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Well, I've actually done a bit research on this issue before as I also have similar questions. I don't think journal editors and publishers demand you to publish under the same name as what your passport/driver license shows. Think it somehow as your "pen name." Just don't forget to use your legal names on real serious issues (pay cheque sending, money reimbursing, contract signing, air ticket booking, etc.). It's actually less a problem for them, but more a problem for you to keep name consistency in academia. In other words, people should link your beautiful face, to your whatever name, and to all your publications. That's kind of have answered the Chou Li part of the question. For publishing on foreign journals specifically, better do "罗艾丽 (Elizabeth Lloyd)," or "Elizabeth Lloyd (罗艾丽)" so that it will be searchable and identifiable on Google Scholar and World Cat whenever people in the West type in "Lloyd." Never use "Luo Aili" or "伊丽莎白·罗伊德“ if you already have "罗艾丽” as your Chinese name because it would just create more confusion than clarity. I never believe in the Latinization (Sinicization/Cyrillization/Arabization/Hebrewnization) of foreign names based on conventional transliteration. It just doesn't do. I guess "Keightley" has a /y/ ending sound, and "kie-t" can be palatalized into /c-t'/ then to /dz/. And then it becomes /dzi/=ji=吉.

To the best of my knowledge, "Li (Jack) Chou" is quite common in relatively informal settings (such as department profile) for those Taiwanese and Hongkonese (or Zhou for mainland Chinese) scholars who want to retain their exact Asian legal names (though Latinized) in print and also want people to know their preferred Western/Anglo name ("illegal" in a sense) called in the real life. "Victor Cunrui Xiong" can be an American-born or acculturated person who would like to publish in both of his (il)legal Asian and English name. This looks awkward to me. Most Western sinologists have a Chinese name, possibly chosen by their teachers and modified later by themselves, that appears phonetically quite similar to their native name but contains some intellectual/literary meanings beyond the transliteration. You can tell from the following examples: John King Fairbank (Harvard) ＝ 费正清 (Fei Zheng Qing), Fair-Fei, Zheng-John, King-Qing, but it means Justice and Purity, which are deeply reflected in the Chinese value system. As a pun, the name also means "justifying the Qing Dynasty." As a scholar of 19th-century China, he could not have a better name than that. Albert E Dien (Stanford) = 丁爱博（Ding Ai Bo), Dien=Ding, Al=Ai, Bert=Bo, but it means universal love. He is a borderland historian, and he probably tries to show a love of neighboring countries/ethnicities through his name. Hans Bielenstein (Columbia) = 毕汉思 (Bi Han Si), Bie=Bi, Hans=HanSi, but it means Chinese thought (although he is an economic historian). Richard Barnhart (Yale) = 班宗华 (Ban Zong Hua), Barn=Ban, Hua=hard, but it means Chinese clan. Stephen Owen (Harvard) = 宇文所安 (Yuwen Suo An), Owen=Yuwen, Ste=Suo, En=An. He chose a compound surname and it really sounds like a Northern Zhou / Sui aristocrat. His specialization is Sui-Tang poetry. No surprise. David Keightley (Berkeley) = 吉德炜 (Ji De Wei), Keight=Ji, David=Dewei. His name is David but he didn't choose 大伟 like in your example, a street name which literally means "Big Great" (Communism/Mao), but 德炜, morality and illumination.

A side note. As a themes person, sometimes I found myself in disadvantage compared to an events historian when chatting with lay (non-history) people, since they are usually more interested in the "significant" events (battles, speeches, dates, who did what on which day, etc.), and I was not able to offer them a lot of details if the event is not relevant to my research or in my exact field (too bad as the majority like to ask about the past century/USSR in which my knowledge is very limited in that regard). I use events merely as historical context for my protagonists, and I believe any major social, cultural or psychological transformation should take substantial time to develop, a few generations if not a few centuries.

So it is groundbreaking!

