Thursday, March 1, 2007

Forward in All Directions

As of 12:58am, the grant is out of my hands and in the hands of the granting agency. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, someone on the SEM listserv sent this article about institutional research boards--the bane of our existence in the humanities. Lots of paperwork to prove that we're not going to kill anyone by interviewing them. When I put in an application a few years ago to research Julia Clifford, I had to convince the board that it was imperative that I name my interviewees in the work. Imagine, writing about her and not being able to say that I talked to her son, her friends, her nieces. Luckily, they must have figured I was harmless enough--but the fact of the matter is that very few people in my department even know the IRB exists.

Hmmm, where did that rant come from? Guess I'd better go to bed so I can wake up tomorrow to read more linguistic anthropology!

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