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after office hours + one week left

Thanks to everyone who came to office hours today (even those who came on campus instead of online, that’s fine). Your questions were genuinely interesting—several of you are working on things I want to keep thinking about, which is exactly what these conversations should do.

I’m sorry I couldn’t get to everyone. A few sessions ran longer because the problems you were working through deserved the time. If you didn’t get in today, you’re welcome to try again next Wednesday (January 28, 10:30-11:30)—though that’s deadline day, so it’s really for last-minute panic questions, not substantial rethinking. For more substantial questions, write me an email.

One week left.

A few things I noticed in today’s conversations that might help you this week:

If you’re stuck on structure: Stop trying to organize the whole paper. Just make sure each section does ONE clear thing. If you can’t name what a section does, it probably doesn’t belong.

Example: Don’t have a section called “Context” that covers history + current demographics + policy + urban planning. That’s four things. Pick one. If you need them all, they’re four separate sections with four clear purposes.

If you’re worried your argument isn’t “strong enough”: Strong doesn’t mean certain. Strong means honest. If you’re genuinely uncertain about something, say that. Hedging is weak. Acknowledging limits is strong.

Example: Weak: “It could perhaps be argued that maybe this practice reflects a kind of adaptation.” Strong: “I can’t determine whether this is adaptation or resistance. The practice looks like both, which suggests the categories themselves might not work here.”

If you’re trying to include everything: You can’t. Choose. What’s the smallest version of this paper that still makes your point? Cut everything else. You can always add back if you have space.

Example: If you’re writing about informal economies, you don’t need to also cover language politics AND housing policy AND cultural identity. Pick one thread. Follow it through. The other stuff can be one sentence: “This also connects to language and housing, but that’s beyond this paper’s scope.”

If you’re paralyzed by the conclusion: It doesn’t have to wrap everything up. It can open a question. It can acknowledge what you couldn’t resolve. It can point to what you’d need to know next.

Example: Instead of “In conclusion, this paper has shown that informal economies are complex and require more research,” try: “I still don’t know why some of these practices remain informal while others don’t. Answering that would require understanding who benefits from opacity—which I can’t see from where I’m standing.”

If you haven’t started writing yet: Start badly. Write the version you know is wrong. You can’t revise what doesn’t exist.

Example: Write “This paper is about how refugees navigate bureaucracy in Berlin and I think it’s important because…” Yes, that’s a terrible first sentence. Write it anyway. You’ll delete it later. But it gets you moving.

One practical thing: On Sunday or Monday, read your whole draft aloud to yourself. Slowly. Or what I like to do (even with your completed papers): Use text to speech in your text editor or a relevant tool. You’ll hear what doesn’t work. Fix those parts.

You’ll notice: “This sentence is 47 words long and I ran out of breath.” “I used ‘however’ four times in one paragraph.” “I have no idea what this section is actually saying.” “This sounds like I’m trying too hard to sound academic.”

Next Wednesday’s office hours (10:30-11:30) are your last chance for questions. After that, you just have to submit.

Final session Wednesday + office hours through deadline

Quick reminder: Our final session is Wednesday, January 14, 10:30-11:30 (haha, that wasn’t intentional, it was supposed to be the normal 10:15… but no worries)

Since we last met in December, you’ve had time to write. Some of you came to December office hours, many didn’t (that’s fine). Now we’re in the final stretch.

For Wednesday’s session, bring:

  1. Your draft (whatever state—messy is expected)
  2. One specific question or problem you’re actually stuck on

Not “I need feedback on my draft.” That’s too general. More like:

  • “My introduction explains my whole argument—should it?”
  • “I have three possible readers and it’s making everything muddy”
  • “This section just lists what scholars say—what should it actually do?”
  • “I think I have two different papers here—how do I decide?”

The session will be:

  • Small groups: troubleshoot one specific problem each (30 min)
  • Whole group: discuss what you learned from the experiments you tried (20 min)
  • Quick individual check-ins: your plan for the final two weeks (10 min)

Continued support after Wednesday:

If you want to talk through a specific problem or decision point in your draft, I’m offering individual consultations online in my personal webex room on:

  • Wednesday, January 21, 10:30-11:30
  • Wednesday, January 28, 10:30-11:30 (deadline day—last-minute questions)

Ideally 10-15 minutes per person or in small groups. To sign up, just email me with one sentence about what you want to discuss.

Your deadline: Wednesday, January 28, 2026 (5000 words)

You have two weeks after our session. Use them. Write messy, then clean up. Ask for help when you’re stuck. Don’t wait until January 27 to discover a problem.

See you Wednesday.


Part 1: Individual Diagnostic (15 minutes)

Setup: Everyone works silently on their own draft.

Task: “Find the sentence in your draft you believe most and the sentence you believe least. Mark them.”

