Workshop: Transforming your Dissertation Into a Book
Sponsored by AIIS, AIPS, AIBS, AISLS - PAST
Sponsored by the several organizations devoted to the study of South Asia, this workshop aims to help a select number of recent PhDs re-vision their doctoral dissertations as books.
Applications to participate
are due by June 15, 2009, emailed to Susan S.
Wadley, sswadley@syr.edu.
Participants must arrange their
own transport to Madison, Wisconsin for the Annual
Conference on South Asia in October. The workshop
will begin at 7 pm Wednesday evening, Oct. 21,
and all participants are expected to be present
at this time. The relevant "country" organization will pay for the extra night (Wed.) in the Concourse Hotel, as well as snacks and dinner on Thurs. Lunch on Thurs. is on your own.
For selection: Required is
an email containing a current CV; the dissertation
abstract, its table of contents, and its first
chapter plus a not more than 3 page double spaced
vision of the "book". This could include (in the three pages) a new table of contents. Email sswadley@syr.edu by midnight on June 15, 2009.
Senior Faculty Participants:
Susan S. Wadley (Anthropology, Syracuse), Convener;
Geraldine Forbes (History, SUNY Oswego), Kalyani
Menon (Religion, DePaul), John Echeverri-Gent
(Political Science, Virginia). Our role is to
read the materials prior to the meeting and be
prepared to intervene and comment, "in the background" primarily, though with key interventions as needed.
Organization:
Wednesday evening: 7-9 Introductions
plus discussion by one or two recent successful
authors of the transformation process (Kalyani
Menon and tba), plus "pairing assignments" for Thursday's discussion.
Thursday morning is divided
into 8 half-hour segments for discussion of the
8 projects (plus two 15 minute breaks). For each
half-hour session, one participant will have
been assigned on Wednesday evening to make a
5 minute presentation of someone else's project-preferably
how that individual would revise the dissertation,
and the key themes to be emphasized. During the
remaining 25 minutes of that session, all of
the other participants join in discussing the
project -- except the project's author, who is
not allowed to speak. The author of the project
under discussion can only listen, take notes,
even record, how their project is being understood,
mis-understood, stretched, queried, and critiqued
by knowledgeable peers with closely related interests,
but working in varying theoretical perspectives,
disciplines, time periods, etc.
On Thursday afternoon/evening,
each participant is given a 40 minute time slot
to respond to the more important queries, issues,
and suggestions raised in the morning, and, most
important, to seek feedback or further discussion
of areas of their projects with which they recognize
they are having difficulty.
We will take an hour break
for dinner Thursday evening before continuing
the final two discussions after dinner.
Conversations can carry over
into Friday and Saturday at the South Asia Conference! |
