Tentative Schedule (note that the schedule may be modified depending on the number of students who enrol in the course or if inspiration strikes):

2/18: Introduction

2/25: Self-introductions and research proposals

3/4: Article presentations

3/11: Article presentations

3/18: Article presentations

3/25: First book review due

4/1: Article presentations

4/8: Article presentations

4/15: Second book review due

4/22: Curriculum vitae discussion

4/29: Article presentations

5/6: Curriculum vitae due

5/13: Conference abstract due

5/20: Article presentations

5/27: Conference Presentations

6/3: Conference Presentations

Tentative Activities and Grading

• Attendance and Participation: 20%
  
  
  
  
  • Each student is expected to attend class on time every week unless an excused absence with the instructor is arranged beforehand or there is an unanticipated emergency. Students will also need to treat their classmates as colleagues by actively engaging with each other’s presentations by asking questions and offering comments in a collegial manner.
  
  
  
  


• Self-Introductions and Research Proposal: 5%
  
  
  
  • On the second week, each student will need to give a short presentation in which they introduce themselves, with a focus on their academic background (where they have previously studied, what academic events they have participated in, and what their research interests are), and then present a proposal for the research they are doing or are planning to do as graduate students.
  
  
  
  


• Two Book Reviews: 20% (10% each)
  
  
  
  • Students will write two academic-style book reviews of between 800 to 1000 words. Students can choose their own books, but they need to be single-authored academic monographs originally published in English. Ideally, the books should be related to the student’s own research.
  
  
  
  


• Curriculum Vitae: 10%
  
  
  
  • Students will create an English version of their academic curriculum vitae (CV). We will have an in-class workshop on CVs two weeks before they will be due.
  
  
  
  


• Two Article Presentations: 20% (10% each)
  
  
  
  • Each student will need to find two English-language articles published in an academic journal. The articles should be relevant to the student’s own research, and should be ones they anticipate positioning their own work against. The student will need to share the article with the class and then give a short fifteen to twenty minute presentation in which they introduce the author, the basic argument of the article, the historiographical reception of the article, and how they intend to engage with it in their own work.   
  
  
  
  


• Conference Presentations: 25%
  
  
  
  • During the final two weeks of the course we will hold a mock academic conference. Two weeks before the conference begins, each student will submit an abstract of three-hundred words or less that introduces the paper they intend to present and highlights its major arguments. The paper can be an essay the student is writing for a different course this semester, or an essay they submitted to a course or conference earlier in their academic career. The instructor will organise the students into three-person panels based on their papers’ themes. Each presentation will be no longer than twenty minutes, and at the end of each panel, there will be a question and answer session.
  
  
  
  


• Teaching Demonstrations: Undetermined (to be implemented only if class size allows)
  
  
  
  • Students will prepare for the teaching portion of a mock job interview. They will introduce themselves to the rest of the class, which will act as a mock-hiring committee. The student will then give a twenty minute teaching demonstration to show how they would teach a section of an introductory university history course (world history or Taiwanese history). They will be able to choose the particular topic, but the audience should be able to imagine that it would appear on an introductory course’s syllabus.