Progressive Geographies

Why has submitting a manuscript to a journal become so difficult? A call to simplify an overly complicated process – interesting piece at the LSE Impact blog.

It is widely acknowledged that submitting a paper to a journal is a fraught activity for authors. But why should this still be the case? James Hartley and Guillaume Cabanac argue that the process has always been complicated but can, with a few improvements, be less so. By adopting standardised templates and no longer insisting on articles being reformatted, the submission process can quickly be simplified.

The first scientific journal, the Journal des Scavans, was published in Paris in January 1665, hotly pursued by Philosophical Transactions in London in March of the same year. We have come a long way since then – from handwriting to typewriting to electronic submissions.

But some things seem to remain the same. Each submission system creates its own difficulties for authors. And each has its critics. Take, for example, the case of submitting papers to publications of the American Psychological Association. Their “instructions for authors” were first published in six and a half pages in the Psychological Bulletin in 1929. This article was revised in 1944 and 1952 and then book-length revisions were published in 1967, 1974, 1983, 1994, 2001 and 2010. The largest of these editions (2001) contained 29 preliminary pages and 439 pages of instructions. The current 2010 edition initially had to be withdrawn and reprinted because it contained so many errors and confusions. [continues]

Exciting news from Phil Steinberg at Durham: 15(!) Interdisciplinary Arctic PhD Opportunities at DurhamARCTIC

I am happy to announce Durham University’s success with a £1.05 million, five-year bid to the Leverhulme Trust to fund 15 PhD students in Interdisciplinary Understanding for a Changing Arctic. Although I took the lead with the grant proposal and will be directing the interdisciplinary training programme, I am indebted to input from colleagues from across the university.

To host the programme, and carry on its legacy after the grant ends in 2023, I am presently establishing a new Doctoral Training Centre at Durham: The Durham Arctic Research Centre for Training and Interdisciplinary Collaboration (DurhamARCTIC). While waiting for the bureaucratic wheels at Durham to (slowly) turn, I’ve established a provisional “unofficial” website for the programme at http://durhamarctic.wordpress.com.

Students in the programme enrol in standard, department-based doctoral programmes, but DurhamARCTIC then provides a number of “extras” including interdisciplinary supervision, colloquia, summer schools, etc., as well as dedicated funds for Arctic placements and research. The application deadline for the first cohort, to enter in Autumn 2018, is 2 February 2018. If you’re interested in applying (or if you know someone who might be interested) please see the programme website for more details regarding DurhamARCTIC’s focus, the extra elements it will provide for students, and the application process.

Flyer with more details – DurhamARCTIC 1-page.

2017 in review: round-up of LSE Impact blog top posts on academic writing

I linked to some of these, but this is a useful summary. Lots more links and discussion on writing and publishing here.

1. Walter Benjamin’s thirteen rules for writing
2. Foucault also struggled to get his students to do the reading…
3. Delete your academia.edu account… (there are other ways to share your work)
4. Michel Foucault’s acid trip in Death Valley: Interview with Simeon Wade with great archival photos (updated)
5. The adjunct crisis – an infographic (2013)
6. Foucault and Neoliberalism – a few thoughts in response to the Zamora piece in Jacobin (2014)
7. Why I prioritise writing books over articles, even in an era of research assessment
8. Foucault, History of Sexuality Vol IV, Les Aveux de la Chair scheduled for January 2018
9. Where to start with reading Henri Lefebvre? (updated)
10. My favourite academic books of 2017

I’d also point to some of the pages on the site, rather than just the posts. Notably the resources pages on things like Writing and Publishing, Foucault and so on, which collect a lot of posts by theme.

Derek Gregory has a very nice tribute to Peter Meusburger, who died in December.

Literary critic and theorist William V. Spanos died on 29th December. His boundary 2 colleague Paul Bové has a brief report here. Although I never met him or heard him speak, I really liked his books Heidegger and Criticism, The Errant Art of Moby-Dick: The Cold War, the Canon, and the Struggle for American Literary Studies and America’s Shadow: An Anatomy of Empire.