Graduate Speaker: Caryce Chepchirchir Tirop
The Rhythms and Rituals of a History PhD
Good afternoon everyone, and a Happy Father's Day to all fathers present in person and in spirit. A special greeting to my dad, Peter Tirop Simatei, who empowered me to pursue knowledge and inquiry before any fancy degree did.
Indeed, I stand here at the end of my PhD journey a product of my parents’ faith and courage. As a headstrong 18 year old, I told them that I wanted to give up my admission to medical school in Kenya and pursue a degree in the Humanities in the United States. I did not have a solid plan– just good vibes, Inshallah, and the abstract explanation that History, Religious Studies, and Literature made me feel alive. While I'm sure they had many anxieties, they put on a brave face for me and supported my dream.
Before I boarded the plane for Amherst College (go Mammoths), my mom, Peres Bett, covered me with what she knew best: prayer. I always found my mom’s prayer interesting. She did not pray for me to pass my classes, or to change my degree to medicine, (although, let’s be honest, I don’t know what she and God talk about in secret). But, out loud, she prayed that I would find good people to walk the journey with me: A prayer she repeated as I started myPhD here at Stanford in 2018.
Seven years later, I am immensely grateful for my mom’s answered prayer. I’ve had the distinct honor and pleasure of doing my PhD in the company of amazing mentors, teachers, staff, friends, and incredible advisers, (a special thank you to my amazing team of Richard Roberts, Joel Cabrita, and Gabrielle Hecht.)
Today, I reserve my highest gratitude for a special group of good brilliant people: my fellow graduate students. You have been my pillars of strength, sources of joy, and influential teachers of history and life. For the time that is mine, I would like to share with our guests and loved ones some of the rituals and rhythms which sustained us, taught us how to be good historians, and transformed us as human beings.
When we started the PhD, we were inducted into different intellectual traditions in our fields of specialization. The fundamentals of our program– writing historiographies and literature and book reviews, reading for our qualifying exams, doing research, and writing the dissertation– taught us rituals of honoring our intellectual predecessors even when we disagreed with them.
Working in the heart of Silicon Valley where invention and quickness are the norms, we found enchantment in the rhythms of innovative historical research: projects that take decades to solidify, the slowness and sometimes boredom of archival research, the repetitiveness of rehearsal and revision. The long and meaningful careers of our advisors and mentors modeled what deep commitment to historical inquiry can yield.
We moved in and out of solitude and community. While we were thrilled to spend hours in solitary research, hunched over books and dusty manuscripts, we knew our work was enriched and made more meaningful by doing it in academic fellowship and friendship. So, we organized and gathered in workshops, talks, conferences, and reading groups where we shared our work and learned from each other. If the promise of an intellectually stimulating session was not enough, we cajoled our friends and colleagues with the promise of free food.
But there were other, less formal gatherings that brought us joy and camaraderie. Some of my most memorable times were spent with you in the Stansky Lounge where I often hunkered down in my favorite chair to work. (Now, I need to clear up some rumors, I never moved into the lounge. Although, I’ll say this, there may or may not be a chair named after me.)
The real magic happened in between hours of deep concentration, when I took off my headphones to take a break, or lingered at the door while saying goodbye. In the Lounge, I learnt the most about the world from your personal and intellectual stories. Our conversations meandered from Arabic popular music and French Canadian politics to the caste system in India and different passover rituals across the Jewish Diaspora.
As we exchanged news about what was happening around the world in Kenya, Turkey, Brazil, the USA, Mexico and many others, we appreciated the gift our studies in History and the Humanities gave us: a shared language to more deeply understand the connections in our shared struggles for social justice and freedom. These conversations kept our curiosities alive and pushed us to attend talks and workshops in fields beyond our specialization. Historians of Early Modern Europe listened earnestly as I geeked out about the history of Kenyan competitive running. And I was more than happy to sit and learn about regulation of noise in medieval Europe
Lingering in the lounge spilled out of the room into laughter and discussions about the global African diaspora over delicious Eritrean Injera; and the singular experience of listening to a colleague belt Japanese death metal in a Karaoke bar! Truly, the international diversity of our collective expanded our horizons for the better. And as an international student, I’d like to say… you're welcome! :)
Our generosity did not stop at food and stories. We also shared important resources; fellowships, sample cover letters, resumes, and reading lists circulated among us. When our brilliant undergraduate students wanted to write papers on topics beyond our expertise, we turned to each other for advice and reading suggestions. We sat with and stood up for each other as we faced personal and collective hardships: sickness, loss, a global pandemic, wars, hateful immigration policies. These rituals of generosity, of giving and receiving help were crucial to our personal and intellectual thriving.
To talk about generosity is to conjure up the fabulous administrative team of our department. Where would any of us be without the support of Kai, Colin, Maria, Brenda, Maria, Vivian, Van-Ahn, and Burçak who cheered us on and made the journey smoother? And Art... who when we frantically emailed him or burst into his office in mild panic, his calm, graceful, and effective responses ensured we were not crushed or blindsided by the bureaucracy of grad school. Thank you Art!
Our gathering here today is part of one last crucial ritual of grad school I would like to share with you. During our time at Stanford, we learned to mark our small and big milestones with gratitude and celebration. We baked muffins after finishing papers, went on hikes after completing our qualifying exams, and my personal favorite, read novels in coffee shops after defending our dissertations. Let me just say that I’ve spent many of my little graduate student coins on the Palo Alto coffee scene. These rituals helped us let go of projects, allowed us to thank those who helped us along the way, and prepared us for what was coming next.
And so today, I celebrate you and with you, my fellow graduates of the class of 2025. We did it! On your behalf, I thank all our families, friends, teachers, mentors, and supporters, for journeying with us. We depart from Stanford for new horizons at a time of chaos, uncertainty, and war. Times like these make us more aware of the fact that we are always living in history. But as historians, we know that the future is not set. All possibilities are open for how we emerge from this moment.
Wherever we end up, I invite us to cultivate rhythms and rituals that will help us sustain a burdened hope to continue fighting for a peaceful, just, humane, and sustainable world for ALL human beings. May we look back and be proud of how we used the lessons and opportunities we obtained from Stanford.
Thank you.
