What “After the Hunt” Gets Right
Annie Julia Wyman, writer of The Chair, shares her perspective on Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt.
In 2017, I left academia for the entertainment industry due to the challenging job market for humanities Ph.D.s. Shortly after, I co-created The Chair, a Netflix series about the academic world I had left behind.
During the writing process, my co-creator and I explored the complexities of professors’ personalities. They can be uptight, self-aggrandizing, depressive, controlling, petty, kind, idealistic, noble, and wise—often all simultaneously.
We also discussed the material desperation many experience, which we believed would resonate even with viewers outside academia. The show is set at Pembroke, a fictional campus undergoing corporatization. Humanities enrollments are falling, and professors grow anxious, defensive, and antagonistic toward one another.
The older white male professors especially make life difficult for the English Department’s head, Sandra Oh’s character, who is the first woman of color in that role and determined to protect their jobs.
We saw this as a compelling dramatic setting, especially as our heroine falls for a colleague—a somewhat disillusioned white man who provokes debate over campus cancel culture.
When The Chair was released in 2021, I feared it might seem unflattering to my academic friends and mentors—too honest about the absurdity in our field. However, those fears proved unfounded.
"Professors can be uptight, self-aggrandizing, depressive, controlling, petty, kind, idealistic, noble, and wise—sometimes all at the same time."
"Pembroke, the fictional campus where our show takes place, is corporatizing. Humanities enrollments are dropping; our professors start freaking out, clawing at each other, retrenching."
Summary: Annie Julia Wyman reflects on how The Chair and After the Hunt poignantly portray the tensions and realities of academia in a corporatizing world.