angelperak

Achille Mbembe's On the Postcolony is the best book in the area.

Other than that, as a somewhat brief list:
Fanon — everything, anything Césaire's Discourse on Colonialism  C.L.R. James' The Black Jacobins  Spivak — I think there's a collection/reader of essays now, but "Can the Subaltern Speak?" is the most common starting point.  Bhabha, The Location of Culture the Subaltern Studies group (Partha Chatterjee, Dipesh Chakrabarty, Ranajit Guha, etc) — Provincializing Europe and The Nation and Its Fragments are probably the most commonly read books Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Decolonizing the Mind Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic + Against Race Balibar & Wallerstein's Race, Class, and Nation Denise Ferreira da Silva, Toward a Global Idea of Race Bill Ashcroft's anthology, The Empire Writes Back Fred Moten & Stefano Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning and Black Study If you google there are also a few lists available, like http://www.english.ucla.edu/part-i-reading-lists/146-postcolonial-studies-department-reading-list and https://english.unm.edu/resources/documents/post-colonial.pdf. Lurking syllabi is also helpful. 

This has been my experience as well. My department has an almost weekly happy hour frequented by grad students and faculty. Some people talk about random things (sports, news, etc.), others talk about teaching, others about research. I've found that in some of these small conversations I've gotten great ideas or insights into my research that I hadn't gotten otherwise. Sometimes just being asked to give the 30 second version of your research can force you into thinking about it in a different way or allow someone else to say something you hadn't thought of. Without those conversations, my work would definitely suffer.
 
And yea, I'm one of those people who can't work all the time. Back when I did my comprehensive exams (which were multiple questions over like 10 days), I remember people in my department (mostly those not yet at the exams stage) being surprised that I was still attending the class I was TAing (I was mostly grading but went to every single lecture), working out, and even watching an episode or two of a TV show online. But you know what? You can't work for 16 hours a day for the 10 days without a break. And really, since I was limited to like 25 pages double-spaced per answer, I would've ended up writing way more than I needed if I'd worked that long. Instead, I rode my bike to the gym, worked out with friends (including some who had PhDs and thus totally understood what comps were and why you might need a break), cooked myself real food, etc. It's about knowing what you need to work efficiently and be productive and taking the time to do whatever that is.
 
Back to the original question though:
- Be open and willing to learn.
- If you're in the humanities or social sciences, take the time to just browse the library shelves in your general field and in your intended research area to get an idea of what's been published and what research resources are available to you. (Even better, meet with a librarian early on to make sure you know what your school has and the support s/he can give you.)
- Skim through recent journal issues in your field to get a sense of what topics are current and which are becoming dated. Pay attention to book reviews if there are any and use those to help you find relevant books for your discipline and research area.
- Learn to use reference management software (EndNote, Zotero, Mendeley, etc.) and start keeping track of your references that way.
- Figure out an easy to use system for staying abreast of current/new research in both books and journals that may be of interest.
- Read your graduate handbook (and TA handbook if needed) so you know what is expected of you. Ask questions if expectations are unclear.
- Start figuring out what, if any, courses outside the department you might want to take, how often they're offered, how difficult they are, etc.
- If you're going to need research methods training, figure out how to get that ASAP. In the social sciences, this often means taking courses in qualitative methods, statistics, and/or GIS and seats in those classes can fill because they're attracting students from an array of disciplines. Getting your methods coursework done means you can start collecting data sooner.
- Get to know whomever helps oversee grant apps (NIH, NSF, SSRC, Fulbright, IAF, etc.) at your institution and ask them what you can do beginning now to prepare to apply in the future, when you should be applying, what you'll need to be competitive, etc. And, while you're there, get them to help you set up some alerts for grant announcements.
 
There's probably more you could do, especially related to conferences and networking, but I don't want to overload anyone with suggestions.

I had never heard of Memrise before this post. Now I'll be lost in its courses forever! I think I'll start with Chinese and Arabic...thanks for giving me a new obsession

I had never heard of Memrise before this post. Now I'll be lost in its courses forever! I think I'll start with Chinese and Arabic...thanks for giving me a new obsession

Hey guys, current NU student here (religious studies.) This last winter was the coldest winter on record since they started keeping records in the mid-19th century (seriously.) I'm from southern California, so it was definitely brutal--but I survived! The winters aren't usually that bad. We get a few days of heavy snow scattered throughout the winter, a few days of zero degree temperatures (F), but it most stays between 20 and 30F.
 
If any of you have general questions about housing, etc. feel free to PM me.

I agree with St Andrews Lynx. I always make a grading matrix beforehand. If they argue, I pull out the matrix and show them. If they argue with interpretation, I make it clear that my interpretation is the only one that counts.**
 
If they ever pull the "But Student X here made the same mistake and only lost 2 points, why did I lose 3?" and if the matrix says "-3 for that thing", then I would usually ask to see Student X and regrade their assignment. Generally, my rule about regrading is that I will take the entire assignment and regrade the entire thing. 
 
(**Note: For things like this, it really really helps to have clear communication with the prof for the course. At the beginning, the prof and I always decide ahead of time who is responsible for what so that the students can't go to the other when one doesn't give them what they want. For example, generally, we decide that the prof is the only one who is allowed to give extensions while the TA has absolute authority on grading homework. If a student asks the prof to regrade something, the prof will just turn it over to me.)

