My wife and I are fully vaxxed but the toddler was deemed a close contact to someone in her daycare that tested positive for Covid. And she's now showing symptoms. This isn't great. So remember that this "pandemic of the unvaccinated" includes kids.
How to write an academic paper in 4 steps:
Draft 1: "[X] is completely ignored in the literature."
Draft 2: "[X] is virtually ignored in the literature."
Draft 3: "While [X] has been studied in the literature..."
Draft 4: "This paper builds on a growing literature on [X]..."
Finally tried to bury an Easter egg in my syllabus this fall but, unfortunately, a clever student found it, and now she has my 403(b), power of attorney, and shared parental rights over my daughter.
Our Thanksgiving turkey arrived at 8PM last night. Meet Zahina and her lovely head of hair!
@jennortegren
was a total champ, and both baby and mom are doing great.
Me at an economics conference: So here is my OLS model.
Economists: You are so cute!
Me at a humanities conference: So here is my OLS model.
Humanists: A religiosity 'score'? What is this, witchcraft?
Colleague in India: (takes my passport) "Ah, a US passport. The most powerful passport in the world."
Me: "That's true. Also, I carry it around with me in the US now to avoid being detained."
IR theorists please help, have made several threats re: baby's behavior but she has called my bluff on all of them what do I do next to remain a great power?
Wife, on phone with Asian restaurant: "Can we get it spicy?"
Proprietor: "Sure."
Me: (grabbing phone) "She's white, I'm from India, I mean for real for real spicy."
Proprietor: "Ohhh yes."
My CV:
1. Published articles
2. Articles under review
3. Works-in-progress
4. Have title and abstract
5. Debates I had with a colleague that are v. promising
6. Pub talk
7. Dreams I have yet to interpret
Hey how about a two-body *solution* for once? Starting this fall, I'll be an Assistant Professor at
@Middlebury
with my wife! We are incredibly lucky.
I'm very sad to leave my amazing colleagues and students at
@UCRiverside
...but it's time to head home to the beast coast!
Dear students --
You don't have to apologize for "bothering me" when you email me about issues related to the course. This is my job. And I like my job!
-- Your professor
Political science conference, c. 2019 --
Me: spends 20 minutes talking about ethnographic fieldwork, survey design, sampling, enumeration, and overcoming myriad problems during fieldwork in India.
Audience member: This is only observational data, right?
Haven't had an "excited to announce" in a while, but I just won a fellowship at the Woodrow Wilson Center in D.C. next year to work on my book on Hinduism and politics in India!
The year is 2020. Other nations are experimenting with universal basic income, biometrics, and ending the use of fossil fuels. America is debating voting rights.
Indian hospitality: in 2008 I was going to visit Delhi. My dad said, "I have a cousin there, he'll show you around." And he did. When I asked him, "When did you last see my dad?" he replied, "I hadn't talked to him in over 20 years." Still dropped everything to show me Delhi.
Reviewers killing me cause my study of Hindu religiosity and political behavior is based on observational data and therefore cannot be causal. My dudes, tell me how to randomize Hinduism and I will be eternally grateful! 🙏🏾
Remember to get enough groceries for several weeks, but don't hoard, wear a mask, which are all sold out, and if you have symptoms, get tested, BTW there are no tests.
I've learned so much about India over the past decade plus, so I'm excited to share some of the knowledge I've accrued. Five tips on avoiding Indian families stuffing you with way too much food. I learned these the hard way:
Today I woke up an Associate Professor! I feel so unburdened now, ready to say all the things I've always wanted to say but couldn't without the adequate protections. So here goes...all my research is made up. I've never even been to India!
Me in my 20s --
Doctor: How'd you hurt your shoulder?
Me: Lifting weights brah!
Me in my 30s --
Doctor: How'd you hurt your shoulder?
Me: Scooping ice cream that was still frozen.
Me: Tuesday is my really long work day.
Mom: When do you teach?
Me: 8-9:30, then 10-1.
Dad: So 8-1?
Me: (pause) Well, technically yes, but --
Dad: Your long work day is 5 hours?
Me: No, I mean, wait a second...
#academia
#academictwitter
Today I'm trying the Pomodoro Technique for the first time. And it's working! I write uninterrupted for 30 minutes and then cry for 7 straight minutes.
#AcWri
#WritingCommuntiy
My wife just told me about something called a "yes day" where you say yes to your kids all day long -- WTF is that I told her in India we had "no life" where your parents say no to everything for your whole life.
As a political scientist interested in history, I'm like: no I don't have a paper on COVID in India because I'm still trying to understand the Mughals and they showed up 500 years ago.
Good news: I just submitted my tenure file! Immediately got an email back from the Board of Trustees at Princeton saying, "Our records show you are not employed here." Goddamn these Ivies are elitist.
I think a great potential social science methods class would be "The Things We Knew But Forgot" where you only assign books/articles from more than three decades ago.
Update since so many of you asked: baby was Covid positive, but has been improving the past two days. Cautiously optimistic she's on the mend. But now my wife and I are sick, as well as my parents. If you went through this, man, I sympathize!