I'm just wondering how postcolonial theories can be applied to medieval (monastic) history? I think I may have seen books on postcolonialism and medieval literature, but how history?

haha, i think I'm a themes and theories person too. As a historical sociocultural anthropologist, I like to work on a variety of themes and hypothesis, and after delving into all the primary sources available to find relevant evidences, I then create the storyline myself from what I have. One of my current projects also deals with ethnocultural elations. I also avoid "great man" histories as I believe in the history of the great PEOPLE.

I'm leading a new topic of discussion. Do you (prefer to) work on event-based history (e.g. The 1848 Hungarian Revolution), theme-based history (Beer in the Middle Ages), theory-based history (Emotional Communities) or source-based history (Who Wrote the Dead Sea Scroll?)? I know it has always to be a combination of all, but what's your priority when initiating a research project?

I know it seems to be a cross-disciplinary question, but I want to specifically ask my history folks. Some historians have very simple/short names and sometimes it even rhymes. To name a few, Peter Burke, Peter Gay, Tara Zahra, Ann Blair and Lynn Hunt. The names are very easy to be registered by their colleagues and students, but it may lead to confusion sometimes if other historian/scholar/celebrity shares the same name. Too bad if he/she is in the exactly same field as you. Whereas, on the other pole, some have relatively complicated/long names, for example, Thomas James Dandelet, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern and Brigitte Miriam Bedos-Rezak, which make them unique and immediately spotted on sight, but it may take more effort for people to memorize their names and say it accurately. Accordingly, do you think a short name or a long name can make you stand out in the community? Furthermore, is it necessary and beneficial to use the middle name in publication as well as on the social media (website, etc.)? Initial or full middle name? I'm not talking about marriage and maiden name issues, but, again, about surviving and interacting in the field, especially regarding the conflict between easily being remembered and easily being recognized. I know in real life conversation, people would be addressed informally as "First Name" (+"Last Name") and formally as Professor ("First Name") "Last Name," but on the paper what would you do? I estimate the ratio among using "First Name, Last Name" : "First Name, Middle Name, Last Name" : "First Name, M., Last Name" in publication is roughly 1:3:1. Probably how many syllables in each name also matter. And if using the hyphen, it probably should count as two names/words. A trend I see is that graduate students tend to use full names (in conference and on the website) and as they grow older and more established, they may initialize the middle name from their first publication on. Another phenomenon that I notice is that no matter you initialize or leave the full middle name, when people talk about you, refer you, search you and mention you in their work (except for the proper citing), they may automatically skip over your middle name / second first name, simply calling you "First Name, Last Name" (for example, I said Ann Blair just now, who is actually Ann M. Blair). What's your take on this name issue?

I just recall that Omeljan Pritsak, a late Harvard historian of my field, once said that "most of the scholarly literature is in English, German, French and Russian texts, but every educated person already knows these languages." I guess I would also add (good) Latin. Reading French is essential for all humanities scholars, and you made a very right decision.

@AP If I did not misunderstand, the OP is an Americanist from New York, rather than someone applying to American PhD programs from abroad. He plans to complete a minor field / certificate program (course & language requirement, etc.) and probably take one of the comp exams in Modern Britain, on top of his main field (i.e. American History). Otherwise he has to at least pass two languages rather than one. In addition, I don't think anyone would call his research focus as a "minor field," and plus Modern Britain is big enough to be a legitimate field.

