South Asia Workshop: Transforming your dissertation into a book

Workshop: Transforming your dissertation into a book

Sponsored by AIIS and other SA regional organizations

Sponsored by the several organizations devoted to the study of South Asia, this workshop aims to help a select number of recent PhDs re-vision their doctoral dissertations as books.  Applications to participate are due by JULY 1, 2015, emailed to Susan S. Wadley, sswadley@syr.edu. Participants must arrange their own transport to Madison, Wisconsin for the Annual Conference  on South Asia in October. The workshop will begin at 7 pm Wednesday evening, Oct. 21 and continue all day Thursday, Oct. 22. We would like all participants present for the Wed. evening session. 

For selection: Required is an email containing a current cv; the dissertation abstract, its table of contents, and its first chapter plus a draft book prospectus. Email to sswadley@syr.edu by midnight on July 1, 2015.

Senior Faculty Participants:  Susan S. Wadley, Syracuse), Convener;; Geraldine Forbes, SUNY-Oswego; Joyce Flueckiger, Emory; Lindsey Harlan, Conn. College; Anand Yang, U. Washington, others tba. Our role is to read the materials prior to the meeting and be prepared to intervene and comment, “in the background” primarily, though with key interventions as needed.

Organization:

Wednesday evening:

7-9 Introductions plus discussion by one or two recent successful authors of the transformation process. We hope to have a representative of a press present as well to talk about what publishers are looking for.

Thursday ALL DAY

Thursday morning is divided into half-hour segments for discussion of the projects).  For each half-hour session, one participant will have been assigned to make a 5 minute presentation of someone else's project—preferably how that individual would revise the dissertation, and the key themes to be emphasized.  During the remaining 25 minutes of that session, all of the other participants join in discussing the project -- except the project's author, who is not allowed to speak.  The author of the project under discussion can only listen, take notes, even record, how their project is being understood, mis-understood, stretched, queried, and critiqued by knowledgeable peers with closely related interests, but working in varying theoretical perspectives, disciplines, time periods, etc.  

On Thursday afternoon, each participant is given a longer minute time slot to respond to the more important queries, issues, and suggestions raised in the morning, and, most important, to seek feedback or further discussion of areas of their projects with which they recognize they are having difficulty. 

Conversations can carry over into Friday and Saturday at the South Asia Conference!

You are required to register for the Conference.  You will receive a breakfast and snacks Thurs., a dinner Thurs. night, but no other funding.