There’s joke among fellow researchers that mocks the interest others have in their PhD thesis – a sustained piece of writing and investigation that cements a pathway into the academic world. When submitting a hardbound copy to the university library, authors are advised to slip a $50 note into the pages of their work. If, in twenty or so year’s time, the money is still there, they will know that no one has even looked at it. While this might give rise to further laughter in the digital age, email, Google, forums and Adobe are making the research of many more accessible than ever before.Continue reading “Research Pathways and the Humble PDF”
Category Archives: Research
Netti Custom Race Kit
One of the catch 22’s of mountain bike racing in Australia, is that sponsored riders are often riding around in poorer quality kit than enthusiast riders. The reasons for this are mostly due to factors like minimum order numbers, cost, manufacturing times and that the people who are doing the ordering aren’t necessarily the ones doing the racing. Fortunately, with a bigger range of affordable companies offering custom kit runs, things are starting to change.
PhDONE!
3.6 years*
85,000 words
260 pages
95 footnotes
2 laptops
3 iPods (2 were free, how good is that?!)Continue reading “PhDONE!”
PhD Study: That Other Enduro…
There’s something about writing a PhD that makes people around you fidget, then ask, “Is it OK if I, um, ask, um, how it’s going?” It surprises me that postgrad students are a culture of people that make the people around them feel like that. And it surprises me even more that people sign up to a three or four year project and accept the fact that they’re going to feel horrible and anxious a lot of the time.Continue reading “PhD Study: That Other Enduro…”
2011 ADSA Conference
This year’s Australasian Association for Theatre Drama and Performance Studies (ADSA) Conference, “Transcultural. Transnational. Transformation: seeing, writing and reading performance across cultures” kicks off at Monash University in Melbourne this Tuesday. I’m looking forward to hearing about the recent work of other performance and theatre studies researchers and feeling the conference buzz.
I’m presenting a short paper on mountain bikers’ senses of place as part of a phenomenology panel. If you’re interested, the abstract is below.
A sense of place, a sense of self, a sense of something else.
How does a transcultural, multi-placial performance practice manifest in an experience of selfhood? Considering mountain bike riders as a culture of mobility, this presentation draws together a series of phenomenological investigations of mountain bike racing to reflect on relations between senses of self and senses of place. Drawing upon Edward Casey’s application of Pierre Bourdieu’s habitus to the place-world, I argue that a deep immersion in performance practice develops a series of skills and strategies that extend beyond distinct place bound experiences into many.
I’ve been requested to write a plain English version of the above:
Riders like to ride in different places. This makes us happy and influences our off-bike life as well. Let’s talk about that…
Kath Bicknell 