Yesterday, I submitted my thesis manuscript. This sounds dramatic. Olà! Bravo! Applause! It doesn’t feel dramatic at all. It was disappointingly undramatic. Anti-climactic, even. No working through the night until the last moment. No crying and pulling out my hair. No losing weight, as some told me they did. I was sitting on the train […]
The precarity of academia: On love, freedom, and matsutake mushrooms of Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing
This year is the last in my PhD studies. It’s too early to be ‘summing it up’, and I’m probably not ready to write this post, but I’m not sure I ever will be. Because this post is about love. How can one ever be ready to write about that? My five years of academic […]
The Monster Theory of Supervision Meetings, or A deck of cards, or Things I’ve been told
In addition to the Four-Kings Theory of Supervision (which I will share in another post… maybe…), I have developed a Theory of Supervision Meetings. It goes like this: Supervision Meetings are the processes in which the PhD Student’s darkest, scariest monsters (the ones that emerge from the hole in the bathtub late at night after […]
How I went beyond oil, or The echo chambers of academic conferences, or There is a crack, perhaps, in everything
It was nearly 8 p.m. when I started my descent from the mountain. It was dark and starting to get cold, and Bergen underneath burst into an incandescent shimmering show. I watched the ships dock and undock, I watched bergensar chatting and walking their dogs. It really was time – I could not hide out […]
What to wear to a half-time seminar, or On the power of initiation
On the day of my half-time seminar, I dreamt of wearing a wedding dress. Explanation: half-time (which apparently is a Swenglish term, as the English speakers seem to call it ‘midterm’) is a seminar in which the doctoral student’s work is presented, reviewed and discussed. Kind of a mock defence at an early stage to […]
On major revisions and their potential for radical liberation, or How to revise your first paper and not go mad(der)
This paper – sorry – blog post consists of two parts. One is confused ramblings of someone revising their first solo paper for an academic journal. The other is some practical advice – not from me, but from my peers, on how not to blow the word limit in the revision process and what to […]
On teaching not to transgress, or Not embodying ‘real utopias’, or My first lecture
‘Real utopias can be found wherever emancipatory ideals are embodied in existing institutions, practices, and proposals’ – said I. I was citing Erik Olin Wright. It was a lecture on ‘Sustainability, democracy and gender’, and I stood there, feeling unsustainably undemocratic, and I would get a very low score from gender scholars, as there was […]
On (not?) co-authoring, or The death of the author, or It takes a village to write a paper
Despite the death of the author having been announced a while ago (reference here – in case you missed it), a point in time comes when a PhD student needs to put some name(s) on their first paper draft (in progress, in progress, and still in progress – does the status ever change?). I did […]
On professors, or Paying it forward (at least some of the interest)
This post is written with a lot of respect and admiration for Professors and what they represent in academia… and their PhD students (the reasonable ones, who do their homework instead of writing irrelevant posts). Never start your day by meeting a professor. Ask for an appointment after lunch, but first thing in morning – […]
On taking criticism of your work, or No post on Sundays, or Off to the garden
During a break on a ‘garden day’ at my son’s preschool on a fine October afternoon, sipping bryggkaffe from a paper cup, I see an email from my supervisor flash on my phone screen. ‘I have struggled with your draft. I found it difficult to read…’, she writes. This is as far as the email […]
Fathom 