Ever since the publish-or-perish era began sometime ago, academics in the humanities have experienced a widening gap between their two primary obligations, teaching and research. Bad enough for tenure-track junior faculty, the tension between the demands of writing, delivering, and publishing papers is even worse for graduate students because of their special, tenuous position in the academy. Their academic work does not suit itself to teaching undergraduates, often because of its esoteric nature and language. Furthermore, recent budget cuts and the competitive nature of the job market have bred self-loathing, loathing of other graduate students, and alienation or solipsism. The negative consequences for both graduate education and graduate student teaching in this atmosphere of scarcity cannot be overstated. The clandestine attempt by literature graduate students to turn composition courses into the literature or theory courses they want to teach is not a solution to graduate student alienation. There are, however, several other possible solutions. The graduate student: (1) should try to see other graduate students as potentially helpful colleagues rather than contemptible versions of the worst parts of him- or herself; (2) should share his or her work with other graduate students, thereby recognizing the legitimacy of other readers besides those on the dissertation committee; and (3) should write for a general audience as a public critic, that is, a critic who writes for and about the general public. (TB)