have any of you ever researched or written papers on any of these topics or similar topics?

- Taiwanese national identity

- Sense of identity in Hong Kong

- Use of Mandarin in Taiwan

- Use of Mandarin in Hong Kong

- Language policies in Taiwan

- Language policies in Hong Kong

- Comparisons between Hong Kong and Taiwan, esp. linguistic/ language policies

- Mandarin in Malaysia/ Singapore

- Ethnonyms

- Other linguistic/ sociolinguistic aspects of Hong Kong/ Taiwan

- Other aspects of transforming national identities in East Asia

I'm currently researching these topics and would like to map how popular they are. If you've researched any of these, drop me a line and let's talk! I'm not after stealing anybody's thesis; I'm only interested in exchanging opinions and such.

thanks, and my apologies to those who see this twice. :)

Hey there!

I'm an editor for Below the Belt, a virtual forum designed to encourage dialogue about gender, sex, sexuality and their intersections.

We're looking for new guest and bimonthly contributors, so check out the site and see if it might be a good fit!

Cheers,
blackroot/toughstuff

Hello-

I will leaving in a week to do summer pilot research overseas, and since I'll be doing interviews I'd like to buy a digital voice recorder before I go. I no longer have time to order on Amazon, so I'll need to find something in an office supply store or electronics store. When I did some local interviews last year I used an Olympus recorder that I borrowed from my university's classroom support services, and I liked it a lot (it wasn't one of the very newest models, but was very small and thin and easy to use with my Macbook). I have seen some even clunkier models for around $200, but my maximum price range is around $100.

I'm also thinking of getting one of the recording devices that Apple makes to attach to my Ipod for my interviews. That would be considerably cheaper, I believe.

Any pros and cons from those of you who have used Ipod recorders? Or advice about the most useful models of digital recorders and places to buy them without breaking the bank?

Thank you!

Hi all - I've just started my dissertation research (I'm at the passing-the-last-prospectus stage) - it's probably the death-from-1000-papercuts style procrastination kicking in, but I've created a livejournal community for making a scrapbook of hilarious, and/or witty, ascerbic, memorable, or otherwise interesting in-publication academic snipe and snark. This is not a gossip site; just quotes from books.



attackademia

 - please join and contribute!

Professor David Harvey has been teaching Marx's Capital Volume I for
nearly 40 years. Now, for the first time, his entire course is being
made available online at:

http://davidharvey.org

This free online course consists of 13 video lectures by David Harvey,
sharing his close reading of the text of Marx's Capital, Volume I. You
can watch the videos online, or subscribe to the podcast. The first
four classes are already available, and a new class is being posted
each week.

David Harvey is a Distinguished Professor at the City University of
New York (CUNY) and author of various books, including The Condition
of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, and A Brief History of
Neoliberalism.

This is a question for history folks but anyone with advice, I'd love to hear your thoughts. This is probably something I should know, but what can I say, I don't.

I am using some sources for my dissertation which are purely anonymous - there is absolutely no way to ever find out who wrote them (they are 19th-century classified ads) and I've just recently run across a few that I am almost certain must be jokes. I'd be willing to be money on it if such a thing were possible. However, because they're anonymous, there's no way I can definitively state that because I have no proof. How do you address such an issue? It actually would be a pretty cool thing for me if they are joke ads, and even if I can never prove this, is there any way to discuss what it might mean if they are?

Thanks all!

Does anyone know of a community - on LJ or otherwise - for folks who are trying to do grad school while caring for an ill family member?

I've found that my department, and university overall, has no idea what to make of this situation. On the university level, our TA/GA contract only specifies family leave for new parents (under the assumption that 22-30ish year old grad students are more likely to have babies than ill parents?), so there's no formal procedure in place to fall back on. On the department level, they're so accustomed to the "finish as fast as possible" and "we fully expect you to put in 16 hours a day on work" models that they simply sputter at the idea that this is not going to happen for me right now.

The sorts of issues I'm thinking of are negotiating leaves, negotiating drops to part-time status, negotiating resulting loss of funding status, dealing with one's own feelings toward loss of productivity, dealing with department's feelings on same, culture shock at sudden and unexpected change in circumstances as related to academia, managing household tasks + school + caretaking, that kind of thing.

