What “After the Hunt” Gets Right
Annie Julia Wyman, writer of The Chair, reflects on Luca Guadagnino’s After the Hunt. In 2017, she left academia for the entertainment industry due to the challenging humanities job market, and later co-created The Chair, a Netflix show centered on the academic world she left behind.
Insight into Academic Life
During the writing process, Wyman and her co-creator explored the complexities of professors, describing them as sometimes uptight, self-aggrandizing, depressive, controlling, petty, kind, idealistic, noble, and wise—all at once. They also addressed a material desperation in academia that non-academic viewers might understand.
Setting and Themes of The Chair
The fictional Pembroke campus is undergoing corporatization. Humanities enrollments are falling, causing professors to panic, compete fiercely, and become defensive. Older white male faculty members particularly challenge the department head, Sandra Oh's character—the first woman of color in the position, determined to save their jobs.
This setting forms a dramatic backdrop, heightened by a subplot where the heroine falls in love with a colleague, a troubled white man who persistently agitates campus cancel culture.
Reception and Reflections
"When The Chair was released in 2021, I worried that it would strike my friends and former mentors in academia as wildly unflattering: undignified, too truthful about how silly our field can be. But those worries turned out to be unwarranted."
Wyman's depiction of academic life resonates as an honest, nuanced portrait rather than a caricature.
Author's summary: Wyman’s experience brings an authentic and layered portrayal of academia’s struggles and personalities, revealing the tension between institutional change and personal ideals.