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 […]
Continue reading →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 […]
Continue reading →Since I’m in China, I’ll be missing one of my favorite parts of the year – recruiting new graduate students. To make up for it, I’m writing this post as a recommendation for prospective students. I’ll walk through a series of questions that in my opinion help identify “deal-breakers.” These questions hardly represent the totality […]
Continue reading →2016 was an eventful year for me and my wife, and 2017 promises to be no less so. Over the course of the next year I will be finishing up my archival research in Jinan, moving on to Beijing for a few months, and then heading back to Chicago (tentatively at the end of July). […]
Continue reading →Having been in China conducting archival research for a few months now, I’ve settled into a little bit of a routine. Since this blog is supposed to give an idea of what life as a graduate student is like, I thought it might be appropriate to write a post describing what I actually do on […]
Continue reading →Today I experienced something that isn’t party of my usual life in the U.S. As I was walking through my housing complex, a little girl very obviously pointed at me and smiled as her embarrassed grandmother tried to get her to stop. I’ve been in China now for about a month. Even though I’ve […]
Continue reading →A couple of weeks ago, my institution, the University of Chicago, made a bit of news for a letter that Jay Ellison, the Dean of Students in the College, sent to incoming freshman. This letter informed students of UofC’s commitment to both “freedom of inquiry and expression” and civility. The more controversial part of the […]
Continue reading →For graduate students, returning checked out library books is a ritual central to the process of moving out of town. Measured by the fact that I used my backpack and a couple of canvass bags – and not suitcases – to complete this ritual last week, I feel I paced myself pretty well. I still […]
Continue reading →These past few days have been difficult for my country. And I say that as someone who is neither African-American nor a law enforcement officer, so I cannot fathom the depth of grief, fear, and anger that others are feeling. But I have felt those things and the helplessness that accompanies them. Sometimes in moments like […]
Continue reading →In my idealized version of being ABD, one of the things I could look forward to was a bit of a break from the rat race that is the academic quarter system. Ostensibly, being beyond the required course work for my program would mean that my life and stress levels would no longer be tethered to the […]
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