Then write (just for yourself):

  • Why do you believe the first one?
  • Why don’t you believe the second one?
  • Is the sentence you don’t believe doing necessary work? Or is it there because you think you’re “supposed” to say it?

The point: Often our problems are sentences we included because they sound “academic” but we don’t actually stand behind them. This helps them locate their real voice vs. their performed voice.


Part 2: Test Your Necessary Parts (30 minutes)

Setup: Pairs. Each person takes 15 minutes, then switch.

Task: “Tell your partner: What is your paper trying to do in the world? Not ‘what is it about’ – what work is it trying to do?”

Then: “Look at your outline or table of contents. For each section, ask: Is this section actually necessary for that work? Or is it there because papers are ‘supposed’ to have it?”

Partner’s job: Push back. “Are you sure you need that section? What happens if you cut it?” “What would you lose if it wasn’t there?”

Last 5 minutes together: Each person names one section they might cut or drastically shorten.

The point: Often we include sections (literature review, theory section, context chapter) because they’re conventional, not because they’re necessary. This helps them see what’s actually load-bearing vs. what’s scaffolding they can remove.


Part 3: Whole Class Provocation (15 minutes)

Setup: Everyone back together in a circle.

Prompt: “You have two weeks. Your paper will not be perfect. So let’s talk about: What are you giving yourself permission to NOT do?

Go around. Everyone shares ONE thing they’re explicitly deciding not to do/fix/perfect:

  • “I’m not going to make my theory section longer”
  • “I’m not going to find three more sources”
  • “I’m not going to fix the conclusion”
  • “I’m not going to rewrite the whole thing in third person”
  • “I’m not going to smooth out the contradiction in my argument”

After everyone shares, discuss:

  • What’s the difference between “good enough” and “giving up”?
  • What assumptions about academic writing are you still carrying that you need to drop?
  • What if finishing “badly” is actually finishing honestly?

The point: Permission to not be perfect. Permission to make strategic choices about what matters. Reframing “finishing” as making decisions, not achieving perfection.

After you submit

Your paper is due January 28. Let’s say you submit it. What happens to it then?

I don’t mean grades or feedback. I mean: who do you imagine reading it?

Not “academics in general.” Specifically. Picture someone—a specific person—sitting down with your paper. Where are they? What time of day? Why are they reading it? What do they already know? What are they hoping to find?

Now picture a different reader. Someone else who might encounter your work. Different location, different context, different reasons for reading.

Do these two people read the same paper? Or does your paper become something different depending on who’s reading?

Task (don’t write this, just think about it):

Your paper makes an argument about something in Berlin—some tension, some mixing, some question about what survives or how things coexist. But your argument only matters if it travels beyond the specific case.

So: what would have to be true elsewhere for your Berlin observation to matter there too?

Not “this proves a universal truth.” Rather: under what conditions does what you noticed in Berlin become relevant in Cairo, in Istanbul, in Ramallah, in London, in Kreuzberg vs. Neukölln?

Bring to final session: One sentence: “My argument travels to X when/if Y is true.”

This isn’t about generalizing. It’s about recognizing the conditions under which local knowledge becomes portable.

Break + final session in January

We finished Session 8 (Cross-Disciplinary Reading) last week. Our next and final session won’t be until January 14, 2026.

Between now and then, you have time to actually write. That’s the point of the gap—space to think, draft, revise without constant feedback pressure.

Your final paper (5000 words) is due January 28, 2026.

What to do during the break:

Take the experiments you’ve been trying (McEnerney approach vs. personal approach, risky moves, reader-centered strategies) and actually use them. Write your draft. Revise it. Let it sit. Come back to it.

The assignment from last session still stands: Try rewriting one section two different ways and see what you learn. But don’t bring all versions to the final session—that’s too much.

Optional individual consultations:

If you want to talk through a specific problem or decision point in your draft, I’m offering individual consultations online in my personal webex room on Wednesday, December 11 and 17, 10:30-11:30 (10-15 minutes per person or in the group).

This is completely optional. Come if:

  • You’re stuck on something specific
  • You need to talk through a structural decision
  • You have competing ideas and need to think out loud
  • You’re not sure if you’re on a track to anything really

Don’t come if:

  • You haven’t started writing yet (that’s fine—just start)
  • You want general feedback (save that for January)
  • You think you need permission to do something (you have permission)
  • You have general ISME questions

To sign up: Just write me an email with one sentence about what you want to discuss.

What to bring to the final session (January 14):

  1. Your draft (whatever state it’s in—doesn’t need to be done)
  2. One specific question or problem you need help with

Examples:

  • “My opening doesn’t create instability—where is the actual tension?”
  • “I’m writing for everyone and therefore no one—who ARE my readers?”
  • “This section feels like I’m just proving I read things—what work should it do?”
  • “I have two competing arguments and don’t know which is mine”

What the final session will be:

  • Small group troubleshooting on specific problems (not general feedback)
  • Quick check-ins on finishing strategies
  • Making sure everyone has a plan for the final two weeks

It will be a practical session to help you finish.

