Author: Edward Mills
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Extra-curricular activities, or ‘doing things that aren’t the PhD’
During my first week as an undergraduate, we were all packed into a hall and spoken to by various people in various positions of authority. Most of what was discussed that day has long faded from my memory, whether through lack of necessity or as a consequence of my brain’s sieve-like tendencies, but one piece…
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Office space
Last year, while I was working in France, I had the privilege of having an office. This was the first time that I’d ever really had that kind of resource available to me, and I certainly didn’t hesitate to make full use of it. There’s something reassuring about having a space on campus that is…
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Teaching, Part Two (and Gilbert & Sullivan)
It probably won’t come as a surprise to regular readers of this blog (all one of you – hello, mum …) that I’ve been keeping myself fairly busy over the past few weeks. In fact, I’m currently writing this during an orchestra rehearsal for Exeter University Gilbert and Sullivan Society’s production of Ruddigore – book your…
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Real-life meetings and digital humanities
It’s been, as usual, a busy few weeks here in Exeter, as things start to settle down in PGR-land. I’m writing this just after my third supervisor’s meeting, which went rather well: having produced a 3,000-word ‘way in’ to my thesis, my focus is now on entering the longer ‘background-reading-and-ruminating’ stage. Of course, I’ll still…
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Responsible adult supervision
It’s been three weeks since the start of the PhD, and things are starting to come together. The disparate mental maps I have of different parts of town are starting to coalesce together into a coherent whole; I’ve found a pleasant spot in which to work (surely the subject of a future post!); and, perhaps…
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Inductions and introductions
At long last, the start of term has arrived, and with it has come the inevitable volley of meetings, talks and Q&A sessions that characterizes the start of any new academic enterprise. Thursday was ‘induction day’, when our ever-so-slightly-nervous cohort of new PGR (postgraduate research) students from all disciplines filed into the Alumni Auditorium to meet…
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Learning / teaching
The arrival of the Freshers over the weekend has certainly brought some life back to the Streatham campus here at Exeter. As I’ve said several times over the past few days, this year is technically my fifth ‘Fresher’s Week’, so I’m used to the noise and commotion as every single one of the university societies…
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I made a thing!
Apologies for the lack of a post last week – arriving in Exeter has been something of an adventure (and one that will certainly get its own blog post in due course!). I haven’t been inactive in the blogosphere, though: one of my projects over the past week has been producing a short little piece on…
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What exactly is ‘Anglo-Norman’?
As obvious as it may seem, every PhD project needs constraints: this mantra extends even to the apparently-arcane field of ‘medieval French literature’. At first glance, the alterity of the field, both in its temporal distance from us and in its language, may appear to suffice in this respect: surely ‘it’s medieval, and it’s in…
Edward Mills 