I’ve already written a little about the efforts I took to keep track of my moods, qualitatively and quantitatively, during the process of writing my dissertation. But it was a long road, and so here is Part 2, the endless middle slog. To remind: every day I wrote down what I worked on, what chapter it was, and my daily word total. On Sunday evenings, I calculated my word total for the week as well. I also took qualitative notes…
So I passed my private defense today. I feel both triumphant and exhausted, but now I’m inhabiting a strange null space – kind of like floating between gravitational masses, I’d assume – because the first defense is done, but the public defense still looms. So I’m not Dr Wolfe yet, but everyone keeps telling me that the hardest is already past. Instead of discussing the private defense, though, which was rigorous and exhilarating, I want to talk about the process…
I spent the afternoon at the University of Basel at an informal workshop on urban studies pedagogy. The idea of this workshop was to bring together a range of scholars working on the urban in order to exchange ideas about pedagogy. It was a lovely opportunity to meet interesting people and discuss approaches to teaching, which is something that I’d like to concentrate on now that I’ve actually submitted my dissertation. It was organized by the Critical Urbanisms group at…
Next step is for the esteemed jury to read through it, and then we’ll all meet for a private defense at the end of June. If I make it through that, then they’ll schedule a public defense for later in the summer. It feels odd, to tell the truth. I was sort of expecting angels singing, or at least a feeling of discernible triumph. But to be perfectly honest, it’s really quite mundane. You turn it in, the process begins,…
I went to Minsk. I never thought I’d get to see it, especially after my unfortunate encounters with the Russian security and migration authorities. But I was invited by a good friend at the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung and so, I thought, why not try? Aside from the desire to see Belarus, this would be a good opportunity to check my status with Russia. Russia and Belarus share security architecture, among much else, so if I’m on a list in one…
If this project were a movie, this would be the part where the main character slogs through the endless desert – I’m thinking Gobi, but feel free to fill in whatever wasteland you wish. Parched, exhausted, merciless sun beating down, shirt wrapped over the head, stumbling down a dune. You know the drill. I have expanded my outline to encompass 9 chapters instead of the 8 that it was previously. Right now the title is “For the world, for our…
Another challenge in writing this dissertation is the idea that I also have to lay the groundwork for the next phase of my academic career, such as it is. So aside from the fact that I have to believe in myself and my potential for doing good work – despite the barrage of self-reproach that I too often inflict on myself because I’m swimming in the mud of dissertation writing every day – I simply have to find the time…
Dissertation Blues Writing this thing is like building a house. Only I can’t actually see what I’m doing, the plans keep changing, and there are periodic earthquakes. It’s a wonder that I’m this far along at all! A brief progress report: I broke ground on this, officially, on February 28 2018, so almost a year ago. I know this because I’ve been keeping a strict work diary so I don’t lose track of myself or the overall sweep of things….
I co-organized a panel in the Human Geography stream at the Annual Swiss Geosciences in Bern. We aimed it at early career researchers and entitled it as shown above: “Diverse paths to an uncertain future…” Tellingingly, this appeared in the conference program as the more anodyne “PhD, What Next? Early career options in Human Geography.” We found it indicative of the relative powerlessness of our positions that the title was changed without our knowledge or permission. I can hardly imagine…
It’s not easy, doing this. I’ve never really bought into the idea – omnipresent but not so often explicitly stated – that the academy is something special, that by virtue of doing a PhD we are smart and unique. I don’t think being an academic is really much different from being an airplane mechanic, a plumber, or a soldier. We’ve all seen those group dynamics, where people working in any of those professions could identify with a broader community of…