In support of the writing and publishing goals of UC Berkeley postdocs, visiting scholars, and visiting student researchers, HSSA provides regular opportunities for our members to receive helpful feedback and advice from peers in a friendly and supportive setting. Thanks to the dedication of our volunteer coordinators, the Scholar's Forum has achieved an exceptionally high rate of success in helping participants reach their writing and publication goals.
Meeting Time
Once per month (Schedule for Spring 2023 TBD)
Location
Shared with SF members via email before each meeting.
Invitations & Membership
Invitations to meetings are sent only to Scholar's Forum members via email. Membership is open to all UC Berkeley postdocs, visiting scholars, and visiting student researchers. Contact the co-chairs of the Scholar's Forum to become a member and to be added to the email list.
Want to get more feedback on your writing?
Interested in what and how your peers are writing?
Many of us struggle with similar issues: getting started writing, focus, structure, framing the research, writing style, and moving beyond endless drafts to a submitted version. Many of us would benefit from having a forum that can offer structure and motivation in the writing process, as well as getting input from an interdisciplinary audience on our work before it goes out to more senior colleagues and referees.
To this end, the HSSA has set up a writing workshop called the Scholar's Forum for early career researchers (visiting scholars, postdocs, graduate students, lecturers) in the humanities and social sciences. Each meeting, held weekly for about an hour, will be devoted to your peers providing constructive, encouraging, and friendly criticism on one work intended for publication. The writing can be an early ideas draft, a finished version, or one that is stuck due to some problem (word count, organisation, flow, etc...)
Note: As all leaders and participants are volunteers, you will not receive detailed feedback on English spelling, grammar, and typographic errors. Drafts must be reasonably copyedited before submission.
Become a Member and Join the Meetings!
Send an email to hssa.writing@gmail.com and ask to be added to the email list for the Scholar's Forum. Be sure to look out for emails containing announcements and changes to the schedule and location, as both are subject to change.
How to Present Your Draft to the Scholar's Forum:
After reading and accepting the Expectations for All Presenters (below), send an email to hssa.writing@gmail.com to reserve a time to present your paper.
Requirements for All Presenters:
1) Attend at least one SF session before presenting your own paper and at least three in total
2) Ensure that the total word count for your draft is longer than 3500 words, but shorter than 8000 words
3) Email your paper to the organizers your paper one week before the presentation date
4) Present a brief overview of your paper as scheduled at the time you reserved
5) Provide snacks as a thank you to others for reading your work and providing feedback [Suspended during the COVID-19 crisis]
6) Inform the co-chairs if your presented draft ends up being published
7) Understand and accept that cancelling a presentation less than a month before the reserved presentation time will automatically mean a waiting period of at least three months before being permitted to present again
Selected Peer-Review Articles Published after Being Discussed in the Scholar's Forum
Besemer, S., Rolf Loeber, Stephen P. Hinshaw and Dustin A. Pardini (2016). Bidirectional Associations Between Externalizing Behavior Problems and Maladaptive Parenting Within Parent-Son Dyads Across Childhood. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 1-12. doi:10.1007/s10802-015-0124-6
Gallo, C. a. R. E. (2016). Punishment and Solidarity. Comparing the U.S. And Swedish Victim Movements Reconceptualizing Critical Victimology: Interventions and Possibilities. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books.
Liebermann, W. K. (2016). The Right to Live in the World: Architecture, Inclusion, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. In D. Wendel, and Fallon Samuels Aidoo (Ed.), Spatializing Politics: Essays on Power and Place. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Graduate School of Design.
Liebermann, W. K. (2016). Humanizing Modernism? Jaap Bakema's Het Dorp, a Village for Disabled Citizens. Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 75(2), 158-181.
Stahl, M. (2014). Public, Private, Popular: Pop Performers, Liberalism and the Limits of Rights. MUSICultures, 41(1), 93-114.
Stahl, M. (2015). Tactical destabilization for economic justice: the first phase of the 1984-2004 rhythm & blues royalty reform movement. Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property, 5(3), 344-363.
Stamm, I. K. (2016). Coordination Tasks and Negotiation Modes of Linked Lives in Entrepreneurial Families. Journal of Marriage and Family, 78(4), 939-956. doi:10.1111/jomf.12304