Stuart Schrader

Last year I decided to keep a record of the books I’d read cover-to-cover. It was a good exercise, in that it helped force me to prioritize reading books, to read books to the end, and to collect my thoughts about what I had read. At the same time, blogging about them has been fun. It led some of the authors to contact me, which was nice. One risk, though, is that readers of my jottings on these books might take what I’ve written as definitive. Please don’t read what I write about these books as anything more than initial, cursory, incomplete, and reactive. These are not book reviews! They’re just quick reflections.

In January, I decided to keep a log of all the books I had read this year. By mid-February, I was having trouble with my eyesight, and by the end of February, I had basically lost my vision and required emergency surgery. So I lost a couple months of reading. Luckily, as George Costanza would say, I'm back, baby.

This year is also the year when I hope to complete the book I am writing. Because I have been feeling a bit inundated by online articles, I decided to make a concerted effort to read as many books as possible. I often say that I read books for a living, but mostly that means skimming books and reading articles. (I’m not going to record the many articles, academic and otherwise, I’m reading.) I like to read really long books because of the sense of accomplishment that comes with finishing them. But honestly I rarely have the time or attention span that I wish I did. Anyway, here is a list of books I’ve read so far in 2017, with some commentary on each. I will try to update it every few months; hopefully this will force me to read books cover to cover.

At the 2015 American Studies Association Annual Meeting in Toronto last weekend, I was honored to receive Finalist mention (second place) for the Ralph Henry Gabriel Dissertation Prize, awarded annually by the Association. I am grateful to the prize committee, Professors Alyosha Goldstein, Lisa Hajjar, and Karen Shimakawa, for their recognition of my dissertation, "American Streets, Foreign Territory: How Counterinsurgent Police Waged War on Crime." As the ASA says, "The Ralph Henry Gabriel Dissertation Prize, established in 1974, has been awarded annually since 1987 by the Association for the best dissertation in American Studies."

I presented a paper on a wonderful panel at the 2014 American Studies Association annual meeting in Los Angeles. This year's annual meeting was a special one for me personally because the president of the American Studies Association is Lisa Duggan, professor in my department and one of the primary influences for me to join American Studies. The panel was entitled "What Comes of Fury? Responses to California’s 1960s and 1970s Urban Crisis," and it was organized by Nic Ramos and also featured Aaron Bae and Ryan Fukumori. We all analyzed various aspects of state and emergent public-private responses to, and definition of, "urban crisis" in California, from policing to education to healthcare. The panel was well-received, organically cohesive, and, to my mind, fascinating. Professor Daryl Maeda chaired, and Professor Josh Sides commented.

Another highlight of the annual meeting was that I won an award from the American Studies Association for the best paper presented at the meeting by a graduate student, the Gene Wise - Warren Susman Prize.

This is the third and final in a series of posts on applying to and winning external grants and fellowships in the humanities and (humanistic) social sciences. In the first post, I covered why you should apply. In the second post, I covered to what and when you should apply. In this third post, I am covering the most difficult question: how to create a successful application.

This is the second in a series of new posts on professionalization for PhD students in the humanities and social sciences. In the previous post, I offered five key reasons to apply for (and win) external grants and fellowships. So that was the “why” post. This post focuses on two other important points that often fall into the category of “no one tells you because you’re supposed to know already”: what and when. What kinds of fellowships are out there and when should you apply for them?

This is the first in what should be a series of new posts on professionalization for PhD students in the humanities and social sciences, based on my own experience and advice I have collected along the way. (A prior post in this vein concerned how to embark on archival research.) The meaning of professionalization can be somewhat unclear until you're actually doing it. Moreover, the reasons to do it are also often opaque: there may be no direct reward for success other than good vibes, nor a direct penalty for failure other than feeling glum. We know, in general, that successful graduate students become successful academics by adhering to certain norms and expectations, though we don't always know what they are. My focus here is one domain, however, in which there is a clear reward for successfully following the guidelines: winning external fellowships and grants.