Supervising and marking dissertations May 28, 2008
Posted by gesta in Academia, Debate.Tags: dissertations, Norman, teaching
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The members of the department in which I work are steadily going slightly mad as it is marking season. I have added fun this year as it is the first time I have supervised and marked dissertations. The procedures followed have made me question the value of a dissertation, seen as the zenith of an undergraduate history degree, both from a research and pedagogical point of view. (more…)
Leading scholarly journals in history May 11, 2008
Posted by gesta in Academia, Debate, Uncategorized.Tags: intelligent people being idiots, journal rankings
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For anyone else experiencing dilemmas as described in the previous post, I managed to find, buried in the AHRC website, a list of so-called leading scholarly journals drawn up in conjunction with the European Science foundation. It can be accessed here in the little table. Do I agree with all of this? Of course not.
A very junior academic’s dilemmas May 11, 2008
Posted by gesta in Academia, Debate, Uncategorized.Tags: careers, feeling generally a bit down in the dumps, jobs
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The history department within which I work has just instituted a system of research mentoring groups. These informal groups of people with loosely (sometimes very loosely) connected research interests are designed to offer support and share best practice. Why, then, did I came out of our group meeting feeling overwhelmed, depressed and seriously contemplating a career in publishing?
