Reading & Heuristics
Someone recently asked me if I keep a list of books I’ve read, am reading, or plan to read. In fact, I used to be much better about this. In college, I was fastidious about keeping a tidy LibraryThings account. I toyed around with Goodreads, too. In reality, however, I think there’s something about record-keeping for its own sake that elicits jouissance. I don’t value my opinions highly enough to offer reviews of things with any reliable regularity.
Workflows: Research Practices & Digital Infrastructure
In May 2020, I published "Workflows" on my blog. In July of that year, I published a sequel—meant to be one in a series of posts about research productivity—entitled "'Welcome' to Graduate School." Unfortunately, the Workflows series died with that second post. The outline I had envisioned in the first post was far too optimistic, while some of the topics I'd wanted to write about fell far beyond my expertise. With this new post, I hope to revive the series by sharing with you my experiences in the archives. While you can keep up with my activities in Paris through my Newsletter, this post will include some deeper thinking on my current analog and physical practices for retaining information without losing my mind. While reading the inaugural post isn't essential, it does provide a list of literature to which I'm indebted in shaping my thinking about research, time management, and productivity. The second post provides a snapshot of my methods for capturing data and saving it. I will revisit some of these points here, showing how my process of information capture has changed (out of necessity and by choice).
Workflows: "Welcome" to Graduate School
Perhaps I made a mistake not getting a Master's degree before I applied for Ph.D. programs in history. Perhaps I made a mistake in not taking substantial time off after I got my Bachelor's degree. Perhaps, even, I should have considered more lucrative career options — in translation work, public relations, marketing, etc. Nevertheless, here I stand, I can do no other: in the fall of 2020, I will begin my third year in the History Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, working with Prof. Joshua Cole, author most recently of Lethal Provocation: The Constantine Murders and the Politics of French Algeria (2019, Cornell University Press). With the fall, "hell year" will commence: the year of my cohort's preliminary examinations (elsewhere called comprehensive exams, or "comps").
Workflows
I am sitting at my desk in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Some allege that summer has begun, but I’ve paid no mind to whispers that threaten the threads of tenacity remaining in my psyche to finish seminar papers, take language courses, do research, and prepare for the third year of a Ph.D. program in history at the University of Michigan. With two years behind me, I have a virtual ocean of books, articles, conference papers, dissertations, and lectures to read and review before my comprehensive exams at the end of the 2021 academic year. To my left, an unkempt pile of assiduously documented and extensive book notes brushes against my 2014 laptop—ancient now, according to Apple. With corners fraying, the pages of yellow legal paper are well worn—some are tattered.