My dissertation made me discover quite a number of archives in Europe (especially the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Austria, and Germany). Something that I wish somebody would have told me before is the temperature in the archives. Depending on the archive, it varies A LOT. I want to draw your attention to this helpful list compiled by Megan Cook.

Thank you, Carla. I have gotten similar advice from a former Professor once: “Take a break when the writing is going well.” It sounds counterintuitive, but it actually helps me to stay motivated.

When I was a student, a scholar told me an incredibly simple strategy that has helped me so much. I used to work on my dissertation for hours, then stop when I was feeling blocked and figure that I would sort it out the next day. The problem is that the next day I might still be feeling blocked. This scholar said that each day, when he stopped…[Read more]

I was thinking about this again yesterday. I’m going to take a guess that the educational divisions of arts organizations are going to be the most stable units with respect to employment, because those efforts can continue even when the venue itself is closed.

Thank you for the suggestion, Barbara! I have found a similar app for my Iphone (called Flora) and love it. I have also found writing sessions with a friend/colleague to be very helpful. You set a time/date to meet on Zoom (or whichever program you prefer) and then we just write in silence together, checking in at predetermined intervals to keep…[Read more]

Blogs might suggest some answers? https://blog.americansforthearts.org/

I’m curious about the outlook for careers in theater administration, given the pandemic. I’ve noticed layoffs and cancellations of job searches. Any sense of which areas of theater admin might recover soonest?

Another suggestion for Kristin Bezio: sometimes, university libraries are willing to foot the bill for a faculty member or graduate student at that university to order a scanned reproduction of one or more documents, so long as you promise to deposit it in the library collection once you have finished using it. You might see whether there are…[Read more]

Three posts came in while we were still in the process of setting up this discussion topic. Pasting them in here.

From Kristin Bezio:

“At some point, I need access to an MS at the British Library that isn’t part of their digital collection… not sure how I’m going to accomplish that!”

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Reply from Stephen Merriam Foley:

“I was pleas…[Read more]