(For extra background, I'm also single, so the non-existent spouse can't do the laundry or make up the slack in my income, etc. And I'm in the social sciences, with a bunch more coursework left to do before I get to the quals/diss stage.)

At first I thought I could find ideas from folks who are doing grad school while they have small children, but the issues turn out to be different enough that one doesn't necessarily apply to the other. (I can elaborate on why if folks really want to know, but the explanation gets a little ugly.)

I teach an online class every semester. I give students a little extra credit if they create an online website of somekind. This can include myspace, friendster, or even livejournal. My question is this, although I would never tell them about my livejournal account because what I write is way too personal, the friendster and myspace sites are much more general and just a place where I have networked with some of my long distance friends, just a couple here and there. I have had students request to be friended or joined or whatever its called. At first I just kind of ignored these requests, but now I get lots of them and I really need to make my mind up.

I don't see a big problem with it, but I hear those websites are kind of a meat market and I don't want a failing student to cyberstalk me or some strange thing. Is my worry overblown? What do you think about this? Have you done it? is it a bad idea?

I've got an article coming out in an academic journal soon, and in the proofreading process the option for advance ordering of reprints was provided.  Reprints in this case only being available in multiples of 50 (which would apparently cost me about $250 for 50).

What is the general purpose of reprints of journal articles for authors, and what do you yourself use them for?  (I would guess that this may differ by field; I'm in the social sciences.)  Also, when you publish, do you typically order reprints and how many?

The only answer I've received so far when I've asked others is "to give out to relatives"; I'm not inclinded to spend a lot of money on professional reprints for a half dozen relatives who might be interested, and I can't think of 50 anyway.  But I assume there are other uses.

Thanks.

Hallo all! I investigate psychological aspects of academic language. And I have some methodological questions. I’m going to take the discourse approach. But I don’t know a degree of topicality this research. Perhaps somebody are interested this topic and can help me?

I am working on a dissertation chapter about the collapse of Albania in 1997, and I've got a question for the group mind about some of the stuff I'm finding. I'm hoping there are some Germans (or people highly familiar with German foreign policy) who might be able to help.

I and my German-reading research assistant have found a lot of references in the German press from Kohl and FM Klaus Kinkel that they "don’t want this crisis [Albania] to turn into Bosnia."

What we're having trouble with is understanding what they mean by the Bosnia reference. I can understand most of those references in US foreign policy/foreign policy history ("another Alamo, another Mai Lai, another Pearl Harbor"), but there are a number of interpretations of "Bosnia" that might be the intended meaning here. Does anyone know what this might mean in the German context? What does it mean, to Germans, when they hear someone say that they don't want a particular international crisis to 'turn into Bosnia'?

Since I'm really looking for a society-wide understanding of the meaning, I'm a little reluctant to use websites; each of the ones I've seen (in English) appears to be parroting its own version. (Which could also mean that there *is* no social consensus on it, which is a whole other can of worms.)

TIA.

The Gender Public Advocacy Coalition is pleased to announce the release of its 2008 GENIUS Survey in partnership with Ernst & Young. GenderPAC works to ensure that classrooms, communities and workplaces are safe for everyone to learn, grow and succeed.

The Gender Equality National Index for Universities & Schools (GENIUS), GenderPAC’s most recent effort to end discrimination and promote awareness, encourages colleges and universities to recognize the benefits of a GenderSAFE^tm campus - supportive equitable and protective for all students. Choosing to participate in GENUIS sends a strong public statement that bullying or discriminating based on the race, sex or gender of a student, faculty, or staff member is not tolerated at your institution

Fill out the survey at: www.gpac.org/GENIUS2008survey, and make sure that we have data for as many schools as possible. Your voice will help us continue to work towards a safe and welcoming environment for every student.

*While we greatly appreciate the interest taken in GENIUS by students, staff, and faculty at academic institutions outside of the United States, at this time GENIUS is only able to track schools based in the U.S.

So, my Kodak digital camera just croaked and I'm off to the archives in two weeks. I took a trip to the store and there were no less than 10 options all with high resolution and a text setting.

What digital camera are you using/eying right now? Any recommendation on things I should be looking for in a new camera? I'm thinking very strongly about getting another Kodak easyshare.



UPDATE:

Thanks everyone. I decided to go with the Panasonic FZ5S. It takes great pictures of documents and will make a great camera in general.

New community: women_academics. Please read the welcome post and info page before trying to join.

