Oxford Conference

Last week, I presented my work at "Global Knowledge", a PhD/early career conference run by Oxford University's Transnational and Global History research group. Most of the other speakers were doing Colonial/post-Colonial history (either British or French empires, with a little discussion of Spain/Portugal thrown in for good measure). I was on a panel with another American, David Olson of Boston College, whose research on UNESCO was really interesting (and one of the few papers there where I recognised citations, like Ninkovich's The Diplomacy of Ideas!).

Overall, the conference was great--learned a great deal about archival research and how to think about history, and just had a really lovely time. I made friends and connections, and remembered to hand out my business card. It's the last conference I have planned for the foreseeable future, so I definitely thought about networking.

Being at Oxford got me thinking about my thesis chapter (as yet unwritten) on the way that the Fulbright Program alumni feed back into the program (volunteering, writing, funding, lobbying, etc.) and reproduce future generations of Fulbrighters.  It's all about elite institutions and elite people--"future leaders." I've written here before about my struggles with reading Bourdieu, but being at Oxford for the weekend has inspired me to give it another go. There is something fascinating about these people, their view of the world...It's hard for me to articulate it, but I'm going to have to if I want to include it in the thesis.

Here's an example: on the morning of the conference, I posted a Facebook status about how presenting at Oxford was beyond my wildest dreams, growing up in rural Stanwood & being born in Siloam Springs. I said that being around people who attend these schools sometimes makes me forget how amazing it is. I had my friend Tracey in mind. Although she's from Halifax, West Yorkshire and is refreshingly down-to-earth and lovely, she is also brilliant and read history at Oxford. She even did a study abroad at Princeton, the Ivy League school that I'd applied to, early decision, and was rejected by. Tracey makes my accomplishments far less special. She's amazing. The point of my status update was that, while sometimes amazing people like Tracey make me feel like I'm not 'enough', I should be proud of myself for presenting at Oxford. It's an accomplishment that the 15-year-old me in Stanwood would have been proud of--the kid who had never met anyone who went to Oxford or Princeton.

And, as often happens in social media, the status update didn't go down like I'd hoped it would. In just a few minutes, I had a comment from Tracey. She said "Awww, I love it!" and then went on about her time there. I didn't want that. I felt her "aww" was a bit patronising, as though she thought it was 'cute' that I was excited. She didn't know that I would take it that way, and she certainly didn't mean it in a negative way at all. But the point is, she didn't get my point. And that, essentially, is what my whole elite institution angle on the Fulbright Program is all about. They don't get it. They are elites being given grants to become more elite, and they don't see it that way at all.

I'm still trying to articulate these thoughts more clearly, but there's something important going on here. The main reason I haven't said it is because I'm afraid of sounding bitter--like I just have a big chip on my shoulder because of my non-Ivy League/Oxbridge background. I don't want to come across like an anti-elitist, because obviously I've been working hard all of these years to become an elite (a PhD in Europe...how much more elite can a working-class American get?). I like touring stately homes, eating brie and drinking port, but I also love Wal-Mart and Mexican food.

I hope that I never lose touch with my working-class roots, and never lose that sense of wonder & appreciation, no matter how many times I present my work at elite institutions.

    

Post-Conference Thoughts & Shopping Culture

Despite all of my worrying, the Finland conference went well. My presentation was ok--not brilliant, but not too bad either. They scheduled me in the last panel of the day (6-7pm!) so I spoke to a small, tired audience. I was also asked to keep it brief, which was fine by me. I skipped over a couple of slides to cut it from 20 min to 15 min, and then of course the only question I got from the audience was related to the bit that I'd skipped. The fact that I only had one person with a question or comment was disheartening. Even Nick Cull didn't ask anything--he smiled & nodded encouragingly throughout, which was nice, but I would have appreciated feedback. It was only my second conference, and I really worked hard on the paper...

The dinner & drinks after the conference was nice, but it carried on a bit too long. I had to catch the bus from Turku to Helsinki at 4am for my early morning flight, so I stayed out with the conference lot. We had a good time for the most part, but there were a few crappy moments. A couple of them made fun of me for liking Leeds (I'm a bit defensive of the North--I love it here) and for having a set weekly routine (it might seem dull to others, but I love my life!). I don't think they realised that they were hurting my feelings, and as much as I wanted to leave, I didn't really want to go to my hotel and risk falling asleep and missing my bus to the airport.

In general, though, Finland was interesting. It's a strange mix of East meets West--some of the architecture looks Russian and some looks Neo-Classical. Some aspects, like the food, reminded me of Sweden and others, like the massive department store Stockmann, were American. I had an idea for a project, if I ever want to go back--Helsinki as the last frontier of shopping during the Cold War. Apparently Westerners based in Moscow used to order the goods that they couldn't get in the Soviet Union from Stockmann in Helsinki. 

