When I was in Willamsburg I happened upon the most amazers 2nd hand book store called Spoonbill and Sugartown

The service left a little to be desired – the staff were too busy having their own conversation to be helpful and when I asked for a bag I might as well have asked for the woman’s 1st born child by the look on her face. Nevertheless, the cultural & critical theory stock was the best I’ve seen anywhere. There is one shelf in the bookshop in The Tate Modern that occasionally turns up something interesting, but this place was something else.

Whilst there I bought myself a copy of French Thinker and all round cool guy Barthes’ The Lovers Discourse

As the review on the jacket says

‘A Lover’s Discourse maybe the most detailed, painstaking anatomy of desire that we are ever likely to see or need again…The book is an ecstatic celebration of love and language and…’

Barthes is such a brilliant character, a philosopher, a semiotician, a cultural theorist, journalist, teacher; he was interested in so many different aspects of culture and everyday life – what ever captured his imagination. I found out in the foreword by Wayne Koestenbaum that Barthes was a gay man, something I didn’t know and he lived most of his life with his mother Henriette whom he was devoted to.

His Mythologies is a work I know very very well indeed. It has been a source of inspiration for my own work and thinking for over a decade of study and research and it’s a book I know like the back of my hand. The Lover’s Discourse is, I’m finding, quite hard going and I’m certainly glad of the notes at the beginning. As it says, the book is a series of linked miniatures about the different thralls of loves categories. It’s about how love ‘is a translated affair; love, Barthes proves, is not a feeling we take raw, but a condition that passes through the mediating scrim of plots, prejudices, and assumed positions’ ‘(Koestenbaum 2010 pxix)

What I adore about it, is that it’s an academic text, but at the same time it isn’t in the slightest. It’s emotional, it’s painful and there is a mediation of suffering that emerges from the words. As the reader I feel as strong sense that the author has felt something and very deeply too.

As Koestenbaum says, Barthes never wrote a novel, but this comes close. It’s critical prose. I also love the fact that the footnotes and references are so vague. Yabooshucks to the Harvard system. Away with you citation! Barthes flouts academic convention by only slight references to the thinkers, spiritual leaders, poets and philosophers he employs. For instance,the name Freud may casually appear in the left margin, but that is it. It’s up to the reader to follow this up if they care to. Bravo for Barthes! The contemporary academic writing ‘house’ style is a sore point for me. I dislike the conventions of thesis writing and how the author’s creativity and feeling is snuffed out by the academe in pursuit of convention and under the guise of objectivity that’s a nonsense anyway. I do so admire Barthes and even more now I’ve begun to read this.

Earlier this summer my work went something like this: reading journal articles – fine, making notes –  fine, planning -fine ,  mind maps -fine, thinking about things -fine, meeting people for lunch excellent, writing actual words – not so good.

A typical morning would be boot up the computer, open my note book and try to write a paragraph of my response to some new literature.  I’d stare at the screen for about 25 minutes  without typing and tackle it head on by looking up a recipe for soap. Soap for everyone for Christmas, hurrah!  Perhaps I’ll become an aroma-therapist. Look at watch, time for a mug of tea, mmm the kitchen needs a wipe…here we go.

Lovely windows.

My problem(s) FEAR & LOATHING. I’m afraid. I’m really afraid. This will never be over and there’ll be more recommendations, more changes. The examiner will hate me. I can’t write. It’s never going to be over, not now, not then, no never. Hmm I think I’ll bleach my tea spoons.

A v quick bit of online research suggests that procrastination is often rooted in fear of failure. There is a useful handout at the writing centre all about it.  Also I came across a person who claims they procrastinated over their thesis for  two decades and reading their story made me feel better about myself I have to say

According to the usefull handout I’m guilty of at least 3 of the most commone pro-cras strategies

Substitute something important for something really important? (For example, cleaning instead of writing your paper = very clean teaspoons)

Let a short break become a long one, or an evening in which you do no work at all? (For example, claiming that you are going to watch TV for ½ hour, then watching it all night = watching an entire series of Gossip Girl in 48 hours..perhaps Chuck Bass might ‘arrange’ me a docturate sigh).

