It is time for the May monthly round up on the SGSAH blog – bringing together a collection of blog posts, articles and other stuff that may be of interest to arts & humanities PhD students.

We’ve had a slightly quieter month that usual here on the SGSAH blog while we made some changes to the appearance and functionality of the website, but we still managed to fit in some excellent guest blogposts. Alison Mayne wrote this incredibly useful post on the trials, tribulations and rewards of publishing as a PhD student, Erin Farley wrote a beautiful piece on the role Dundee plays in her research, and, of course, Birdie (the PhD dog) wrote this post on how best to care for a stressed out PhD student. Rebecca Hasler shared some thoughts on what to do when your research becomes topical, and we also had a lovely farewell post from SGSAH director Jude as she moves on to a new job. It is pretty hard to compete with that line up, but I really enjoyed writing about my own research for a change this month, in this post on the role of feminism in my PhD thesis.

Blogs & Podcasts 

• My favourite Pubs & Publications post this month was by Richard Parfitt: Everything They Didn’t Tell Me About Organising A Conference. This piece from Anna Maguire, on the road to thesis submission, is also very helpful and encouraging.
• This post from the Thesis Whisperer covers some similar themes, and could be a very useful read for when the PhD blues get the better of you.
• There have been some fascinating posts on the PGRN blog this month, I particularly liked this by Lucy Hinnie on the challenges of being a medievalist feminist.
• Co-founder of the Scottish History Network Fraser Raeburn recently started his own website/blog showcasing his work as as PhD historian. A great idea for other researchers wanting to showcase their research and writing online.
• The University of Glasgow Researcher Development blog covers the postgraduate experience from all angles. This month’s posts covered such subjects as international student experiences, using social media to your advantage as a PGR, and engaging with politics.
• I’ve had the viva on my mind this week, as I start thinking about submission, examiners, and other joys of final year. A couple of days ago I was recommended the Viva Survivors Podcast, in which Nathan Ryder interviews people about their own viva experiences. I am yet to listen, but it sounds like a brilliant idea! I also came across this handy list of sample viva questions from the Loughborough PhD Social & Support Network.

I’ve given the blogs and podcasts section a subcategory of pirate themed content this month, because I can. I’ve just been seeing pirates everywhere! Why not bring them together into one bundle of pirate-y goodness?

Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718, by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, c. 1920. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

• Pirates have been popping up on all kinds of academic/archive blogs. The National Archives blog introduced us to Grace O’Malley, Ireland’s pirate queen, while Jstor reminded us that Women Were Pirates Too. 
• Historian Rebecca Simon went to see the new Pirates of the Caribbean film and wrote this brilliant review (so that we don’t have to go see it!)
• It was reported in The Guardian this week that ‘an amateur historian has unearthed compelling evidence that the first Australian maritime foray into Japanese waters was by convict pirates on an audacious escape from Tasmania almost two centuries ago.’ How could you not read on? 
• How many pirate themed blog posts are too many? The answer is that there cannot be too many when they have titles like ‘The Lady Pirate Who Terrorized Her Way to the Good Life’. 
• Pirates were also the subject of the brilliant This American Life podcast at the start of the month. My favourite part was the story of Stede Bonnet, an early eighteenth-century nobleman ‘who woke up one day and decided that his new life goal was to become a pirate’. We’ve all been there, Stede.

CFPS & Opportunities 

• Geographies of World History Graduate Conference, 30 September 2017, University of Cambridge. Deadline 16 June.

•  Women’s Suffrage and Political Activism: A conference to commemorate the Centenary of the 1918 Reform Act. Saturday February 3rd 2018, Murray Edwards College, Cambridge. Deadline 30 October 2017. Someone please go to this one for me?

• The Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the Battlefields, and the commemoration of the Great War. A conference for PhD students and early career researchers. Deadline 8 June.
• ARMACAD have a comprehensive list of CFPS on their website. I particularly liked the sound of this, on The Senses and the Construction of Gender.
• Call for Applications: Paid Editorial Fellowships at History Workshop Online. Deadline 30 June.
• Two upcoming First World War CFPS to keep an eye out for: 1918-2018 at the University of Wolverhampton (with a pretty impressive line-up of keynotes already in place), and this on the FWW Home Front at the University of St Andrews. 

Events & Projects

• There is still time to sign up for some of the fantastic workshops at the SGSAH Summer School! (But quick, the spaces are filling up fast)
• The Kelvingrove Review and eSharp are throwing a launch party for their new issues this evening! The programme includes speakers, performances, food, drink and merriment. Sign up here.
• I’m looking forward to giving a paper at the SGSAH ‘Stuff of Research’ Material Culture symposium next month. While the day is sold out, there are limited spaces for the keynote lecture by Prof Ivan Gaskell, brilliantly titled “A firm hand on the Lobster. Other People’s Things and How to Get Hold of Them.”

Articles, News Stories & Other Stuff

• This has been a pretty tough month for a lot of people, so please do remember to practice good self care and give yourselves a break now and again. I was so incredibly sad to hear the news of the passing of Grace McDermott, co-founder of the brilliant Women are Boring blog, at the start of this month. Women are Boring do an amazing job in promoting and celebrating the research carried out by women in all different fields of academia and beyond. They are understandably on a little hiatus right now, but there is a whole archive of articles to catch up on. The blog has filled a void and the networks they have formed on social media are admirable. (I am part of their Facebook forum and it is a safe, supportive and incredibly well-informed space). I did not know Grace but it is not hard to tell that she will be missed by very many people. I’d like to thank her and her co-founder Catherine Connolly for everything they have done.

That’s it for this month. We have some exciting guest posts lined up for the next few weeks, and then I’ll be back at the end of June with another round up. If you’d like to write a guest post for us, or have any links you’d like us to share, please do get in touch! lucie.whitmore@sgsah.ac.uk