Tag: academic publishing

Trade versus Academic Press: Part 2 of Publishing in Academia

Publishing is confusing and complicated. There are often barriers to understanding it fully. And the process is very rarely fully transparent. So, I’m sharing my experiences of the publishing process, and talk about why I, as a PhD student in STS, chose to go with a trade publisher over an academic one when my book went to auction. This is Part 2 of a series on publishing in academia. In Part 1 of this series I describe how I got my agent, and discuss whether or not academics need agents. (read more...)

Do Academics Need Agents?: Part 1 of Publishing in Academia

Publishing is confusing and complicated. There are often barriers to understanding it fully. And the process is very rarely fully transparent. So, I’m sharing my experiences of the publishing process, how I got my agent, and discuss whether or not academics need agents. “Do Academics Need Agents?” is Part 1 of a series on publishing in academia. In Part 2 of this series, I talk about why I, as a PhD student in STS, chose to go with a trade publisher over an academic one when my book went to auction. (read more...)

Spotlight! “Global STS: Transnational Network Building – Asia, Oceania, and Beyond” hosted by the STS Futures Initiative

This week as part of our “ReAssembling Asias through Science” series, we would like to highlight an event held by the STS Futures Initiative last month. This panel (whose second part is forthcoming this fall) brought together a range of academics and graduate students to engage substantively with what might be termed a ‘global turn’ in STS scholarship, characterized by a greater attention to knowledge production and scientific practices outside of Europe and North America. Interested in both the theoretical possibilities of, as well as the practical aspects and skills necessary for transnational network building, the panel raised a range of questions around the possibilities for and challenges inherent to collaborative research and forms of decolonial practice and knowledge production across institutional and national contexts. As moderator Dr. Kathleen Gutierrez put it in her opening remarks, “Who is doing the work? And more importantly, who is building the networks with other STS inclined scholars in the world areas in which we work?” . (read more...)

Shifting Fields of Academic Publishing

I’ve been thinking about academic publishing lately. Some of that is related to being in the middle of Michigan State University’s tenure process. It also has to do with having chaired an ad-hoc committee to revise my department’s annual review process. It also has a bit to do with Issue 30.1 of the journal Cultural Anthropology (CA) being released last week. Since graduate school, I have wandered the borderlands between Anthropology, Game Studies and Science and Technology Studies. I’ve been (somewhat oddly sometimes) employed by “communication” colleges of various sorts, in part due to Game Studies having found its most disciplinary home in such locations. But I think most importantly it has put me in conversation with a variety of approaches to and perspectives on what academic scholarly activity should/ought/might look like. Add to this my work as a game designer/developer and conversations within the institutions I inhabit how those materials should/ought to/might be evaluated. (read more...)