Tag Archives: being human

Feeling English, Thinking Teaching: Language Workshops in Calcutta

Over the last four weeks, I have had the great pleasure of being invited to conduct English language and theatre workshops at Union Chapel School in Calcutta.

I teach two groups of students in the fifteen to sixteen year age group, all of whom have a first language background in either Hindi or Bengali (Hindi is the national language of India, and Bengali is the language of the state of West Bengal). When I asked my students how they related to English – and if they felt that they were dealing with a foreign language, I got some interesting answers. Read More »

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View from Calcutta: Indian universities and the UK

Over the next few blogs I will seek to provide an overview of the educational climate in India, and the extent to which international alliances are changing or are likely to change the university experience .

Why are British universities seeking to find a presence in India?

The Indian government has plans to increase the number of university goers from a current 12 per cent of the population to 30 per cent. In plain terms this works out to a present university student population of 12 million, and a projected increase to 30 million.

I want to present a side to the global impact of the ongoing changes in the Indian university system that is seldom seen in the media.

That is, what is the university experience in India from the point of view of the student and the lecturer?

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Let’s Talk: Dr. Ritu Mahendru on Networking and Cultural Mobility

Ritu: I maintain an extensive professional network through writing, reading and research. I make prospective employers aware of my work and establish a continuing dialogue to contribute significantly towards health, social research and policy. This also helps me to find and select the kinds of projects I am keen to work on.

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Let’s Talk: Meeting Dr. Ritu Mahendru

Let’s Talk resumes its interview series with higher education professionals, and is delighted to welcome Dr. Ritu Mahendru. Ritu has a PhD in Sociology from the University of Kent (2010) and authored the book: “Young People’s Perceptions of Gender, Risk and AIDS: A comparative analysis of India and the UK (2010).

First off, many congratulations on completing your doctorate in Sociology. Would you like to comment on your early career experiences now that you’ve got it under your belt? What are your career plans, and what do you think of the present job market in the UK and outside it? Read More »

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After your PhD: Making Good Publication Decisions

Publication – yes, but in what form and with whom? I was approached shortly after being awarded my doctorate by a company that wanted to publish my thesis. However, they did not have a peer review process.

How do you find the right publisher and the right audience for your work? Who will hold the copyright and for how long? How long will it take to appear in print?

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After the Riots: Your Inner Polymath

In my previous post I mentioned the MacTaggart lecture delivered in Edinburgh last week by Eric Schmidt who is the chairman of Google, in the same breath that I expressed my individual questions and distress in response to the rioting we have witnessed so recently.

It may seem strange to link the two things but I hope it will become clear why I am.

As reported in The Guardian last Saturday Mr. Schmidt said, “Over the past century the UK has stopped nurturing its polymaths. You need to bring art and science back together.”
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Let’s Talk: Shaping Your Thesis for Publication

I began this blog with a short post on “Getting Published” http://www.jobs.ac.uk/blogs/language-and-literature/2011/04/27/let%E2%80%99s-talk-getting-published/. In that post I discussed the basic principles of why and how we as collective knowledge builders undertake this central scholarly activity. Today I would simply like to share some of my personal experiences of the difficult process of shaping a short 7000-8000 word article from my 95,000 word plus PhD thesis.

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