Final question

Ho do I convince my parents that my life will NOT be a failure If I do not get a PhD??

Academia and its discontents

How did you know you wanted to go into academia? Other than publishing as much as possible, what kinds of things should you be doing to become an academic after your PhD? How does having a PhD/ academic ‘success’ change your sense of self? If you’re pretty sure academia is not the appropriate long term [...]

Blogging and PhD

Any tips about blogging and using blogging as a part of your PhD?

PhDs

What is the benefit of studying for a PhD in gender/cultural studies in Australia v. overseas (Europe, USA)? What are the best institutions (anywhere) for a PhD in the discipline of gender and cultural studies? (other than /as well as Sydney Uni ) How do you know if you’re well-suited to further tertiary study (PhD)? [...]

Research careers and the big questions

Last week’s class focused on career paths following a research degree. The readings were: • Genevieve Bell. “Be Naked as Often as Possible: Anthropological Advice.” Commencement address, School of Information, University of California, Berkley, 2008. • William James. “The PhD Octopus.” (originally published 1903). • Melissa Gregg. “Why Academia is No Longer a Smart Choice.” [...]

Catch up post 1: What is a field?

Writing an interdisciplinary thesis requires a specific set of skills. In GCS, the combined title of our Department indicates a range of intellectual histories and legacies at play. Many of our Honours students choose to specialise in Gender Studies, since that is the major that has been taught longest at undergraduate level. Meanwhile, Masters by [...]

Writing an abstract

If you are an academic, when in your professional life did you learn how to write an abstract? Did you? Were you ever taught? I’m trying to remember if I was. I don’t think so. Like many things I think I just sent drafts to my supervisor and learned through trial and error. This usually [...]

The research process

Week Two’s readings are: • Robert Dessaix. “Showing your Colours.” (and so forth). Sydney: Pan Macmillan/Picador (1998): 121-133. • Ann Game & Andrew Metcalfe. “Managing.” Passionate Sociology. London: Sage Publications (1996): 26-42. • Elspeth Probyn. “Writing Shame” [extract]. Blush: Faces of Shame. Sydney: University of New South Wales (2005): 129-43. (There is also a version [...]

First class

As promised, this semester I will be blogging alongside the class I teach on gender and cultural studies research methods. This is partly because I think it could be useful for postgrads elsewhere who don’t get access to this sort of advice regularly. But it is also because the course is designed to illustrate the [...]

Holiday postscript

NB: This is a preface to some notes on Matthew Crawford’s Shop Class as Soulcraft, which I’ll now shift to another post. Every time I go home to Tasmania I tend to become very introspective about where I’m at in life. Taking holidays in Hobart and on Bruny Island – where I spent a lot [...]

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