"Stockmann, Helsinki's largest department store, maintains a 15-member export staff that handled about $5 million in sales this year to buyers in the Soviet Union...Sales clerks have standing instructions to put export shoppers at the head of any line and completion of a purchase requires only a signature on a blank order form...The biggest buyers are embassies in Moscow. Miss Bergholm [divisional sales manager] said that Stockmann sends everything from milk to flowers to winter tires to diplomatic missions. Some foreigners prefer to order milk from Finland because Soviet milk is not homogenized, and they also fear that it may be inadequately sterilized." (Philip Taubman, "To Banish the Moscow Blahs, Finns Say 'Try Us'", The New York Times, 25 Dec 1985, p. 2)

Stockmann was lovely--the salespeople don't bother you while shopping, and they don't engage in small talk at the tills, either. I only knew "hei hei" and "kiitos" (hello & thank you), and that's all I needed to shop. The Finnish stereotype of being taciturn was true, and I didn't mind at all. When I went to the States in January, shopping felt so different--American salespeople are instructed to talk to anybody who comes within a 5-foot radius. I remember this from my summer of working in retail--greet them, ask if they need any help, and if they say no, you say "ok, well, let me know if you need anything!" It sounds lovely and friendly, but in practice it's irritating. You can't just browse in peace, because you're always being greeted and 'helped.' On the spectrum of customer service, Finland is slightly friendlier than Italy, where I've found salespeople to be a bit impatient. I absolutely love the place--the language, the architecture, the food, the wine, etc.--but shopping in Italy hasn't been a great experience for me. The chart below illustrates my international shopping experiences. It's limited in scope and based on a small number of trials, but I hope to do more fieldwork and add to it in the future...

Getting it done and turned in on time...

My lit review is a month late.

It's still not done. I've reworked it several times and I've reread a lot of books and articles, hoping for ideas to jump out at me. Each time I rewrite it, it gets better but at some point I need to just consider it done and submit it.

80% of life is getting it done and turned in on time.--Woody Allen

Well, at this point it's no longer possible to be on time, but I need to just get it done.

I had a look back at old notes from my research seminars and found the one about writing a lit review. They recommended going for quality over quantity--limit it to the seminal works and analyse them in depth. Don't make a laundry list of what you've read, they told us first-year PhD students.

So, I went back to my draft and deleted the unnecessary works (the laundry list contained some that aren't really related to my PhD's central arguments/research questions). That left it quite short and sad, around 3,000 words.

For whatever reason, I had 10,000 in mind. I realise now that 10,000 won't happen at this rate. I'm extremely disappointed in myself. My failure to meet deadlines has a very ugly, self-perpetuating effect--I get depressed and struggle to focus, which then keeps me from making progress on my writing.

Not sure what to do, but for now, I'll focus on my Woody Allen mantra and try to get it done.

Listening Skills

Yesterday after the PhD research seminar, my colleague told me that I was a great person to have in the audience when you're presenting your work, because I listen & smile & nod. When he lost his train of thought or thought people weren't following his ideas, he said he'd look at me and I'd be listening. It's a lovely compliment, and one that I've heard before actually. My 10th grade world history teacher picked up on it once, saying that he liked having me in the front row because my smiling & nodding encouraged him. He said it was "motherly"--very embarrassing to have a teacher call you that in front of the whole class, but he meant well. My Spanish teacher put it in a much nicer way, telling my mom at graduation that he appreciated my enthusiasm and engagement in class, and that he wished he could have "a whole class full of Molly Sissons."

Listening in class or a seminar presentation has always just come naturally for me--I've always seen it as a matter of being polite and treating others how you'd like to be treated. I know that I'd feel demoralised if I were giving a talk and the audience was sleeping or texting or passing notes, etc. Public speaking is daunting enough without a disengaged peanut gallery for an audience. During these talks, I'm usually too busy looking at the speaker to notice what others around me are doing, but since my colleague brought it to my attention with his compliment, I had a look around the seminar later that afternoon. To be fair, most people were active listeners--looking at the speaker, taking notes, no looking at phones, etc. But there were some who glazed over, especially near the end of the talk. I'm not saying I was a perfect audience member--I took 1 page of notes about the talk but also jotted down about a page of ideas for the chapter I'm working on at the moment--but I think listening skills in general are undervalued. Maybe it's because they don't think it's rude to do those things, to be a multitasking audience member.     

How do you teach listening skills? Is there something lecturers can do to encourage active listening (apart from just being fascinating speakers), or is it too late by the time these kids get to uni? Is it all down to our multitasking, multiscreen lifestyle that discourages giving your full attention to any single thing? Or can we relearn how to listen, despite the gadgets?

Journalism, Ethics and Student Exchange

The story of BBC Panorama journalists posing as LSE students to get into North Korea has made me think about the way that educational exchange can be used and misused. Students are a "safe" category, considered to be pretty harmless and free of controversy. This good reputation can help students gain access to places, people & things needed for educational purposes. Unfortunately, the guise of "educational purposes" can be used to cover up other uses. The journalists posed as students to gain access to North Korea--despite the fact that the North Korean government does allow Western journalists to get a journalist visa (no doubt it demands more paperwork and time, but it does exist). By lying about their status, they endangered the students who travelled with them, the North Korean tour guides, and damaged the reputation of the BBC, LSE, and Western journalists in general. For a paranoid country like North Korea, this act just reinforced all of their fears. 

