Please Respond! Publish or Perish (Part II)

We have to publish our research. Particularly if we are junior scholars who just finished our PhD or are still working on our PhD, our publications often decide whether we have a chance to stay in academia—or if we have to leave. I talked about the difficulties to find the time and the material in …

(Not) Doing Fieldwork in Times of COVID-19

How does one begin a new research project these days? It's difficult to begin a new research project without funding. It's difficult to get funding without (a lot) of experience in a new field. So the plan was clear: use some of my own funds for a brief, exploratory field trip to the new place …

About Gardening: Publish or Perish

I think there are two types of writers, the architects and the gardeners. The architects plan everything ahead of time, like an architect building a house. They know how many rooms are going to be in the house, what kind of roof they're going to have, where the wires are going to run, what kind …

Youthful Enthusiasm vs. Reality Sets In

I started thinking about my (academic) future during my last one or two years of high school. Or, rather: I started seriously thinking about it, after I realized that 'I can not do anything I set my mind to.' I got a list with possible degree courses from my chosen university (by post! printed on …