Faith & Spirituality
Philosophy Professor Left Academia for Monastery to Rediscover True Intellectual Life
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A philosopher’s argument against the cult of achievement | Zena Hitz: Full Interview
"I left. I joined to quit the profession entirely and lived in a monastery, a Catholic religious community for three years. When I was there, I really tried to encounter myself as a human being, not just a professor, not someone with a certain social status."
Zena Hitz, a philosopher who studied in elite graduate programs, experienced disillusionment with academic research and teaching in her 30s. She abandoned her profession to live in a Catholic monastery for three years, where she worked to understand herself beyond professional identity and discover what intellectual life means outside the confines of academic status hierarchies.
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