HOW TO ENJOY RESEARCH AND KEEP BALANCE IN YOUR LIFE: AN INTERVIEW WITH PHD STUDENT PAULINE DIRVEN

By Alex Strete & Bethany Warner

It is perhaps one of the more distressing thoughts in academia nowadays that as education becomes more and more competitive, fewer and fewer students are interested in it. This is especially true for PhD students in the humanities, who are faced by budget cuts, unlikelihood to receive grants, or simply a lack of motivation to complete their research. As such, it is a breath of fresh air when PhD candidates like Pauline Dirven enter the field.

Interested in a plethora of fields ranging from dance history to gender and sexuality in forensic culture, Pauline has a longstanding academic career at Utrecht University, completing both her Bachelors and Masters here. Her unique research interests perhaps stem from her unique personality and attitude – besides focusing on analytics and theory, she also teaches ballet in her spare time. Her current research focuses on “Forensic Culture, A Comparative Analysis of Forensic Practices in Europe, 1930-2000”, done together with Willemijn Ruberg. Pauline expressed her happiness not only with how easily she managed to find this position due to clever networking within the UU, but also with the degree of freedom she has regarding her own research.

Pauline also has plenty of advice to give to other students interested in pursuing a career in academia. Some of these recommendations will sound familiar to most students, but others are surprisingly enlightening. Like other scholars, Pauline advises students to make a final decision after their Masters Thesis, as it is a good representation of a scholar’s life during their PhD. Moreover, she states that it is highly important to be passionate, as it is one of the only things that keep you motivated. However, her unique advice is not so much related to emotions and motivation, but to pace yourself correctly. A PhD candidate should know when to stop reading emails, when to take a day off, or how to properly enjoy a holiday and not use it as an excuse to visit other archives.

But why would you bother to do all of this? Pauline says that you should not do your PhD just because you want a Postdoctoral position afterwards, but because you are perfectly happy with just doing research itself. A PhD is just a few years of archival research, analyzing different sources, making them work, and being proud of your work after it’s done. If this does not sound like your cup of tea, perhaps a PhD is not for you. But if it does, then you should join the new generation of young enthusiastic researchers like Pauline, and change the humanities for the better.