During my time in graduate school, I’ve really enjoyed living in communities that are shaped by the institutions I’ve attended. Some people will say that moving out of the neighborhood and creating some space between university life and everything else is essential to their sanity. To be sure, no university neighborhood or college town can […]

I’m writing this post from our campus library. Right now, things are quiet – it’s Saturday morning after all. This is a far cry from what it will be like during finals week, as the tables and carrels are packed with students cramming for their exams. The calm today is welcoming. This is actually one […]

This week the House of Representatives passed their version of a tax reform bill. As reflected on page 11 of the Ways and Means Committee’s summary of the bill, this legislation would eliminate qualified tuition reductions for all graduate students. This measure and others have drawn harsh criticism from across the academic community and beyond. […]

The start of a new school year is a great time to meet new colleagues and catch up with those you haven’t seen in a while, especially after being gone for a year. But every year you come back to graduate school there are inevitably a few faces who aren’t there any more. This is […]

For other posts on graduate student life, literature, and leisure, see this and this post about counterfactuals. I recently finished reading the Harry Potter series for the first time. This is somewhat embarrassing to admit, both because it has taken me so long to get around to it and because now I seem a bit […]

Today marks my and my wife’s seven-year wedding anniversary. Seven years is the “normative time to degree” for a PhD in history, so by that standard I should be a verified marriage expert by now. Fortunately (?), though, I think the time-related expectations for this “discipline” are a bit more forgiving. I’ve alluded to Julie in […]

One of the more pretentious things historians do from time to time is attach the word ‘long’ to a period of time, like the “long 18th century” or the “long 1980’s.” We do this in order to highlight important trends or developments that, annoyingly, do not confine themselves to discrete chronological units. For example, a […]

Believe it or not, my time in Jinan is running down. I’ve decided to use my next few posts to write about three places that have been integral to my encounter with the city. I’ll focus on the people who inhabit and traverse them and the intersection between these slices of urban space, Jinan as […]