Online event for #PhD students offered by #Roskilde University: "Doing a PhD Whilst the House is on Fire. How to navigate academic development at a time of unprecedented crisis"
Date: 7th of November 2023 from 13.00 - 16.00 (CET)
Academic Updates: I've got at least one article in the bag re article acceptance, final copyedits all done. Waiting to hear from the others...
There are other urgent things to settle, however: The two events I am running in November, and I'm going to be giving a talk at the Romancing the Gothic series of events, also in November. Which means I'm prepping for two talks -- I'll be presenting a paper at the Memory in Literature and the Humanities webinar I am running on the 28th of November.
Keynote: Professor Emma Bond.
I'm also writing two grant proposals (which will make four grant applications sent in this year) and preparing a handful of PhD supervisees for proposal defense, and another handful for paper presentations.
Question about #citations in #academic work: Where does one put the author in citations, in which THE WORK is included in the sentence, as in (a) vs (b) below?
(a) "... which you can find in Chomsky (1981)"
(b) "... which you can find in (Chomsky, 1981)"
Managed to clear a handful of anxiety-inducing things off my academic to-do list, which is another win for today. Got my groceries in (I have them delivered to my office) because by Friday and the end of the last class of the week I'm going to be too beat to even think of weekend groceries (it's going to be Korean food this weekend. Well, that and more pizza), and ordered dinner because I was craving portuguese egg tarts and then found a place that does halal Kristang food, and got excited. Sadly, the egg tarts didn't arrive, I whined at the delivery service for a refund, but then I got egg tarts from another place. THE END.
Dinner, then laundry, then checking my PhD supervisee's dissertation (Malaysian Literature) because final submission is ...SOON.
Hey all,
I'm still in Jerusalem, here to spread one more thing that isn't making much news outside of Israel, and even outside of leftist circles within Israel -
Academia has also been swept up in the suppression of speech against the bombing of Gaza.
It began when several Palestinian students at Haifa University were suspended without a hearing for pro-Hamas posts.
I think there are plausible restrictions on free speech, so I didn't object to that.
However, this soon expanded into the suspension of more students who spoke out against the indiscriminate bombing of Gaza.
Now it has expanded further with the dismissal of faculty members - I think so far all adjuncts - who oppose the war.
At this moment, I don't know how you can support, but if you are an advocate of academic freedom we would greatly appreciate you ready to support us. If there are people who are interested, I can ask around about the best way to support those who have lost their positions.
In the meantime I will post some links to relevant organizations and information in my reply to this post.
Finally managed to make my Salmon Kedgeree -- and had it both for breakfast and for dinner. Delish!
Hearing back from two of the speakers I invited for two separate events, which brings me much closer to finalising the programme nitty-gritty for both webinars.
Clearing some more things off the to-do list. Although the list seems to go on for miles. And miles.
We're three weeks into the semester here and it's been go go go and trying to manage all the deadlines while also grappling with chronic pain and fatigue. My to-do list has me sometimes in tears. I've already told my music teachers that class is impossible for the time being. I love my job, but I often wish doing it wasn't such a pain in the you know what.
It's two weeks until writing month! What's everyones plans for AcWriMo and NaNoWriMo?
I'm planning to write an 8,000-word chapter, re-write a book entry that will be published in 24, and attend writing retreats.
Any recommendations for apps to track my writing?
Academics, writers, editors, and everyone else who puts pen to paper, what are your goals?
Hello Masto! Home late and very sleepy/hoping for an early night. Still working on CE for the article I submitted yesterday (editor bounced it back to me with some corrections based on the latest APA format -- is it just me who finds the new APA's requirement re sentence case when journal/book titles are NOT in sentence case, very illogical? It upsets my eyes, but I do what I must!
Geese continue to delight me with every single released this year, so enjoy "Space Race"!
"... what is the point of asking scientists to write documents that can be easily created with AI? What value are we adding?"
The point never was to add value, it was to f-ing gatekeep you fool.
If things were fair, projects were selected based a cut-off value. The remaining (sizeable) pool would then be used to draw grants through lottery. Those on tenure track get a participation badge when ranking in this pool.
Sunday evening has always been deadline scrambling time because I'm completely without energy on Saturday to do anything apart from cooking, laundry and watching #startrek. So here I am, struggling to do corrections to an article post-peer review while waiting for my co-author to send his corrected section to me. After this, making my lecture slides for a heinously early Monday morning class. I'll try to squeeze in a peer review before bed. Sigh. I remind myself this job pays for my nice food, the clothes on my back, this gently decaying apartment and various nice things.
I'm home early from work because the water supply was cut for repairs and we were advised to go home. Attended another research grant workshop this morning after overcoming yet another morning pain episode (meh) but the liniment the hospital provided was amazingly good. Better than the pain pack!
Anyway, resting for a bit and chilling for the sake of my back, before I dive back into corrections to this article back from peer review. And then onwards to other outstanding tasks.
I need to do another working weekend because points at frighteningly long to-do list * and bajillion commitments so I'll just wish you all a good weekend early, and talk to you on Monday, Masto.
*still, I'm hoping to at least do a trial run of my piano exam recordings, plus submit a couple of short stories.
Attended an early morning online research grant workshop (talk given by my mentor), now going to reward myself with pumpkin spice latte before starting the prep for this afternoon's lecture.
This has been going to rounds, questioning the practice of only submitting at one journal at a time. This isn't as "revolutionary" as some think. This is par for the course for anyone gaming the publication system, or trying to.
Submitting at multiple places as one is just the cherry on the pie. Scope your work well, get a ticket and get in line - and I hope they review their 3x share of manuscripts submitted 🤷♂️
Wednesday is my only day with no classes this sem, but it did mean that I was up to my eyebrows in course admin and supervision matters. Also battling a lot of exhaustion from having submitted four articles during semester break (also the mountain of grading I had to do and other stuff). Break? What break?
(It's a good thing I love my job and that there are perks that make it worthwhile)
When you're beyond dead tired but then are gently reminded by the very patient convener that your Folk Horror x Material Culture talk for a British uni* is going to go up on eventbrite soon, so you hammer out an abstract and are suddenly taken aback at your own cleverness.
gently pats self on the back
I'm actually utterly excited for this talk (eventbrite?! omg) but also really tired. Haha.
*edited because I've been such an over-extended/overworked airhead that I somehow had the misapprehension that it was an American uni!
Monday was okay-ish with some really super okay bits.
The super okay bits:
(1) One article accepted subject to some revisions (phew!).
(2) !! So I shot my shot a couple of weeks back and asked a memory scholar I admire if she'd be keynote for my Memory studies seminar. She said yes this morning! This will be great not just for me but my PhD supervisees who are working on #memorystudies with me.
(3) Got my meds from the hospital (tiring long drive though) and this marks the first time I've been there since injury...without using a cane. Another milestone.
(4) First class of the semester went okay, despite a couple of technical hitches. Lovely students! And I had sufficient brainspace later to do event organising for the creative writing workshop (secured a #psychogeographer as guest speaker) plus work on another article.
Finalizing this article for submission by this evening -- telling myself not to do too much because I'm not first author but corresponding author so I'm not going to be getting the credit for writing most of this article!
Also, working on a new grant proposal because my mentor was very upset when I said I was never applying for another grant again. 😛
She urged me to apply for this one so I will. And the huge stake-holder agreed to be put on it again. They're really wonderful.
Apart from that, in talks with a potential keynote for my Memory in Literature and the Humanities webinar (the second one in the series). May open a very limited CFP for a panel of presenters (most of the presenters are my posgrads but I would like a panel of memory scholars if possible).