Your Perspective: to PhD or not to PhD?

Monday 17 October 2022 from 17:15 to 19:00

Can’t get enough of research? And are you an advanced Humanities student (BA or MA) at the UU who is considering to pursue a career in academics? Join us on October 17! [registration closed]

This event is aimed at advanced Humanities students (BA and/or MA) and recent alumni of the Faculty of Humanities at UU, who are considering to pursue a career in academics, and are interested to find out more about (the path to) PhD-positions and the career perspectives that follow afterwards. What does it take to become successful and what steps can you take during your studies and immediately after graduation? And do you have what it takes to pursue an academic career? Find out, and more…

Programme

Speakers will include current PhD candidates, research coordinator, promotors etc who will tell you about their experiences, and you can ask any question.

Speakers

Josephine Pascoe

Josephine is a Ph.D. candidate within the NWO-VIDI project “Shaping Our Action Space: A Situated Perspective on Self-Control”, working under the supervision of Annemarie Kalis and Miguel Segundo Ortin. Her research interests revolve around the issues of how social and cultural factors shape and influence our cognition and the nature of human normative behaviors; they include situated cognition, the evolution and development of coordination and cooperation, and moral psychology. Her aim within the project is to develop a situated account of self-control that highlights its social and linguistic aspects. In particular, she is exploring the idea that narrativity is, first and foremost, an exercise of agency, rather than an identity-defining activity. Josephine obtained her MA at Radboud University in 2020.

Bjorn Beijnon

Bjorn is an UU-alumn and a PhD candidate at the University of Amsterdam. He is working on a project investigating what role digital platforms play in the process of shaping the subjectivity of their users. Through the formalisation of surveillance platforms in users’ media ecologies, tech companies might not only have become able to quantify users’ attention and interactions, but they could also have become able to perform a new kind of subjectification: digital subjectification through data-driven decision-making systems that have emerged as powerful agents in users’ media ecologies. Exemplary is the blurring of truth and falsity in online conspiracy communities on platforms: steering users’ attention through facilitating the production of (disordered) information is turning platforms into controlled spaces in which subjectivity can be governed. Beside the ways in which platforms steer users’ subjectivity, this project also investigates how platforms are also spaces of resistance. Through depersonalized search results and the blocking of trackers, resistant practices against big tech companies demonstrate that digital subjectification is also driven by the ways in which people decide to use platforms in their media ecologies.

Using cultural analysis in building a conceptual framework and media ethnography in examining two case studies, this project evaluates, on the one hand, how the blurring of truth and falsity shapes subjective realities in the case of Flat Earth communities on Facebook, while, on the other hand, it examines how resistant practices by DuckDuckGo users could also be part of a process of digital subjectification. Overall, this project addresses the following main research question: how do digital platforms subjectify their users?

Bjorn started his academic career with a Bachelor’s Degree in Theatre, Film and Television StudiesBachelor’s Degree, Theatre, Film and Television Studies in which he specialized the transion of the boundaries of media. He was also part of the Young Innovator, creating a ‘Transition Lab’ with the help of the Province Utrecht. During his Research Master in Media and Performance Studies he specialised in the interdisciplinary study of embodied, enactive cognition and media studies and studied a semester abroad at Sungkyunkwan University (Interaction Science). After graduation, he lectured a lot: in media studies (e.g. film history, television history and Virtual Reality) to elderly in care and nursing homes in the regions of Amsterdam, Utrecht and Nijmegen, in the bachelorprogramme ‘Media and Culture’ and ‘Communication and Information Studies’ at Utrecht University and at HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht (Hogeschool Utrecht) in the programme ‘Creative Business’ (aka ‘International Communication & Media’). He co-chaired the PhD Counsil of the Research School for Media Studies and advised on the development of the education program and coming up with new workshops, lectures, master classes and other research activities for the PhD and RMa members of RmeS. In his time off (…) he was responsible for the organization of a local political party in Den Bosch!

Selin Dilli

Selin is an Assistant Professor of Economic History at Utrecht Unversity responsible for the guidance of PhD students thoughout their process.

Her expertise is on the global economic history of institutions and their consequences for gender inequality, entrepreneurship and inclusive growth. She is an interdisciplinary scholar combining social science theories and methods with a historical lens. Currently, Selin serves as the History board member of the interdisciplinary (PPE) bachelor programme, coordinate PPE students’ professional and interdisciplinary skills training and manage two educational (re-)design projects on how to teach these skills at PPE.

She is also the principal investigator of the NWO-Veni project “The Missing Entrepreneurs? The Diversity of Female Entrepreneurship in Europe, 1900-2020”. In this project, she studies three key research questions about female entrepreneurship: 1) What barriers women face(d) when they start and run a business; 2) If and how these barriers change, and 3) How women’s solutions to these constraints change over time.

Previously, Selin has been working for GAK Research FellowGAK Research Fellow at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIAS-KNAW) and as an Assistant Professor Of Economics at RUG/Campus Fryslân. Once, she was a PhD herself, at Utrecht University (dissertation: “A Historical Perspective on Gender Inequality and Development in the World Economy, c. 1850-2000”) after she did her bachelor in Sociology at Middle East (Ankara) Technical University and a masters degree at Utrecht University in Sociology and Social Research.

David Snetselaar

David is a PhD Candidate at Utrecht University and the Netherlands Defense Academy in Breda. In Utrecht, David works at the History of International Relations Department and in Breda he is part of the War Studies Research Centre. David is also an affiliated researcher at the Intimacies of Remote Warfare Program.

A trained conflict analyst with a background in Anthropology, David is fascinated by the developments in contemporary conflict and has a keen interest in security. Specifically, David is interested in how shifting perceptions of war and insecurity shape state policies and security practices. Topics of interest include hybrid threats, gray-zone challenges, knowledge security, economic security, disinformation, critical infrastructure protection, and resilience. By studying such timely and topical subject matter, David seeks to contribute to an informed and balance debate, both in and outside of academia.

David did a master in Conflict Studies and Human Rights (Thesis: Remote Warfare: Remote Justice? An assemblage approach to civil society in an age of remote warfare) and bachelor in Cultural Anthropology (Thesis: The Struggle for Equality: Notions of citizenship in Guatemala and South Africa), both at Utrecht University.

Tom Gerritsen

As research coordinator of the Research Institute for History and Art History (OGK), Tom Gerritsen is the first person of contact for researchers for all research-related questions. As coordinator, he supports the director of the research institute in policy matters, in quality assurance of PhD projects and in keeping an overview of externally funded research projects. He works closely with the staff of the Research Support Office and the faculty research policy officers.

Thinking of submitting a research proposal? Do you have questions about an ongoing research project or a PhD project? About the publication system PURE? About the research policy and budget? For all these questions and for all other questions related to research: join Tom October 17th!

Dr. Simone Veld

Simone is PhD mentor at the Graduate School of the Faculty of Humanities. PhD candidates can ask her for coaching and advice.

She advises PhD candidates at the Faculty for Humanities about issues like:

are you having a hard time planning your work and meeting your deadlines?
do you suffer from fear of failure, perfectionism or insecurity?
do you often feel stressed or overwhelmed at work?
do you and your supervisor not get along very well?

She is a qualified coach and can provide you with the coaching that you need to be able to reach your goals with less effort while experiencing more joy.

Downloads and further reading

Download some of the material we shared during previous events:

Some articles and books worth reading:

And some information on PhD opportunities at UU:

Start date and time: 17 October 2022 - 17:15
End date and time: 17 October 2022 - 19:00
Registration: Registration is closed.
More information: Your Perspective

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