Maybe it's time to share my own experiences. I have some anthropology/archaeology/literature background before turning to history. And it took me a few years to figure out where my approach, time period and region lay. Not really "I figured out" but "everything flew naturally." Approach: Like NoirFemme, I never consider myself a proper historian either. I care less about high politics, wars, networks and development, and I failed to understand hard philosophy and big thoughts. Instead, I focus on individuals, emotions, experiences, mentalities, rituals and the daily life. I would actually call myself an anthropologist of the past, wandering around the field and greet people. I would like to see them talk to each other, laugh, cry, suffer and enjoy. I would like to know what they did in the morning, in the afternoon and before sleep, and how they felt about the day and the life in general. My friend said that I'm the "an-old-grandma-washing-clothes-by-the-river" type of historian, and I cannot agree more. Therefore, I choose social and cultural history, and I think it's a good combo. Social history without cultural history becomes very social science-y, and cultural history without social history loses its "from the below" character. Time period: This really made me struggle, somehow even today. But I'm also most absolute on this part. From the very beginning, I see doing history as an escape. It sends me away from the worsening real contemporary world and places me all the way back to the remote past. So I set myself a watershed: I'm not doing any time period that have been lived by people who had met my great grand parents whom I have seen early in my life. In other words, I try to disassociate the history from today. This did not come from nowhere. Whenever I have a choice to take a course, I always prefer the one covering the earlier period; whenever I have to pick a paper topic, I always write on something around the lower limit year. Maybe someday I will work on the history of the prehistory. On the other end, however, I can only do modern literature and culture (another way to escape from the REAL contemporary world). Modern history just makes me sick, physiologically and mentally. What the heck is the stock market? Why people dressed themselves so ugly in the last two centuries? What's the good about the industrialization and where has the slow, simple life style gone? I'm happy to read what modern historians come up with, maybe I can teach if it's about my own region, but I will never spill any ink on the modern era, not within another 50 years. Moreover, I see the temptation of doing contemporary history (always have something brand new to write on), but there's no way for me to study my own era in my professional career. Region: I loved a culture, so I learned a language. Then I learned more languages and expanded my territory, and now I belong to the entire area. It becomes my dream land and I spend as much time as I could every year in my land. I feel to be one of the people here and I'm faithful to study their history. I just cannot imagine any area historian / scholar who is detached from his land and people.

Please forgive me for pumping an old thread, but I think this topic is fascinating and touching and should be everlasting. It elucidates how we went on the road to the past and why we are doing what we do as historians and humanities scholars. I would like to hear more stories from the newer people and further reflections of the original posters.

This is/was insane, maybe he did his PhD in history of economics in the economics department which worked in the way of (social) science? .....I have never seen any History ABDs or APs have done that (at this day). In average, by the time of job hunting, one should have under his belt a couple articles on well-known, peer-reviewed journals or book chapters edited by renowned scholars, probably mixed with a number of book reviews or encyclopaedia entries. I even saw someone who got her tenure-track job with zero publication. Most history professors would speak against crazy publishing as a grad student. A fabulous dissertation and a prestigious background are telling enough. As people have already agreed on, quality over quantity. Just curious, is that a course on contemporary history? Since "the Czech Republic" never existed before 1993, or technically speaking, 1969 (if counting Česká socialistická republika), and no serious historian has used that term for the time before, both in Czech and English historiography (please disregard William Mahoney, who has little scholarly contribution and whose book on that name has not received any attention in the field). Speaking to your concerns, I would say that the quantitative methods have engulfed the world of Social Sciences, and are annexing the territory of Humanities. The problem is not on the methodology itself, but on the intentionality: what do you use computation for? You have to raise essential humanistic questions on the subject matter before "conducting your own experiment." The number does not mean anything unless it can serve the purpose of historians. For example, Roberto Lopez advocated for the medieval commercial revolution, John Munro had a keen interest on pre-modern money and commodities (textiles), Jan de Vries studies the interactions between people and space, and Anne McCants looks at the relations between infrastructure and living conditions. Unlike medieval and early modern historians who specialize in economic and x history (they usually have broader interests than economics per se) and take a quantitative methodology, economists or historians of economics, however, may have very different research mentalities and points of departure.