Spend too much time researching or choosing a topic (= I have read everything ever, I’m not kidding. I’m now at the point where I’m ordering unpublished manucripts from the 19th Century from obscure libraries).

Does any of this sound familiar? Sadly I think it may. The is at least one PhD & procrastination group on facebook with over 500 members. The latest news feed says “fffuuuuuuuck i hate my thesis” ( apologies for bad language these words are not my own). There’s even a forum.

The good news is there’s lots of tips out there for tackling pro-cras.  50 tips here and  some nice Zen habits here.  Common tips are chop up tasks into mini ones, make mini deadlines, make deadlines public, schedule a reward, have a routine, banish distractions. Also a really fascinating article about the science of pro-cras with some handy hints about building up stamina and will power to get things done in the same way one would train for a physical task like a marathon; the article suggests

you must treat your daily work like a competitive athletic event. Your self-control is a muscle. If you don’t tend to it through rigorous training and careful schedules of use, you’ll perform well below your potential..

There’s immense value to be found in trying to understand procrastination and getting to the bottom of why you’re prone to thinking in a certain way, IMHO is the 1st step to getting going. Realising that I do what I do, because I’m frightened has been liberating and now when I’ve a morning which starts badly I can label my thoughts and say to myself “I’m procrastinating”. In doing so, for me it seems to now stop it in it’s tracks. There is a really good talk at audio dharma on thinking which explains this technique and can help with lots of other things and noisy thoughts. The speaker talks about how our absorption in our thoughts pulls us away from being present and how we create an adversarial relationship with our thoughts. It suggests you work with what’s going on rather than resist it. It’s been a big help to me.

Look. Clean teaspoons!

Mini deadline and rewards don’t work for me. I miss the deadline and then give myself the reward anyway, because I’m nice  and I deserve it. What has helped , is adopting the Pomodoro technique.

The author says…

I found myself in a slump, a time of low productivity and high confusion. Every day I went to school, attended classes, studied and went back home with the disheartened feeling that I didn’t really knowwhat I’d been doing, that I’d been wasting my time

It’s based on the idea of tackling tasks  for 25 minutes at a time. You’ll notice a difference in your work  and productivity almost immediately.  You can down load a free booklet to get started that takes 25 minutes to read. Or even better, there’s a quick crib sheet to get you started.

Once again best of luck. Procrastination is a horrible horrible state of being. Be nice to yourself, don’t judge yourself. if you’re in it, just notice it – it’s the first step to moving forward. Good Luck!

I had this sent down from The British Library a few weeks ago. The look and feel is so lovely. It includes Peirce’s “What is a sign?”, where the trichotomy of the sign first appeared written up, composed around 1894. Amazing.

The slip inside tells me it’s been taken out 10xs in the last 13 years. No sooner had I picked it up, can you believe it – it got recalled; someone else wants it.

The Essential Peirce. Selected Philosophical Writings Vol II 1893-1919 1998 India University Press

When I was starting to think about what I wanted to say, I came across and incredibly sad blog post. The author begins by saying something along the lines of ” My PhD has literally been an emotional rollercoaster — sometimes, I feel like a manic-depressive.”  But, the real tragedy is the many comments which run from 2006 until October of this year from people stuck in a 5 year or 6 year black hole of revision, corrections, fallings out, rejections, bad advice and isolation. That’s 4 years of comments people. 4 YEARS OF COMMENTS from PhD students with pretty much nowhere else to go to articulate their very real woes. I can’t express how much reading it both touched and saddened me. It made me muster up all the loving kindness I can manage and send it out into the t’interweb of dreams.

Here’s a sample of what people  said

I have come to terms with realizing the most difficult part of a PhD is coming face forward with one’s own weaknesses (loneliness, procrastination, fear of rejection). I think we all go through it.

I am into severe depression phase. I am just wondering can I get out of it someday, I feel like its just increasing day by day.