Use the break well. Write. Let it be messy. You have until January 28 to make it work.

See you January 14.

Document a contamination

You’ve been walking. Observing. Noticing tensions. Now I want you to document something different: a specific moment of contamination.

Tsing writes: “We are contaminated by our encounters; they change who we are as we make way for others… Contamination makes diversity.”

Scott writes about metis—practical knowledge that develops through encounter, that cannot be codified into rules, that emerges from “knowing this river” not “rivers in general.”

Macfarlane writes about rivers as persons, as beings with rights, asking: “Ko wai koe?” (Who are your waters?)

Your task (do this, don’t just think about it):

Find ONE specific place in Berlin where something that “shouldn’t” be mixing IS mixing. Not metaphorically. Actually.

But here’s the warning: Don’t look for “Turkish” meeting “German” or “Syrian” meeting “European.” Those categories are already contaminated. Someone who grew up in Berlin speaking Turkish and German isn’t “mixing” two pure things—they’re already the contamination as much as everyone and everything is.

Instead, look for:

  • A building material from elsewhere patching a local structure in a way that changes both
  • A word borrowed into local German that now means something slightly different than in its origin language
  • A tree species introduced decades ago that now hosts insects that weren’t “supposed” to be its partners—or maybe an invasive plant
  • A Cold War structure being used for something it was never designed for, changing what that structure means
  • Children playing a game that’s neither “from here” nor “from there” but something new entirely
  • A business practice that works only because it’s adapted to this specific street, this specific mix of people

Document it:

  1. Take a photo or draw it
  2. Describe SPECIFICALLY what’s mixing (not cultural categories but actual practices, materials, languages, uses)
  3. What has been CHANGED by this contamination? (Not what’s been added—what’s been transformed? What can’t go back?)
  4. Whose metis made this mixing work? (Someone had to figure out HOW to make incompatible things coexist—what did they have to know?)
  5. If this place/moment had personhood (like Macfarlane’s rivers), what would its rights be?

What to think about for the next session: How did looking for contamination risk reifying the very categories (German/foreign, local/immigrant, authentic/adapted) that contamination is supposed to dissolve?

The point: Tsing says contamination makes diversity but also: “The diversity that allows us to enter collaborations emerges from histories of extermination, imperialism, and all the rest.” So contamination isn’t innocent. What you’re documenting isn’t “cultural mixing” (too clean). It’s something messier, more historically loaded, less celebratory.

Reading Like a Writer

November 19, 2025 | 10:15-11:45

What We Discovered

We read a paper from outside our field—game studies, psychosis, apocalypse, embodied experience. Most of you finished it. Some of you were surprised by that. The question was: what made you keep reading when you didn’t care about the topic?

The answers pointed to something interesting: the text does things academic writing isn’t supposed to do. It blurs boundaries. Between academic and personal voice. Between analysis and experience. Between argument and uncertainty. One of you said it felt like “the subjective experience IS the paper”—not the object being analyzed but the method itself.

We noticed:

  • An “I” that doesn’t apologize for being there
  • Theory referenced but not explained (trusting you to either know it or not need it)
  • Questions that open doors without walking through them
  • A structure called “fragments” that either works or doesn’t depending on what you think structure is for
  • Long paragraphs that sometimes irritate, sometimes pull you in
  • Positionality that’s stated but not defensive

Someone asked: is this even reviewing? Is it analyzing? Or is it something else—invitation, narration, revelation?

What We Examined

In small groups, you looked at how different moves function:

The “I” group noticed the writer isn’t just inserting themselves—the “I” does different work in different moments. Sometimes confessing (“my hands shake”), sometimes analyzing, sometimes questioning. You asked: does this serve the argument or is it self-indulgent?

The theory group noticed citations that don’t explain themselves. Shildrick, Merleau-Ponty, Anzaldúa, Barad—they appear and then vanish. Some of you could follow without knowing them. Some couldn’t. You asked: is this trusting readers or excluding them?

The structure group wrestled with whether “fragments” is a meaningful category or just an excuse for lack of organization. You noticed the paper tells you it’s fragments, which is itself a move. You asked: does calling something experimental make it experimental?

The questions group counted unanswered questions and got uncomfortable. Academic writing is supposed to answer things. This paper asks and then… keeps asking. You asked: is uncertainty intellectual honesty or intellectual cowardice?

What We Didn’t Resolve

We ran out of time before we could build the comparison chart or locate the exact moment where “experimental” becomes “self-indulgent.” But that incompleteness might be the point.