My wife and I are fully vaxxed but the toddler was deemed a close contact to someone in her daycare that tested positive for Covid. And she's now showing symptoms. This isn't great. So remember that this "pandemic of the unvaccinated" includes kids.
IMO one of the most amazing facts about India is that it produced four major religions (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism), but also one of the world's earliest atheist traditions (the Lokayata/Carvaka school). I bet ancient Indians spent a lot of time arguing.
Great news -- my article "Taking Other Religions Seriously: A Comparative Survey of Hindus in India" received the Ted Jelen Award for the best article published in
@PandRJournal
in 2020. Article link here:
Political science articles I read: "We use tax data from 36 million filers cross-referenced with precinct-level voting data to compile a new database of..."
My political science articles: "So, what even is religion?"
My revise and resubmit process --
Day 1: These reviewers are such jerks!
Day 7: Fine they made a few decent points.
Day 14: OK these reviews are largely correct.
Day 21: Only people who really cared about me would've written such thoughtful reviews!
As a political scientist trained in qualitative methods who focuses on Indian history and ethnic politics, I wanted to give you all my thoughts on pausing distribution of the Johnson & Johnson Covid vaccine. 1/37
You can hate Trump and you can hate Modi, but the former isn't even half as component a politician as the latter. Modi came from nothing, became PM, and decimated his opposition. Trump has a ~40% approval rating and is currently being impeached.
I know
#PoliticalScience
is causal inference 24/7 these days, but this is a great article by John Gerring on description. I'd argue that sometimes this can be just as important as figuring out causality.
My article "Taking Other Religions Seriously: A Comparative Survey of Hindus in India" has been accepted at Politics and Religion. It's the first article in my second research agenda on Hinduism, secularization, and political behavior in India. Will share when it's out!
I publish one article a year. In 2018 I got two. In academia there's this mad rush to publish as much as possible. But I like my pace. I go to India for fieldwork, which takes longer, and wouldn't have it any other way. Maybe we should rethink how much we need to be publishing.
My article in
@PandRJournal
is now out: "Taking Other Religions Seriously: A Comparative Survey of Hindus in India." Check it out, and if you need a PDF copy, just let me know!
First day of qualitative methods class: "Context is just so important. You could code the number of drinks I had on Inauguration Day in 2017 and 2021. It was the same. But the *reasons* were totally different you see."
Things that slow down my research:
1. Bureaucratic hurdles
2. Inclement weather
3. My parents providing a list of relatives I need to visit in each town.
#fieldwork
#Kerala
#India
I find that teaching "Qualitative Methods in Political Science" is hard because it's difficult to focus on what qual methods do well -- I spend too much time being defensive about using them at all in a discipline that's more and more quant.
Tenure file, describing 2019: "Very productive year. Got two articles accepted, and made a lot of headway on the next book."
Tenure file, describing 2020: "July 28th. Put pants on. Well, one pant leg."
"Only 60% of the top political science departments offer any focused training in qualitative methods..."
Maybe before hiring 3 experimentalists, someone to teach MLE, machine learning, etc. departments could hire just one qualitative methodologist?
Immigration officer: What's your area of research?
Me: Political science.
IO: Do you know the father of political science?
Me: Um...Kautilya?
IO: No. Woodrow Wilson. What, you've never heard of him?
My hot take: the fact that the "causal inference" folks don't even mention qualitative methods, don't even consider how participant observation, interviews, focus groups, case studies, etc. might yield causal arguments shows a very narrow mind. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
I've spent the past few years trying to understand how Hinduism affects politics in India. I'm happy to finally have a working paper with some initial findings based on a survey I did in Bihar in 2018. Please let me know if you have any feedback!
I really missed attending
#APSA2019
due to being in India, so I decided to wake up at 8AM on a Sunday and deliver a presentation at an empty conference room in a local hotel. It was not well received.
Indian food is the best because it dares mix ingredients that are not usually mixed. That is also, FYI, the recipe behind the greatness of Indian culture!
I'm so thrilled that people on Twitter are finally talking about Arya, a self-designation for the nomadic tribes from Central Asia that migrated to India c. 1500 B.C. I love ancient history!
#GOT
#Arya
#india
It's so funny to read about Kerala *from the United States* because you are just so shocked at the idea of a government constantly trying to improve the livelihood of its citizens. A foreign concept in every sense of the word.
Laurie Patton, the president of Middlebury (left), told us that she wasn't sure the college had ever tenured a couple at the same time, so wanted to get a joint photo to commemorate the occasion!
The Indian government eliminated the category of "research visa," subsuming it under "student visa." A government office in Kerala just asked me, "Last time you came here you were a professor and now you're a student again?" :-/
NEW: India is one of the most religiously diverse nations in the world. Indians say it is important to respect all religions, but major religious groups see little in common and want to live separately
Just finished teaching my last class at UC Riverside. It's been an incredible five years, and I couldn't have asked for a better home during this time. ICYMI, I'll be working at Middlebury College (with my wife!) this fall.
Quick PSA: if you're a social scientist and you use the term "methods" as shorthand for "quantitative methods," please know those two things are not synonymous.
At my first job, a professor once left a faculty meeting, explaining: "I gotta go fishing." I honestly think that was the most brilliant academic I ever met.