Do any legal eagles here know if the TEACH act allows us to distribute the kind of materials we are allowed to distribute via a LMS as a single PDF file? The draconian US copyright laws (which unfortunately many other countries are obliged to comply to because of their failure to draft proper copyright laws themselves) do not allow reformatting of "fair use" material, but the TEACH act may offer a loophole.

I'm looking for books and authors of science-based fiction. I'm also interested in nonfiction popular science material of the same sort, the more the better. Anything goes.

Science folks, especially excellent life sciences textbooks or academic journals you've been particularly impressed with -- all fields -- are also of interest. I'd be curious to know something about the journal and your own interest in it.

Recommendations?

... but they do ask for it sometimes. The best "student howler" I've seen this year didn't come from a coursework script. At a meeting on coursework hand-in procedures someone related how she had, this year, provided an electronic means of handing in work, known as the digital drop box, in Blackboard. This did not work quite as well as hoped, in that numbers of her students were found wandering piteously about the campus, looking for the digital drop box, which they clearly thought would be something like a big shiny red pillar-box..... This would have been understandable had they been from our foreign contingent and maybe not up to speed with English, but they were home-grown incompetents. All us academic dinosaurs, in the past, have been told by admin that we absolutely must provide online submission because all the students were into high-tech and would expect it, so there was some grim amusement.

Hi all,

I think I asked this question a couple of years ago, but anyway, I'm teaching a course called Art, Politics and Protest in the fall and I'm looking for some good texts--- so far, I'm thinking about the Cultural Resistance Reader and also Voices of Protest . Does anyone have a favorite protest novel? Or favorte text filled with protest art?

Thanks,

M

Hi everyone,

I'm in the position of needing to learn to read German. Unfortunately, my university only offers standard classes, focusing much more on aural and oral aspects of the language than I'd like. Consequently, I'm exploring my options, including self-instruction using a textbook, or perhaps an online class.

Textbooks I can find easily enough, but I'd love to hear if any of you have heard of language classes being offered, directed towards reading knowledge and conducted exclusively online. Bonus marks if it's offered by a respectable institution and/or you've heard or experienced good things about it.

I checked the memories and recent posts and didn't find anything too similar to this posted recently, so....

I had a few students fail this semester, like many of you did. The student in question failed because he didn't follow prompts, didn't score high enough, and was missing quite a bit of work. Good kid in general, but didn't make the grade. When the final semester grade of a D was posted, he emailed me to ask if he could somehow make up the grade - I explained why this wouldn't be a possibility, and we left it at that.

Then I got an email from his mother. She basically said "I would never usually do this", used the "I've been in education for 15 years" line, and explained that her son's brother had passed away recently and her son was having a hard time dealing with it,. She said he'd taken the class before several times and failed because a lot of the English classes are about "gothic/death". I thought, 'okay, not really', and read on. She asked if I had any advice for her and her son because the course content didn't seem to be posted online anywhere and they would appreciate some information.

As she'd asked such a clear-cut and straightforward question that I had an easy answer to, I replied and gave her the URL where she could find the descriptions for all the courses the department offered, and her son's options for taking an online class if he'd prefer that, and that he could email the instructor before the semester started to get a course description and ask other questions. I suggested that her son could tell the instructor about his situation if he wanted to, but that I know this isn't always as easy as it sounds, and it doesn't necessarily guarantee that an instructor can do anything about it.

This evening, I got the following reply:

"Thank you for your "politically correct" reply. It is obvious that you have never experienced grief first hand - I hope you never do."

My reaction to this is pretty much...well, shaking my head. Perhaps I shouldn't have replied to the email - perhaps I missed the subtext of what appeared to be a very straightforward inquiry and fell into a trap. I never reply to parents if they ask about a students' grade or any other personal information, I know better than that at least, but this semester I went a little further to help my students in various cases and for various reasons. In every single case, it backfired on me. I've taught for 4 years and should have known better.

Bereavement does terrible things to people - but sometimes there are also just inappropriate emails.

Just wanted to share this frustrating event. Assuming that you had replied to the original email for whatever reason, and received the above one-liner as a response: Would you reply to this new email? If so, what would you say? If not , what would you be saying under your breath or to the computer screen?