Conant and Reimitz definitely! McCormick (Conant's advisor) himself is more reputed as a historian of early climate and economics though. How about Ralph Mathisen (UIUC) (1947~), Edward Watts (UCSD), David Brakke (OSU), Noel Lenski (Yale) and Susanna Elm (Berkeley) maybe? If only Thomas Burns (Emory) and Walter Goffart (Toronto) did not retire. Two big "barbarian" scholars! I think you should include the UK schools in your list. They have much better late antiquity programs.

Haha I kind of envy you. In some fields, you may encounter six different languages in one single archival box. American History is the only language-free field, take it both as a convenience and a disadvantage. Most PhD handbooks write that Americanists can pass the requirement with whatever foreign language they know. I would say that the more languages you master, the wider research opportunities you can embrace. French works perfect. German is the king in all humanities disciplines. Knowing Russian doesn't hurt, especially if you are working on the Cold War / international relations. How about Welsh (in the Victorian Age yes), Irish or Latin (a lot of formal sources in the 19th Century were still written in Latin)? May you also consider Chinese and Modern Hebrew. Really depends on your specific research topic and the connections that you would like to make. Perhaps all of the above. Anyways, in my opinion, all North American scholars should avoid anglo-centrism, and all historians regardless of fields should be polyglots,

Thank you for sharing this experience. Is that the case for most history programs, in order to get high yield rates? And do you think the admission committees of different universities talk to each other? Would the POIs discuss with your other POIs on where this student can get best training from or ask your referrers secretly about your chance to commit? If some professor / program believes to take you, then others will step back?

I don't know which region you are working on and referring to, but just to assure you, I'm doing archival research in Eastern Europe (worse than the Western?) and I find even in regional and some town archives, there are at least a couple (young) people speaking English, really well. So, if your local language at some point fails, you can mingle some English, and they will understand. And of course you can ask them to slow down, repeat, or switch to a full English conversation if it works best for both of you. My feeling is that they are there to help us find the material and do research, and they will not doubt/judge your ability of reading documents simply by your not-yet-proficient oral skills. And as a matter of fact, historians are not language teachers. Most history professors are in the mode of "reading many languages but speaking only a few." You are not obliged to have a full command of any foreign language except for the ones that you need to converse to get involved in the national academia and with the local public. For countries like Hungary, the archivists there cannot expect all visitors speaking their (complicated) language. So, English has a better chance than in any Slavic countries, and if English doesn't, try German (and in Slavic countries, try Russian, especially for people at age 40+). And sometimes, ironically, one may feel better talking in a foreign language about research, because you have done a lot of historiography in the original, than everyday topics if you spend less time watching films, reading novels or talking to the natives. Final tip: do your homework in advance and browse the archive website thoroughly (in the original language), so that you will at least remember all the instructions by heart and get familiar with the archival terms. For example, lfm/lfdm (Laufender Meter, German) = bm (běžný metr/bežný meter, Czech/Slovak) = m. b. (metr bieżący, Polish) = л. м. (лінійний метр, Ukrainian) = fm (folyóméter, Hungarian).

I guess you posted in the wrong thread/forum/place....This is the History sub-forum. You should check out the Literature, and Rhetoric and Composition or the Humanities one...

I second it. To throw my two cents, I was once very lured to put second or third tier programs onto my list since I saw a few profs from those schools that fit me the most. But I changed my mind. because, 1) If to become someone you have to follow his path, you should go to the institution where he got his PhD from, instead of the institution where he ends up teaching. Mostly, your POIs graduated from top ten/twenty programs, and you ought to do the same. 2) Look at the current graduate student profiles and see which undergrad schools the PhD candidates came from. If they don't even belong to the same level/world as yours, you will make your decision then (to not apply). If I have to work extremely hard for 5-7 years somewhere, I would rather do it at a prestigious university/program. It will make me happy and the experience worthwhile. BTW, my question for you: what do you think about those big state universities, such as Rutgers, Minnesota, Indiana, Ohio State and UIUC (Wisconsin and Michigan obviously should not count here, and possibly also excluding UNC and UVA), which lie closely to the top tier and have fabulous history departments, but they as universities are not comparable to the Ivys or quasi-Ivys. Does the general ranking / overall prestige also matter? @telkanuru

