I probably DO know people who have switched mid-postgrad progress, but I'm not sure. I can ask around. I'm not sure if the TA who talked me into studying Portugal had started out studying Estonia (his family is Estonian, and Stalin made his grandfather disappear...), but I get the feeling that wasn't always his plan. I know a lot of people shift focus while staying in the same geographic region, though. That seems to happen a lot all throughout people's careers. Probably the only thing that holds people back from switching geographically is the language barrier. Right now, I am only able to study English, German, and Portuguese speaking countries in earnest. I'd love to look at political Catholicism in Romania and Hungary, but there's no way I can just pick up Hungarian, and I tried and failed reading Romanian :P At least I've got Iberia and Austria, and I think I'll try to pick up Italian once in grad school.
I know the feeling, I was the same way about my thesis when I completed it. Good luck with the meeting on Tuesday!
Thanks for answering my question! I've also had a prof or two who switched focus while staying within the same geographical region but yeah, I can't think of anyone who's switched regions altogether. That makes sense regarding the language issue though, it'd be pretty mad to switch from Slavic to Romance language depending on where you switch to. I'm just wondering because I'm thinking about whether I'm going on to do my postdoc and am playing with the idea of maybe switching geographic regions xD
Looking into Romania and Hungary sounds really cool; I wish I had studied more Eastern/Central European history during my undergrad. Hehe, it's funny that you mentioned Italian, I'm actually planning on continuing my Italian shortly (as soon as I contact the cultural institute here and figure out how it will fit in amidst my job search).
I asked in a group for historians about switching, and one professor there said this:
"While I do not know of someone who has done so, there is no reason why one should be “stuck” in one region’s history because of one’s MA work. If there’s a language requirement in making a shift, that can be remedied by intensive language study.
"I started studying Latin when I began my master’s and, while I had years of Spanish and one year of French, learning it wasn’t a piece of cake. I passed my reading exam in classical Latin for the MA, then dove into medieval Latin for the Ph.D. I wouldn’t recommend picking up an entirely new language for the Ph.D unless one has some facility for learning languages, but it’s not an insurmountable obstacle."
Other people noted somewhat minor linguistically but vastly different culturally shifts, like Anglo-Canadian to aboriginal studies or American to British history.
Where are you thinking of making the shift to? If you've got Italian and Russian under your belt, there are a lot of options (Russian covers a lot, obviously, but it wouldn't be too hard to pick up Ukrainian or Belorussian, while Italian will translate well to Spanish, Portuguese, Romansh, and French).
Sorry for the late reply but thanks for posting those comments up, they're quite encouraging =)
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure to what field of history I'd be shifting over to (hence why I'm pondering on this very carefully; it might just be remnants of my "I'm-fed-up-with-academia" feeling that I experienced a few weeks ago). I thought about going back to British history or moving to Spanish or Italian history. Or I was thinking of doing a comparative involving Russian/Soviet and Spanish. I'm just feeling a little doubtful about moving on to my postdoc in Russian/Soviet history with the particular topic and fields that I've focused on (national identity, namely) alone because it really goes into the realm of the abstract a lot of the time.
Thank you again for your input and for looking into it, I really appreciate it! I guess with my program being done and with the benefit of some hindsight, I can start thinking of these things more plausibly, lol.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1GIL9lL-wfMi4tBANcv9w87zBTienQ3F-UlUpRc8gFKg/edit?hl=en_US
I probably DO know people who have switched mid-postgrad progress, but I'm not sure. I can ask around. I'm not sure if the TA who talked me into studying Portugal had started out studying Estonia (his family is Estonian, and Stalin made his grandfather disappear...), but I get the feeling that wasn't always his plan. I know a lot of people shift focus while staying in the same geographic region, though. That seems to happen a lot all throughout people's careers. Probably the only thing that holds people back from switching geographically is the language barrier. Right now, I am only able to study English, German, and Portuguese speaking countries in earnest. I'd love to look at political Catholicism in Romania and Hungary, but there's no way I can just pick up Hungarian, and I tried and failed reading Romanian :P At least I've got Iberia and Austria, and I think I'll try to pick up Italian once in grad school.
Reply
Thanks for answering my question! I've also had a prof or two who switched focus while staying within the same geographical region but yeah, I can't think of anyone who's switched regions altogether. That makes sense regarding the language issue though, it'd be pretty mad to switch from Slavic to Romance language depending on where you switch to. I'm just wondering because I'm thinking about whether I'm going on to do my postdoc and am playing with the idea of maybe switching geographic regions xD
Looking into Romania and Hungary sounds really cool; I wish I had studied more Eastern/Central European history during my undergrad. Hehe, it's funny that you mentioned Italian, I'm actually planning on continuing my Italian shortly (as soon as I contact the cultural institute here and figure out how it will fit in amidst my job search).
Reply
"While I do not know of someone who has done so, there is no reason why one should be “stuck” in one region’s history because of one’s MA work. If there’s a language requirement in making a shift, that can be remedied by intensive language study.
"I started studying Latin when I began my master’s and, while I had years of Spanish and one year of French, learning it wasn’t a piece of cake. I passed my reading exam in classical Latin for the MA, then dove into medieval Latin for the Ph.D. I wouldn’t recommend picking up an entirely new language for the Ph.D unless one has some facility for learning languages, but it’s not an insurmountable obstacle."
Other people noted somewhat minor linguistically but vastly different culturally shifts, like Anglo-Canadian to aboriginal studies or American to British history.
Where are you thinking of making the shift to? If you've got Italian and Russian under your belt, there are a lot of options (Russian covers a lot, obviously, but it wouldn't be too hard to pick up Ukrainian or Belorussian, while Italian will translate well to Spanish, Portuguese, Romansh, and French).
Reply
To be honest, I'm not entirely sure to what field of history I'd be shifting over to (hence why I'm pondering on this very carefully; it might just be remnants of my "I'm-fed-up-with-academia" feeling that I experienced a few weeks ago). I thought about going back to British history or moving to Spanish or Italian history. Or I was thinking of doing a comparative involving Russian/Soviet and Spanish. I'm just feeling a little doubtful about moving on to my postdoc in Russian/Soviet history with the particular topic and fields that I've focused on (national identity, namely) alone because it really goes into the realm of the abstract a lot of the time.
Thank you again for your input and for looking into it, I really appreciate it! I guess with my program being done and with the benefit of some hindsight, I can start thinking of these things more plausibly, lol.
Reply
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