I’ve just been agonizing over endless visions and revisions. I’ve poured so much of my life into preparing for an academic vocation that abandonning the degree is out of the question. I would rather die than not finish

This has been a nightmare that is hopefully coming to an end now that I am letting go of it, but god it is painful, still.

The worse thing for me in this whole process has been the isolation

PhD depression has hit hard and I’ve contemplated quitting

I’ve become severely disillusioned by the way things work in academia and i’m becoming more and more cynical by the day

I so desperately want to say something positive  and helpful now about the experience of doing revisions. At the beginning of the year a few people said to me “this will make you stronger and a better researcher” and ” you’ll realise that at the end of this process you’ll have a better thesis” . I’m sure these things are true, but to be honest I don’t feel them…yet.  My experience has been emotional and  lonely. Before gathering the strength to carry on I looked humiliation and doubt in the face. The treatment I received from one of the examiners, particularly  after the viva, was so deeply unkind that it caused weeks of misery and insomnia, followed by a total crisis of confidence. Their behavior led me to question my own beliefs about anger and compassion and that is to say nothing of the effects on my finances, research, career plans, relationships and even the roof over my head. But it is possible to acknowledge these negative emotions and not respond and thus give into them.  So let me really begin here by telling you a few things I’ve done to cope with the sadness and fustration in the hope they may help.

• Complain, but for the love of god, please complain sensibly. Separate the wheat from the chaff. Some of what is recommended will be useful, but don’t accept bad behavior on the part of the examiner. I registered my intension to appeal & went to the S.U and the vice chancellor and as dispassionately as I could manage – I made sure people knew how the examiner had behaved  after the viva and what they’d very publicly done and said. Although I did not receive explanation or apology from the examiner, they agreed to step down from examining my work. Then and this is really important file away any remaining anger and put your energy into getting on with your work. Even say to yourself I will finish the PhD first and then deal with seeking an emotional resolution.
• Listen to the soundtrack of the 1972  Jimmy Cliff film “The Harder they come”. I’m not joking. This is a serious remedy.

If you’ve had a nasty set-to  like me, listen to The Harder they Come track first: feel cross, imagine retribution etc etc and then come out the other side with an I’ll show you attitude, and by this I mean I’ll show you with the quality of my work not argy bargy. Draw your strength at Draw your breaks. Wallow in procrastination or marvel at the ineptitude of the university system during Sitting in Limbo. Purge yourself of desolation by listening to the achingly beautiful version of Many Rivers to Cross. Feel the stress and frustration at Pressure Drop – finally  the grande finale: You can get it if you really want. I defy anyone to listen to this track and not feel even a tiny murmur of motivation

• Tell people who you care about and who care about you – how you feel. They won’t understand. It doesn’t matter. Simply saying how you feel will help. Be 100% honest. If you feel like shit say so.
• Separate yourself from your work. You are not your corrections. You are not your writing. You are not your thesis. This is your mantra. Chant it.
• If you can  - get some exercise and meditate. Sit quietly for 5 minutes close your eyes and concentrate on your breath. Thoughts and anxieties will pop into your head, just acknowledge them and go back to how your breath feels. Monkey mind describes that horrible state when your brain is all over the place, thoughts are going off on tangents and it’s hard to concentrate. Just 5 minutes of mediation will really help to calm this and do wonders if you’re feeling depressed. It also helps with procrastination too.

Some more comprehensive and great tips on staying sane during a  PhD & depression to be found here too.

I hope this helps someone a little bit.  There is more to come I promise, especially on dealing with fear and procrastination, but meanwhile if there is anyone reading this who feels anything like some of the comments from the other blog post on depression I mentioned, remember you are not alone. I wish you the best.

This is not a description of the contents of neither the talks nor a depth analysis. Others were much more prompt in their reporting and can provide you with more detail. Unfortunately the webcast was unable to show the speakers slides, and this is something I’ll come back to in a moment.