I've found it is something that gets easier to deal with over time. As a TA starting out you feel nervous, unsure if you even *are* qualified to teach and perhaps could have made the grading rubrics clearer beforehand. Anyway, I'm almost certain that students can sense this kind of uncertainty in their TA, even if they couldn't articulate it.  
 
Be briskly firm, but polite. Have a stock set of phrases to use "You needed to do X to get an A grade...and you didn't do that." Remember that you are in charge and that the power rests firmly with you. Do not get drawn into arguments with the student - state your reasons and keep stating them if they keep on arguing. Do not talk more than is necessary - anything you say an opportunistic/desperate student will want to use against you. You aren't actually obliged to waste time with the student if they are being argumentative and refusing to listen to you - tell them that. 

My Bachelors was in Fine Art, and now I've ended up studying Education, which is certainly engaging both in its theory and practice, but I miss the aesthetics and freeplay of art. I watch a lot of film, used to make very amateur documentary shorts, and dream about using media ethnography in my future academic work.
 
I'm surprised no one has mentioned language learning. I wouldn't label it as an interest at this point, but just an effort against relapsing - I picked up a language while in the field and want to keep it (it's in the Bantu language family), learn a second, as well as try to pick up a Romance language. Memrise has become as routine as morning coffee in this pursuit.
 
I used to write, I still do, and I feel if I don't occasionally engage in extracurricular writing, my inner thoughts will ossify into technical language. Yikes.

I, too, am anxious about my visa. I've been waiting for my residency visa (partner is a US citizen) since June last year. We're just waiting for an interview to be scheduled now and then we should be free to go to the USA, but I'm worried that there will be an unexpected delay or we will be denied the visa for some unforeseen reason. Worst case scenario, I could go on a student visa but that brings its own problems and I would have to apply for that before the June 1 deadline. So many uncertainties! I can't wait until all the visa stuff is over so I can concentrate on what I CAN control: my studies.

I'm stealing this idea from the thread Proflorax posted last spring.  It seems good for everybody moving on to a program this year to have a place to discuss what's next up on the plate.  We're all dealing with learning about new programs and cities, figuring out where we're moving, etc, so it seemed like a good idea to have a place to compare notes and frustrations and anxiety attacks.
 
As for me, I've been spending precious grading time on Craigslist, looking at houses that are most certainly not going to be on the books when I'm actually ready to move, and figuring out exactly how to apartment-hunt from several hundred miles away.  Haven't yet heard anything from my new program, so that aspect of things still seems to be on hold.  But I'm so excited to begin.

I can't find another Northwestern thread in the Meet & Greet forum, so I thought I would start one. I'm 99% sure I will be attending Northwestern in the Fall (PhD in English). Anyone else planning to make NU their academic home for the next 5+ years? I will be completely new to the Chicago area so would love to know I'm not going to be alone!

Hi! I'm not attending the program because English is my mother tongue, so I can't help you much there, but I am an international student who will be attending Northwestern in the Fall and it's nice to know of others who will be attending too

I've made this point in years past, but I saw someone express this kind of anxiety recently, so it bears repeating: it's perfectly natural and quite common to not feel happy or excited after you decide what school to choose.
 
When I heard back from the program I'm attending, I knew I should feel ecstatic. It was my top choice, by a wide margin. I had worked to get into grad for ages. I also had the daily experience of reading people here who hadn't gotten in to the schools they wanted or anywhere, sometimes. I expected to feel fantastic. And then I just... didn't. I felt guilty for not feeling anything. Why didn't I feel happier? But when I shared that feeling here and with other people I knew, I found it was quite common. I think there's a variety of reasons for that. First, there's just the mental and emotional drain of the process. You spend all this time working, and then all this time stressing, whether it's about getting in or choosing your school, and then it just... stops. Which might make you feel really happy, or might just make you feel a little numb or exhausted. Second, no program can ever be as exciting as the promise and potential of any program. It felt good to know where I was going. But before you choose, there's limitless potential. You could end up anywhere, which is exciting and invigorating. No matter how happy you are with your choice, it can't contain all the potential of all the schools you applied to. Finally, I find that unless they get into all or almost all of the departments to which they apply, many people can feel somehow unsatisfied or rejected even if they get into their #1 choice or a school that they are very happy to attend. I know I've talked to different people who have said, "I would have chosen the program I'm in even if I got into those other schools... so why does the rejection hurt so bad? Why do I wish I had gotten in so much?"
 
If you don't feel this way, all the better. But if you aren't feeling as good as you thought you would, don't sweat it, and don't feel guilty. It's natural and happens to a lot of people.

Northwestern! Not where I thought I would end up (shocked I got in), but I'm really happy.

Yay, I'm glad I'm not the only one! I think we'll all have to buy big down coats to survive the winters I've been doing lots of reading about the area and it sounds like there is a lot to do. I did my undergrad and Masters at university in a small town in New Zealand, so I'm expecting culture shock but also some really interesting experiences.

I can't find another Northwestern thread in the Meet & Greet forum, so I thought I would start one. I'm 99% sure I will be attending Northwestern in the Fall (PhD in English). Anyone else planning to make NU their academic home for the next 5+ years? I will be completely new to the Chicago area so would love to know I'm not going to be alone!

Thanks to you both! Yeah, the weather is one of the only cons about going there. Guess I'll just have to invest in a down coat and some snow boots