importance of when looking for whatever your your next role is, whether it's after being in a doctorate program or pivoting from position to another position, is finding spaces that make sense for you and where you are fitting in appropriately. And I don't really mean fitting in in like the more general sense, but like the way they measure success aligns with how you measure success and values are aligning and different things like that, and I'm curious what advice you would have for someone who is kind of viewing just has a similar viewpoint to you in terms of like how they're viewing what pursuing a doctorate has been like, or how they're viewing what they want to do with their degree afterwards?

Victoria Fanti

I think I would say that making space for introspection on a regular basis is actually incredibly valuable. I think that there's a lot of noise while you're in the doctorate program about what success, well, actually, I may not even call it noise, but there, you know, there are parameters of of success that are sort of commonly understood to be the way to to be the gold standard for self-evaluation or your advisor evaluating you or whatever. But, I get the impression, and I include myself in this, that doctoral students sometimes don't really take the time to stop and really ask themselves where they're going, and if that's where they want to be going, and what they should be doing to adjust their trajectory if their goals have changed in the progress of in the process of doing the doctorate. And I mean the same the same applies after graduating, I think. I was certain that I needed you know that the tenure track path wasn't something that I wanted to pursue. And so, I made the conscious decision to try to find an organization that to try to, you know, for my next professional step to try to work for an organization that I had shared values with, like you said. And I got an internship with the UN, the Secretariat in New York. And I was very fortunate to land that position, but it became apparent after a while that whereas you know, I felt that the values aligned maybe again the parameters of what constituted success in that environment didn't match up perfectly. You know, actually and I I think under other circumstances I would probably, well, let's say you know a few years ago I probably wouldn't have been so forthright about this, but I think it's important also to talk about you know the lows as well as highs and after the doing the doctorate with you know, dealing with I guess we can call it disability chronic health stuff the entire time and then going straight into an internship which included work in in Dubai, so working abroad in a new environment. I I ended up in a colossal burnout, just major, major burnout. And so, part of all this reflecting I've been doing stems from, you know, maybe realizing now that one of the skills I cultivated during the during, you know, college and the doctorate was basically pushing forward at all cost, using inertia to propel myself forward, but not really, necessarily cultivating the skills of like checking in with myself and seeing whether the things I was, the pressure I was putting on myself to to achieve success, you know what effect I was having on me in other realms of life. 

Lois Dankwa

Right.

Victoria Fanti

And I think that burnout is increasingly common from what I understand. So, I think, yeah, I know this has been like quite a roundabout answer, but my main piece of advice would be just you know to to keep to actually for students and graduates to check in with themselves and ask themselves the questions that are, I think in many cases more convenient to avoid because they do eventually always kind of bubble to the surface.

Lois Dankwa

Yeah, I'm glad that you shared you shared all of that because the it can often be because of the the quote noise that you mentioned, it can be hard to notice the role that social pressure is having on our decisions and our ability to make decisions for ourselves. So, this is almost just a good reminder to remember that we're agents for ourselves and that it's OK to make a choice that is perhaps different than what those around you are doing or suggesting you should be doing.

Victoria Fanti

Yeah, I totally, I completely agree on that front. And I mean it's harder for some people and easier for others, right? It depends on how your advisor maybe approaches or let's say how flexible your advisors may be. I was very fortunate and had an advisor who was open to me publishing in non-strictly academic spheres and you know doing other work by the side. But yeah, at the end of the day it does come down to advocating for yourself and unfortunately for some people, that's more difficult than it is for others, but it's a skill that I mean, I do actually think it's a skill that you have to cultivate and work on, and it's something that's gonna serve you for the rest of your life, certainly.

Lois Dankwa

Definitely. So, I have one more question for you, and I am curious what inspires you right now?

Victoria Fanti

Oh, this is such a cliche answer, but it's my dog. 

Lois Dankwa

It’s not. I don't know that anyone has said that. 

Victoria Fanti

I don't know. She's just like, you know, those memes that are or is it, yeah, it's memes maybe that are, like, happy, unbothered, flourishing. Like she's just got no worries. She she had like six teeth pulled the other week, she's already doing great, happy as a clam. Yeah, I just, it's not so much right now. I take perpetual inspiration from her approach to life. But yeah, I just I think that we could all be like well, maybe not everyone, but I certainly could be a little more carefree. And yeah, I just look at her every day and feel that she's she's got it all figured out, my sweet girl.

Lois Dankwa

Even without, even without some of her teeth.

Victoria Fanti

Even without some of her teeth, she's still good.

Lois Dankwa

Ah, Victoria, I loved that. I've loved all of this conversation and I just want to thank you so much for joining us today, sharing a bit about your perspective and the things that have gotten you to this moment. Thank you so much.

Victoria Fanti

No, thank you, Lois. It was really nice to to chat with you.