About

I am a PhD student, a title that unsettles me. What does that even mean for me? This blog is a way of figuring that out, of bringing meaning to a very unambiguous position and identity within me. I feel I have spent a whole year grappling with what it means to me be a researcher, to find my place within the strange world of both academia and museums.

I’ve spent the past year attending conferences on the subject of German history, my specialised period, research as a PhD student and photography. I have been bored out of my brains listening to even more bored looking scholars talking about German capitalism or 18th Century sovereignty in Germany. I’ve heard words that I never knew existed and others that I probably should have known did.

I want to get away from the frills and pretentiousness of academia where it’s essential to add three syllables onto the end of each word. How can I find value in my PhD from writing a thesis for people (is it two or three?) to read? Would it be more important and more beneficial to consider how these three and half years can be experienced in a beneficial way. So I don’t go through them with my head down and crying, unsure of the future. It is about bringing understanding and compassion to the present when the future seems so unclear and unguided. The only thing that I am sure of is that I will wear a silly hat and gown at the end of this. Before and after that is unknown and so indeed it should be otherwise studying would be pointless. So, how to make the most out of it all?

Just like my research, this blog is an exploration of the people I meet (ie. “networking”), the spaces I inhibit (ie. “libraries and archives”) and the feelings/emotions/senses that I experience (i.e. “subjectivity”). What could be more exciting than a blog exploring the exploration of my research eh? A PhD comes does not come with a guidebook, nor even training. I’ve had to figure things out for myself, working out what works and what definitely doesn’t. Being independent comes with challenges but it also means I am free to make my own choices about where, how and when I work and figuring out what is right for me is part of that. The lesson I most want to present in this blog is that of non-judgement and compassion for yourself, something that is integral in our apparently non-biased objective historical study, but yet often fails to enter into our own self-view.