As a humanities / social science bod, I struggled a bit on day one with some of the maths and scientific discourse, but day two was much more up my alley. I certainly was not the only person who had this experience and I loved the social scientists in the audience who were frequently tweeting “where’s the social science” and asking questions over the roaming mike  about power structures, agents and agency. That said, it was clear that at the same time there were plenty of audience members who did follow and enjoy these day one talks and who have engineering, physics and mathematics backgrounds.

It was a shame that Henrietta Moore the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge was unable to make it as she was due to present on  ‘Smart Users and Social Networks. What’s Happening in Africa and Asia?’. This is because one of the things that troubled me was the general lack of discussion about techno-capital, access and the digital divide. When some of the speakers mentioned social transformations and the benefiting of humanity, there was either an implicit feeling of neutrality or equality  in their analysis and little or no mention of social exclusion.

Moore’s abstract can be found here

In the last two decades we have witnessed the fastest technology adoption in human history.  This talk discusses the processes that are driving changes to the web in Africa and Asia.  The two continents show similarities and differences in processes of adoption and use, but in both cases recent developments challenge the idea that technological developments are necessarily bringing about unprecedented social transformations…(Moore, H 2010)

Anyhow, one of the most energetic and eloquent speakers was Luis von Ahn, who fyi also presented an excellent set of slides, which (ahem) can not be said of everybody. Luis Von Ahn developed the captcha  and he has since built on this in re-captcha and a brilliant project which harness the man power and time spent in filling out captchas in the process of digitizing books. Von Ahn’s presentation was both funny and engaging, which meant that he was able to communicate his ideas to a willing audience .

I have no problem with people not using slides and just talking, but if you do use slides, even if you have a brilliant mind and are a senior academic in your field, it is still important that they capture the bones of what you’re saying and are readable, otherwise they detract from what you’re saying. (I witnessed some dreadful crimes against presentation over the course of the 2 days, dodgey template backgrounds, clip art (!) mixed and crazy colored fonts, and over snazzy screen wipes. These are no-nos I teach undergrads ).

Highlights for me were the inclusion of a slide from Albert-Laszlo Barabasi in the 1st 20mins, which showed all the different disciplines he sees in the development of web science and how and where they overlap. Castells’ optimistic talk on individuation, sociability and autonomy, Noshir Contractor‘s very brief mention in his talk of computational social-science  (the study of social life on computer networks) and his raising the problem of  technology  producers and the curated experience of the user , and the power structures implicit in this.

All in all, an edifying, inspiring 2 days that has given me lots to think about.

Castells, M. (2009) Communication Power. OUP

The reason in part is that I received my first dose of  heavy duty attack on my work at the beginning of the year. Right effort, right speech, means that I shouldn’t be discussing the details for now. I will admit though that when it comes to research and a thesis, I’ve been woefully naive how much ego and personal agenda comes into the examination process

Now that teaching has finished I’m about to get going on making some corrections over the summer and I’ve been astounded at the number of people I’ve met with and spoken to with who have had awful viva/ correction experiences, so there appears a gap in the market for me to come back and blog with some reflections.

For me the initial recommendations were so horrific  ( one day I hope I can detail this) but lets just say for now I had to compartmentalise and get on and do some other things. As a result of a pause from the tome I’ve picked up some other creative writing projects with success, been supervising some lovely dissertations and have plans involving ‘The fashions’ towards the end of the year.

I’ve also been giving it some ones and twos in my beloved Thailand ( despite getting stuck in  what looked to be a revolution for a bit) and practicing lots of mindfulness. So it’s all good.

Fans of Miu Miu will be happy to know that she has finally read Castells’ latest book and has started moderating 1^st year essays with me.

There are useful links to some great reading  and thanks to M-H for putting me on to the Malcolm Aswell book ‘The Reflexive Thesis’ too. The bold foreword from Steve Woolgar has been a tonic. I also love the quote at the beginning

The first task of my Introduction is to introduce my readers into my text: You’re welcome…

OK, so as promised (I’m sorry that this post is so v.v. overdue), but here are some reflections on finishing a PhD and my views on how to approach research in general. I honestly don’t feel it’s too useful to be prescriptive about “how to do a PhD” or how to finish a thesis as it is such a subjective journey, which depends on all sorts, such as your support network, super-supervision, institution, money and of course… your personal dynamo.

