Eastern European Studies
Dissertation Incubator
a five part virtual workshop organized and hosted
by the Romanian Studies Organization at Indiana University
weeks of 2/20; 2/27; 3/6; 3/13; and 3/20, 2023
two-hour weekly meeting times TBD based on participant schedules
This collaborative workshop is open to doctoral students in any social science or humanities
discipline studying Eastern Europe, broadly defined, at any stage of their research. Early-stage
students will find this workshop useful for drafting key documents such as the dissertation
prospectus as well as grant proposals for conference travel, language study, or field research.
Late-stage students will benefit from revisiting the design and scope of their ongoing project
and drafting major fellowship proposals. All participants will receive peer feedback on a
conference paper or dissertation chapter. Sessions will involve all participants equally to
foster a supportive atmosphere for sharing resources and advice; therefore, participants
will be asked to attend all meetings.
Meeting 0: (optional) virtual ‘mixer’
Meeting 1: project design
● peer review of dissertation abstracts
● group discussion: dissertation proposals and research statements
Meeting 2: funding the dissertation
● peer review of grant applications
● discussion: grant writing (finding grants, resources for grant writing)
Meeting 3: decoding the dissertation chapter as genre
● small group reverse outlining exercise: recent dissertation chapters
● discussion: crafting dissertation chapters
Meetings 4-5: revising the dissertation
● five minute presentations on dissertation chapters/conference papers
● comments from peer reviewers
● questions and discussion
Participants will be asked to prepare (1) a draft grant proposal (this could be for a
pre-dissertation research grant, a conference travel award, a major research fellowship, a
completion fellowship, a postdoctoral fellowship, or something else) and (2) a conference-style
paper or working chapter draft (maximum 10,000 words, excluding notes). The conference
paper/chapter should be sent to assigned peer reviewers by the third week of the workshop. We
welcome rough drafts; the goal of this workshop is to generate productive feedback rather than
to present finished products. During the incubator, participants will give presentations of no
more than five minutes introducing their chapter or paper.
Please send an abstract of your dissertation including the status of your research
(pre-research, research phase, writing phase, etc - these categories may vary by
discipline) and a 150 word bio to romso@indiana.edu by December 15, 2022.