I think that what upsets me most is the fact they were from the BBC. Putting aside the huge fact that the BBC is publicly funded, the BBC is considered to be the standard bearer for journalism & ethical practices. When stories about wiretapping and hacking come out, it's Murdoch, not the BBC, behind it. The Jimmy Savile cover-up damaged the BBC's reputation a bit, but it's still a surprise to see stories like this. Have standards fallen at the BBC? And if so, why?

On the other hand, it's possible that both the Savile story and this one were both encouraged in the media, in order to make the BBC look bad on purpose. The Conservatives don't like the BBC or the NHS, and even though they are stuck with both institutions due to overwhelming public support, they're not happy about it.  Stories like this one, and NHS-related scandals, are the only way they can chip away at these institutions, because they diminish public support.

Maggie's Legacy

Margaret Thatcher's death has been all over the news here in Britain. It's amazing how fast the media gets saturated--I found out on Facebook in the early afternoon, and all of the news sites already had the story on the front page. By 8:30pm, BBC One was showing a special about her. I wonder how long they've been putting that together. It must be upsetting to be a friend/relative of an aging celebrity and be asked to contribute to a documentary like this, before they're gone--before they're even ill.

Today the American version of Huffington Post has moved on, but on the UK version Thatcher completely covers the front page with coverage of reactions, reflections on her life, discussions of her legacy, etc. 

For me, as an American and as somebody under the age of 30, I don't feel I can add much to the discussion. I didn't live in 'Thatcher's Britain.' Until I came to the UK, in fact, I didn't know anything about her policies. I knew she was conservative, and had a good friendship with Reagan (who my firmly Democratic family actually liked, too), but above all else, I knew that she was the first female Prime Minister.

I can clearly remember being told about Britain as a little girl--age 4 or 5, because it was when we were still living in Missouri--and I remember being in awe of the fact that Britain had a Queen and a female Prime Minister. To a little girl being raised by a divorced mom and older sisters, this fact made Britain seem amazing. As the years went on, I admired Britain for electing a woman, and thought the US couldn't be far behind.   

Now imagine my disappointment when I came to the UK and found out that Thatcher was not a feminist, and that her policies did a lot of damage. She was especially hard on the north, my adopted home. 

In many ways, Thatcher made the UK more like the US--and not in good ways, either. Privatisation is the most obvious example of Americanisation under Thatcher. She privatised British Gas, which is why the utility companies reported record profits last year. She privatised the National Rail and that's why travelling by train on the continent is so much better & cheaper than it is here. Tories don't use public transport, apparently--maybe they don't like to ride amongst the great unwashed. (I kid, I kid...)

One of my loveliest British friends is a very active member of the Conservative party, and a leader in the youth branch Conservative Future. She met Baroness Thatcher at a reception a couple of years ago, and my heart goes out to her at this time. There were people celebrating Thatcher's death in Brixton and Glasgow, and a handful of places across the country last night. I know that must be hard for Thatcher's supporters to see. I'm genuinely sorry for Thatcher's family & friends, because death is painful for those left behind. It must be all the more painful when the media is saturated with it, too. 

Finland Conference

The current main cause of my performance anxiety is this upcoming conference. To be honest, I didn’t know anything about Finland going into this. I’ve only met one Finnish person ever, a friend’s housemate when we were studying in Bath. She was nice, and we shared a mutual interest in Colin Firth, but we really didn’t get to know each other. My knowledge of Finland doesn’t go much beyond its geography—it’s between Russia & Sweden, it has forests & lakes, and looks a bit like Minnesota, where lots of Scandinavians have settled in the US. That’s really about it. My grandmother was Swedish—close, but no cigar.

Since I heard that there was going to be a conference there in my field, with some big name keynotes, I’ve been learning more than I ever wanted to know about Finland. Did you know its public education system is the best in the world? And it’s been rated as the least corrupt country? And Finnish doesn’t use genders for its nouns, but it does have fifteen cases? Amazing facts, all of which are useless when it comes to my actual conference paper and presentation.

My paper was a struggle--I seriously don't think I've worked that hard on writing since my undergrad days. It's very difficult to write about something completely unfamiliar to you. In writing this paper, I went against the classic "write what you know" advice. I went to sections of the library that I'd never used--the Scandinavian section of Modern History for a better understanding of Cold War neutrality, for instance, and Geography for a look at Finnish culture. It was a bit like my undergrad research paper on television in Uzbekistan (fascinating stuff, and even more obscure than this topic).

As a PhD student, you really have it easy when it comes to writing. You get three years to research, write and rehash the same topic over and over again. It's really luxurious, actually, and I've never appreciated it until now. Still, this conference paper has been a good challenge, and it's nice to know I can still blag my way through writing a research paper on something completely unknown...