Umbrella for sun or rain by Ben

Many moons ago I wrote a post on doing a PhD and the 10 perfections. Now, I want to bring up something called the 5 faculties  which again is based on Buddhist practice. However I think this can be applied to any type of research, not just doctural.

1. Faith / confidence. You need an understanding of what you’re confident in before you begin.  This is linked to the wisdom of learning, reading and listening. You then need to reflect on what you’ve learned and this results in a new wisdom. Finally there is the wisdom of insight, when you are able to directly understand  from your experiences.  This is something you just can’t force. It is a result of practice.
2. Energy. This relates to the ‘right’ type of exertion. That which is skillful, honest and comes from the heart. Follow your nose and be true to your instinct. Don’t get drowned out by others ( but do listen to your supers) then exert yourself. A PhD is a marathon not a sprint, but you need constant spurts of effort.
3. Mindfulness. Become familiar with what’s going on in your head. Stop still and notice your thoughts. This is about being in the present with the research and avoiding thinking about where it’s taking you. Difficult if your doing a PhD I know. But try not to think of your data in terms of future chapters and papers. Stand still with it, this noticing is where authentic analysis begins.
4. Concentration. Sounds obvious dunnit.In Buddhism concentration is in part about understanding or knowing the true nature of things. Think of this in terms of epistemology. Ask yourself what is truly knowable through your research and how can you know what you know?
5. Wisdom. In Buddhism this is achived through understanding experience is characterized by  suffering, impermanence, and not self. I’m not going to get into the theory of not-self here. As an expert on identity theory, even I find it very complicated and I feel a post on identity is imminent any way. But what is useful about this view of wisdom for anyone doing research, is that you need to learn to perceive the world in a new way. Remember it’s not necessary to know everything and that your output is part of a complex system of other ideas and things.

Sunrise in Jodphur by sarah lane

In terms of top tips for people doing a PhD I’ve just 1.Do something else.

Obviously do the per her der, but until you can see the finishing post I suggest make sure you have some other things going on. If you’re lucky enough to be FT and have funding them you’re probably contract bound if not duty bound to make it your be and end all, but personally I recommend a job. Leading a seminar  is not fun-time, and don’t let it get to the stage where a conference seems like the ultimate in leisure. Nooooo!  I had no funding so I had to work and  sometimes  I worked FT  in an office with commercial peoples on businessy things and did the PhD when I got home. For me this was a blessing in disguise. Inspiration comes from the most  unexpected of sources, and in doing one, you get focus and clarity for the other. The main thing is when you do something else – you have to be super disciplined and manage your time,  because it’s precious; there just is no room for procrastination.
I’ll say it again. But this time do something fun or relaxing. Whatever floats your boat: taxidermy, pub, playstation. It’s not the same as procrastination trust me. Allow yourself and your mind ‘other time’.  Yoga and meditation worked for me.  When I was putting in 14hours at  a desk, seeing theories swimming around my head in a savant like manner,  I’d go to a 90 min yoga class, followed by a group meditation session. I forgot about: discourse , Apple Inc, participants, logic,logos, font size and 247 pages and 10 chapters and, and, and….Without wishing to sound too evangelical about mediation and mindfulness practise  - it totally rocks. It’s great for developing your concentration  when you need it and is a total anecdote to  stress. Learning to be in the present moment can really help with the anxieties of the last bit of a PhD. Trust me on this. It doesn’t just rock, it rules.  Imagine being in a nice warm room, maybe with a candle and the sounds of chanting. ahhhh..I feel relaxed even typing about it – you see – rocks.

Gluck to anyone thinking about doing, in the middle of, or finishing a PhD. I wish you the very best. I plan to do a post some-when on viva-prep btw.  Also watch out for changes to TITNB, a bit of a face-lift is planned.