I’ve had a blog, in one place or another, since 2002, and thus the distinction between “a blog” and “a blog post” is a hill on which I am willing to die. But before Ben Park approached me to be one of The Junto’s founding members, I hadn’t blogged extensively about history. Five years later, I still want to write about other topics in addition to history, but I firmly believe that my history teaching and history scholarship have benefitted from my membership here. That said, I think my role as a blogger for The Junto has changed since 2012, and will continue to transform in the future. Today, I want to reflect on some of these changes. Continue reading
Tag Archives: Early Career Researchers
Call for Papers: BGEAH and BrANCH joint postgraduate and Early Career conference
BGEAH & BrANCH Unite for a Postgraduate and Early Career Conference at the IHR in London
Friday 23 MARCH 2018
Call For Papers
In 2018, the British Group in Early American History Postgraduate and Early Career Conference enters its 4th year, and for the first time, joins forces with the British American Nineteenth Century Historians’ postgraduate community for a joint event. This will take place on Friday 23rd March 2018 at the London-based Institute of Historical Research, the UK’s national center for history. London, with its unique colonial archival resources and lively research student population, is one of the leading centers of American scholarship in Europe, and the IHR is a natural location for this event. The IHR Library’s North American Room houses one of the foremost UK collections of published material relating to the early history of the United States, Caribbean, and Canada. The day-long BGEAH & BrANCH Postgraduate and Early Career Conference will be a key forum for the discussion of individual research as well as themes and issues emerging in the field of American research in the UK. Continue reading
Seeking Sabbatical Advice
It’s a fun time for me to be a Juntoist. I joined the blog while I was ABD, on the brink of defending my dissertation. I had thoughts about research and writing, many untested theories about teaching, and opinions about where historians needed to eat when visiting archives in different cities. This was a blog for junior early Americanists, and I didn’t think too much about how the blog would grow and evolve over the next several (!) years. Definitions of junior scholars (“early career researchers” here in the United Kingdom) vary across the UK. The Arts and Humanities Research Council’s definition is someone within eight years of the PhD or within six years of their first academic appointment. Within my faculty, ECRs include “level 4” staff within four years of being hired or recently hired. Thus when I passed my probation, was promoted to level 5, and became a permanent member of staff, I became a non-ECR by my faculty’s definition but still eligible to apply for AHRC ECR funding and funding from other schemes.[1] All this is a long way of saying that I’m a Not So Early Early Career Researcher™ about to embark on her first sabbatical, and would like your advice about how to approach this period of leave. Continue reading
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