Becoming-professional: notes on the university and the production of MFAs

This paper begins by looking at the MFA as a worker within the context of the contemporary university and from there attempts to situate that position in relationship to capitalism by charting out how the university uses workers for its own ends much like any capitalist business would, which results in the over-producing MFAs. From here, we can look toward the broader consequences of this large production of cultural producers and their becoming-professional. The consequences of this becoming-professional, I argue, are much more problematic than they initially appear, which further destabilizes our ability to act as anti-capitalist and anti-authoritarian cultural producers without further strengthening the forces we seek to oppose. Finally, I'll try and develop Stefano Harney and Fred Moten's concept of the criminal as well as Deleuze & Guattari's thinking on smooth spaces and a socio-political shifting toward that of the control society. Last I look at the various ways of thinking about fleeing or evacuating to help us chart escape routes by moving past traditional artistic notions of institutional critique and other professionalizing discourses learned within the spaces of MFA production.