I just finished dealing with a situation that greatly disturbs me - pulling a paper from an upcoming issue of my online literary journal. The ethical issue I'm faced with is what to do with the author. The individual, beyond handing us something completely different from what was indicated in the abstract, gave us a recycled paper. It was nothing more than a rehashing of others' works - there was no real attempt to hide that, and there were even references to at least one of the papers used.

Personally, I would love to run this individual up a pole and announce the fraud to the world. But I know that would make me no better than the author. I know I don't have the intestinal fortitude to deal with writing anything to this person that doesn't include at least a few profane words. Does anyone have a form letter or an old letter that would cover this issue? I have ones for undergrad students, but they are just too "nice." Suffice it to say that this person is definitely old enough to know better, and doesn't deserve kid glove treatment in any way.

Hey everyone!  I'll get straight to the point:  how much do/should you adhere to standard citation guidelines when listing your work in your CV?  I'm wondering if the standard for CVs are to use the appropriate citation style, or if people tend to tweak them a bit, which seems to be what I'm used to seeing.

Any input is welcome - Thanks in advance =)

We are happy to announce the 2008 Summer Academic Working Group. This peer accountability and feedback system allows users from anywhere in the world to share documents and feedback. Working group participants participate in "clusters" around a common discipline, theme, or type of work. Clusters exchange work on a regular basis - normally every two weeks - by posting it to a secure course and project management site at the University of Michigan. Participants then provide and receive feedback for members of their cluster. Having a deadline helps everyone get more done, and having feedback makes what's done better.

For more information, or for sign-up instructions, go to http://www-personal.umich.edu/~lpowner/workgroup.htm.

Any questions can be posted to here as a comment to share with everyone, or emailed via the webpage.

Last year some 20 people participated. It's a really nice opportunity to get feedback from people you don't already hear from regularly or who might bring very different perspectives to your work.

(Crossposted to a bunch of academic communities; please feel free to post to other discipline-specific or personal groups, blogs, or lists via LJ or email.)

Following up on bing_crosby's post a bit earlier...

In past summers we've had the Summer Academic Working Groups, where small pods of people shared work and accountability with each other on a biweekly basis. Groups were discipline-based or thematic, the posting site is secure, and you remain with your group the whole summer.

I haven't had time to set it up yet this year. If someone(s) else wants to help with the publicity on LJ and elsewhere, I'm happy to do the administrative set up stuff on the UM platform so that it can go forward as it has in the past.

Drop a comment on here if you would be interested in helping to organize it - we're talking a whopping hour or two - OR if you would be interested in participating.

ETA (2 Jun): We've certainly got enough interest, so the project will go ahead. You can click through the link above to get to the registration form, and/or a new announcement will be posted here later today/tomorrow. Thanks to all who volunteered to help - this year we've got a coordinating triumvirate.

does anyone know of productivity sites like Phinished.org but not that site? I feel obnoxious saying this but the lingo is too much for me (all the ph-punning, "vibes" etc). I do like the idea of setting up accountability milestones, though, especially in the quieter (for some of us) months of summer. any thoughts?

My PhD thesis is driving me nuts. Specifically: I get to this point where I've written about 30 pages of a chapter. I know some of it is pretty bad, but I just keep writing because what else can you do? Then I begin to edit the draft and I realise that so much of it is so bad that I can't hold all the problems in my head at the same time. I work methodically; I try to resolve each problem before moving onto the next, but I'm also impatient to move on. I have about 6 months to finish a full draft, and I'm not sure how else to finish than just write it, sometimes leaving the problems until later. The more I write, the more problems like this I cause that will eventually have to be resolved.

My current biggest dilemma is where I write a, let's say for example I need to write a critique of Gender Identity Disorder in order for an argument thread to make sense. (My PhD is on transsexuality.) I write the critique, and realise that it's currently in Chapter Six, when it probably needs to go in Chapter One -- because this critique applies to the philosophy of the whole thesis not just this chapter. But I'm not working on Chapter One at the moment, and have only a vague idea of where this chunk of writing could go. And it annoys me to have to remove writing. Or to not know, exactly, why I just spent a day writing that, when I've probably written something exceedingly similar in Chapter One already. This has happened about 10 times now and I'm losing track of how it all fits together.

I don't know how anyone keeps track of all these issues. A PhD dissertation is so huge that just managing the process of resolving theoretical/writing issues seems like a fulltime job, without even writing anything new. How do people cope? Anyone have any advice?