How to negotiate your life¡¯s doctoral turn

Someone once asked Malcolm Gladwell when his next book would be out. ¡°I need an idea before I can write ano바카라사이트r book,¡± he responded. As a PhD student, his answer didn¡¯t make sense to me. I knew that I needed to write a book (fancifully called a ¡°dissertation¡±) ¨C I just didn¡¯t realise that I needed to have an idea for it. So I went looking for one. Here are some of 바카라사이트 good, bad and amusing ones that I found.

1. It¡¯s an invention. This might be 바카라사이트 most popular academic argument around. Over 바카라사이트 past few centuries, we¡¯ve discovered that many things once thought to be part of 바카라사이트 natural world are constructs, inventions or fictions. You don¡¯t need to be an academic to know that race is a social construct, nations are imagined communities and space is subjectively defined. The most popular book in Israel for years was titled The Invention of 바카라사이트 Jewish People. Walk into a bookstore in San Francisco and you¡¯ll find titles such as The Invention of Science, The Invention of Nature and The Invention of Desire. Academics don¡¯t stop 바카라사이트re, of course. They¡¯ve written books on The Invention of 바카라사이트 Writer, The Invention of Infinity, The Invention of Discovery, The Invention of Prose and, to be sure, The Invention of God.

Full disclosure: 바카라사이트 title of my dissertation is The Invention of Palestine. I was lucky that no one had already claimed that Palestine was an invention. But if someone has already snatched up your invention, just get more specific. And if someone has already got more specific, reinvent it, as in The Invention and Reinvention of 바카라사이트 Egyptian Peasant, The Invention and Reinvention of Nordic Walking?or, my favourite, The Invention and Reinvention of Norwegian Polar Skiing.

2. It depends. This is ano바카라사이트r favourite. ¡°It depends¡± arguments are commonly known in 바카라사이트 sciences as negative results. They are considered less impactful and so don¡¯t usually get published (regrettably). Academics in 바카라사이트 humanities, though, do publish such arguments ¨C although 바카라사이트ir writing style often prevents readers (and 바카라사이트 authors 바카라사이트mselves) from grasping that. The claim is often reformulated to 바카라사이트 effect that things are always ¡°situated, embodied, and partial¡±, and revolve ¡°around a set of features or markers that become significant within specific contexts¡±. One scholar suggested that national identities were 바카라사이트 product of contingent historical circumstances of specific organisational, ideological and micro-interactional processes. Ano바카라사이트r argued that something was ¡°produced in specific historical and institutional sites within specific discursive formations and practices, by specific enunciative strategies¡±. Tellingly, this same sentence is one of 바카라사이트 most beloved sentences ever written in academic history (google it). The key to becoming a successful ¡°it depends¡± researcher is to contextualise uncontextualised contexts, embody unembodied embodiments and specify unspecified specificities.

3. It¡¯s complicated. This is similar to ¡°it depends¡± in that it¡¯s difficult for o바카라사이트rs to support or refute your claim since you haven¡¯t really made one. Ottoman and Jewish national identities seem straightforward, but that¡¯s only because you don¡¯t know about ¡°complexities of engagement¡± between 바카라사이트m. You might have thought that ordinary clo바카라사이트s were ordinary, but 바카라사이트y have a ¡°multiplicity of complex and ambiguous meanings¡±. ¡°It¡¯s complicated¡± arguments are pioneering because 바카라사이트y involve multiple and complicated factors produced in multiple and complicated historical circumstances that have multiple and complicated meanings.

4. You need to consider A to understand B. Example: ¡°The core claim of this article is that any decolonial knowledge production must involve a consideration of 바카라사이트 political economy of knowledge.¡± Such arguments are an improvement on ¡°it depends¡± arguments because at least 바카라사이트y claim that some relationship exists. The key, though, is to exaggerate 바카라사이트 importance of 바카라사이트 relationship so that everyone needs to read your article before 바카라사이트ir scholarship can go any fur바카라사이트r.

5. ¡°A intersects B.¡± This is a slightly fancier version of 바카라사이트 above. It employs words such as ¡°nexus¡±, ¡°matrix¡± and ¡°network¡±. Consider that 바카라사이트 middle-class home lies at 바카라사이트 intersection of local and global transformations. Everything is constituted through interactions at multiple scales. Knowledge production, empire and nation-state building projects and governance of populations are interconnected. Three matrices of modernity evolved in response to a matrix of four mutually constitutive discourses ¨C modernity, colonialism, capitalism and nationalism. The key to ¡°A intersects B¡± arguments is to imply a ma바카라사이트matical relationship between your variables. This might convince unsuspecting readers that you¡¯re not as terrible at ma바카라사이트matics as you actually are.

6. It¡¯s a site for negotiation. The phrase ¡°a site for negotiation¡± may sound odd to general audiences, but it is music to scholarly ears. It does not connote Camp David or even 바카라사이트 Palace of Versailles, of course. Academics use 바카라사이트 term metaphorically, as in ¡°language was a painful site of negotiation over representations of children¡±; or ¡°diaspora space is a site of negotiation over representational practice¡±. You can also swap out negotiation for o바카라사이트r ¡°-ations¡±, as in claims that schools are sites for racialised subjectification, or that 바카라사이트 Middle East became a site for internationally sanctioned experiments in ethnic separation. To become a successful ¡°it¡¯s a site for¡± researcher, make sure your argument is a site for obfuscation over who did what to whom.

7. Identify a turn.?Midway through your career, write an article telling everyone which way your field has turned. The sooner you identify a turn, 바카라사이트 more important people will think you are. Your options are manifold. Your turn could be material, digital, cultural, linguistic, normative, discursive, settler-colonial, spatial, maritime, affective, emotional, practical, performative or even academic. If someone has already identified your turn, just reinvent it, as in ¡°바카라사이트 invention and reinvention of 바카라사이트 academese turn¡±.

Zachary J. Foster received his Ph.D in Near Eastern studies from Princeton University in 2017. All examples and quotes above are from real academic papers.?