Hello, welcome! All top universities, I share your ambition! So you are interested in the political/economic history of Middle Imperial China? ("Medieval China" is a very problematic term). Yale (Perdue + Hansen) and Berkeley (Tackett --- Hymes' student, + Nylan) are terrific. Columbia (Hymes), UCLA (von Glahn) and Harvard (Szonyi - Late Imperial mostly) might also do. Peterson (Princeton) is more an intellectual historian and plus he is reaching 80. Chicago, however, is known for its modern Chinese history, and I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, nobody is working on the pre-Qing era (unless you want to study with Burns who is actually an early modern Japanese medical historian). Well, another "right" person that first came into my mind, who is also from a big name university that you didn't mention to my surprise, is Mark Edward Lewis from Stanford. He works on political and some economic history of early China until the end of the Tang Dynasty (too early?). Have you also looked at any other place, such as Penn (Christopher Atwood), Pittsburg (Ruth Mostern) and Michigan (Christian de Pee)?

Beyond all that, sometimes I found it very satisfactory working with an elder professor because I would hear a lot of inside stories about the academia or specific persons of fifty even eighty years ago, which is a fascinating history in its own right. In terms of technology, as an old-school person myself who is indifferent to the digital (history/humanities) stuff, I enjoy very much writing on the blackboard and taking notes on the index cards. (anyone with me?). Plus I'm not that attracted to the "post-socialist era /contemporary history," not in another sixty years I guess when the 1990s some day becomes the history history (or remote history if someone is offended). Maybe I indeed prefer an advisor from a relatively older generation / mind-set?

I don't think this question has been explicitly dealt with on this forum. Since there is no certain rule (since 1993 in the US) that when professors retire, I have no idea when they stop taking new PhD students. I have seen some retire in their early 60s and others still have supervisees in their late 80s. How do I find it out besides asking each of them directly? Is it really a case-by-case issue? In other words, should I be discouraged to contact any active POI born before 1945, or even 1950? And if one does accept you as his/her student, will it become a problem in your final PhD and early career years (for example, retirement, illness, or at worst, death, leading to change of supervisor and lack of reference). What are the conventions of (not) applying to and working with an old historian (methodology? technology? co-supervising?). Many thanks!

Hi Glycoprotein1, if you are thinking about doing a MA in history of medicine in Canada, Toronto and McGill are undoubtedly the best two choices. Toronto has a separate MA in History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, and one of the three history tracks is History of Medicine and Life Sciences. It is a non-thesis program but I guess you can do a major research paper out of it. They have a number of prominent medical history scholars such as Lucia Dacome (early modern), Nikolai Krementsov (Soviet Russia), Marga Vicedo and Paul Thompson (evolution), and also a few others working on the anthropological and philosophical aspects of medicine. Alternatively, you can apply to the MA of the History Department and write a major research paper with the renowned Edward Shorter (psychiatry) (but I don't know if he is still taking students). McGill is very strong in medical history as well: Faith Wallis (medieval), George Weisz (20thC, health), Andrea Tone (US, sexual/psychiatrical), Thomas Schlich (surgery) and David Wright (Canada/UK, mental/hospital). You can do a MA in Medical + 1) History (non-thesis), 2) Anthropology (thesis) or 3) Sociology (thesis), or a MA in History (thesis) with any of the above professors. You may also consider other Canadian schools, such as Queens (Jacalyn Duffin (miracle/saint/death)), UWO (Shelley McKellar (medical technology/biography)), McMaster (Ellen Amster (Islamic, public health)), and Calgary (Frank W. Stahnisch (physiology/neuroscience)). Keep in mind that these Canadian programs can be finished in one year and are way cheaper than the US ones. And they don't require the GRE!!