Following on from a thread raised by yesterday’s dream I have been looking at the theme of Anthropology. Carlos Castaneda was awarded a Ph.D. at University of California Los Angeles in Anthropology. If I understand it correctly viewing his thesis requires and in-person visit. {I have checked.}
A while back I applied for a Ph.D. position in Branching Space-Time as per Belnap at a Dutch university. I was genuine in that application; I would have enjoyed it but was not eligible for funding as I already had a Ph.D. in Chemical Physics. Another philosophy academic who was looking into quantum told me that I was not a trained “philosopher” and he wanted such. I doubt he had ever played with high resolution or ultrafast lasers. He had no personal hands on experience of quantum effects.
I found today that at Social Anthropology Cambridge University a Tibetan Buddhist monk got a Ph.D. there.
Applicants for Ph.D. research are encouraged to approach staff members to elicit supervision and then to make a formal application. I suspect that an application from me would be non-standard. It might raise an eyebrow or two. It would probably cause social discomfort.
Unfortunately my university personal tutor is now dead and I have not spoken with my Ph.D. supervisor in over two decades. So I do not meet the referee criteria outlined on the university web site:
——————–
Academic referees
An academic referee will be someone who has guided and assessed your academic work.
For example:
- your personal tutor
- your tutor for a dissertation, extended essay or piece of project work
- the teaching lead on a module of particular relevance to your proposed postgraduate course
- your tutor from an academic internship at your current or another institution
At least one of your academic references should be a tutor or supervisor from your current or most recent degree course. If you have just started a one-year Master’s course and staff do not know your work well yet, you may prefer to choose a referee from your previous degree course.
PhD students should not be nominated as referees. If you have been taught by a PhD student and they know your work well, you can encourage your referee to talk to them.
Your referee will not normally be your proposed Cambridge supervisor unless they fulfil the requirements above and no others are available.
Professional referees
A professional referee will normally be someone who has had responsibility for your appraisal and delivery of work.
For example:
- your current or previous line manager
- a senior colleague who knows your work well, such as a director
- a project manager for a project on which you’ve worked
—————————–
There is a part of me tempted to open up a dialogue. It could be fun but probably predictable in outcome. Rules are rules after all.
Maybe I should approach the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies at Oxford or look at the Open University. Is there a French equivalent?
Access beyond pay wall for journals could be handy…
A journal recently wanted to charge me $40 dollars for an article I wrote…
It is only a couple of pages long…
If operated on I am going to have few months out of the garden…
Dreamyoga 