TuesDAYS, 5:00-8:00PM

FULL YEAR COURSE. MEETS EVERY OTHER WEEK AT MIT.

This workshop is designed for feminist dissertators from all disciplines and at all stages of the dissertation process. We will combine theories of interdisciplinarity and intersectionality as well as histories of academic writing and its protocols (as well as its secret rules) with practical instruction in how to become better/more comfortable writers and get more writing done. Readings, which will also cover important related topics such as balancing writing and activism, the racial, sexual and gender politics of the academy, the politics of acknowledgement, feminist voice, women’s anger and self-care, will be varied and total approximately 30-35 pages every two weeks. We will work together to both build a supportive community and to break down the process of a dissertation into short, tangible, manageable activities and task; short writing exercises will include practical training in those tasks. Each semester we will workshop writing. 

Participants will be asked to help lead discussion and make short presentations on their ongoing work and writing activities, as well as to keep a writing journal. Participants will also be encouraged to take at least one writing retreat in each semester. This retreat could entail actually going away for a day or more to write. Or it could be as simple as designating a period of hours during which both phone and computer/Wi-fi will be turned off and interruptions will not be permitted, as a way of centering the writing in the participant’s life and schedule and signaling to others (and also to ourselves) that this priority is to be respected. Depending on circumstances, group retreats may be considered. 

Over the course of the year, we will provide guidance on preparing publications, presenting conference papers, and the academic (and non-academic) job market. We will be discussing specific pressures on universities and colleges in the wake of the nation’s overdue racial reckoning, the Covid-19 pandemic and lingering impacts of an anti-intellectual and anti-scientific presidency. Questions for discussion might include how the academy has changed, how it is changing, and what we would like to see it become. We may also discuss the limits and advantages of online learning and teaching, if that is relevant to members. 

The Dissertation Workshop is designed to serve the needs of its participants. Hence, the syllabus is a flexible one, open to changes, especially in the second semester, in structure, readings, and assignments. In the first semester we will concentrate our shared writing on the early (sometimes the most difficult) stages of dissertation writing: abstracts or first paragraphs of research proposals. In the spring, we will share full chapters of dissertations. The workshop is open to students at all stages of the dissertation process. The workshop portion of the course will accommodate those in different stages, accordingly. 

Faculty

Carla Kaplan, a professor of English and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, holds the Davis Distinguished Professorship in American Literature and writes on modern, African-American, and women’s history and culture. She has published five books, including the award-winning Miss Anne in Harlem: the White Women of the Black Renaissance (HarperCollins) and Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (Doubleday/Anchor), both New York Times Notable Books, and writes occasionally for such publications as The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Nation. Forthcoming books include Queen of the Muckrakers: the Life of Jessica Mitford, also with HarperCollins and a Norton Critical Edition of Nella Larsen’s Passing. Kaplan founded the Northeastern Humanities Center and has been a resident fellow at numerous humanities centers and institutes, including the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York City Public Library, the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, the W.E.B. DuBois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University, and the Los Angeles Institute for the Humanities. Kaplan has received teaching awards and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and elsewhere. She is a recently elected Fellow of the Society of American Historians.  Kaplan has decades of experience leading writing workshops, was an original editor of the Black Maria collective, and serves as the Editorial Board Chair of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture & Society.