Because the real question isn’t whether this paper is good or bad. The real question is: what is academic writing FOR?

If it’s for delivering definitive knowledge, then this paper fails. It admits it has “no answers, only questions.”

If it’s for demonstrating mastery, then this paper fails. The writer keeps saying “I don’t know.”

If it’s for maintaining professional distance, then this paper fails. It’s intensely, almost uncomfortably personal.

But if academic writing is for making readers think—for creating experiences that change how you see—then maybe this paper does exactly what it’s trying to do.

Someone made a distinction between “sentimental” and “gaining knowledge”, and that’s a good question whether there is such a distinction at all. What counts as knowledge? Can experience be knowledge? Can uncertainty be knowledge? Can asking questions you don’t answer be a form of knowing?

What This Has to Do With Reader-Centered Writing

We’ve spent weeks on McEnerney’s framework: make instability visible, show costs readers bear, know who your readers are, deliver on promises.

This paper does some of that. It makes you care about a game you’ve never played (reader-centered). It trusts you with complexity without over-explaining (reader-centered). It keeps you oriented even through fragments (reader-centered).

But it also does something McEnerney doesn’t talk about: it makes the writer’s uncertainty and personal stakes the reason you keep reading. McEnerney says make it the reader’s problem. This paper says: what if my problem IS interesting to readers precisely because it’s MY problem?

So there are at least two ways to serve readers:

  1. Deliver what they need (McEnerney)
  2. Invite them into genuine uncertainty (Hellblade paper)

These aren’t necessarily opposed. But they’re not the same. And understanding the difference might change what you think writing can do.


Assignment for FINAL Session (Jan 14)

This is our last meeting before the deadline. The assignment is designed to help you finish, not to create more work.

The Experiment (for your own benefit):

Take some of the time until Jan 14 to work on the paper (the examination for the module “Studying the Middle East”).

Take one section from your draft that isn’t working yet—where you feel stuck, where the argument isn’t landing, where you’re not sure what you’re saying.

Try rewriting it two different ways:

Version 1: McEnerney approach – make instability visible, show costs readers bear, deliver clearly

Version 2: Personal approach – start with your actual stakes, admit uncertainty, ask real questions

See which version helps you figure out what you’re actually trying to say. Keep whichever works better (or combine them).

What to bring to final session:

  1. Your full draft (whatever state it’s in)
  2. One specific question or problem you need help with

The session will be: quick peer feedback on specific problems, troubleshooting, and making sure everyone has a plan to finish.

Short-Notice Assignment for Wednesday’s Session (Dec 3) – Reading Like a Writer

You’re reading an academic paper. But not for content. For craft.

What to read: Downloadable here: “Unveiled in Ashes: Hellblade and the Revelatory Collapse of the Self” by Victoria Mummelthei (game studies paper, 17 pages)

What to do:

  1. Read it. Don’t worry if you know nothing about video games or this game specifically. That’s the point.
  2. Print it if necessary and annotate as you read. Mark three things: X = Where you get lost (not “I don’t know this vocabulary” but “I have no idea what this paragraph is doing or why”) ? = Where you stop caring (“so what?” / “why am I reading this?”) ! = Where you start caring (something creates stakes, makes you want to keep reading)
  3. Write in the margins: What is each section DOING?
    • Setting up a problem?
    • Making a theoretical move?
    • Telling a story?
    • Asking a question?
    • Connecting two things?
    • Not doing anything specific at all?
  4. Note what strikes you as strange, confusing, “too essayistic,” “un-academic,” or just different from what you usually read in your field. Don’t judge whether it’s good or bad—just notice it.

Why this paper? It’s not about the Middle East. It’s maybe adjacent to your field but not in it. This lets you notice HOW it works instead of getting distracted by whether you agree with WHAT it says.

What we’ll do in session:

  • Compare what you noticed
  • Identify moves the writer makes that your field or your writing usually doesn’t make
  • Discuss what works, what doesn’t, what feels risky, what you’d never do, what you might steal
  • Practice experimenting with some of these moves in your own writing

Bring:

  • Your annotated printout or file
  • One paragraph from your own draft (any paragraph, printed or file)

Time estimate: 1-1.5 hours to read and annotate carefully.

See you Wednesday.

Give your draft to someone who will hate it

You’ve revised your draft. You know who your readers are supposed to be. You’ve made the instability visible (you think). The costs are clear (you hope).

Now test it.

But not with someone sympathetic. Not with a friend who studies the same thing you do. Not with someone who already cares about your topic.

Give it to someone who will hate it.

Someone who thinks your field is irrelevant. Someone who doesn’t care about Berlin or the Middle East or whatever tension you’re writing about. Someone who has no reason to keep reading past the first paragraph.

Ask them: “Where did you stop caring? What sentence made you think ‘so what?'”

Their answer is a truth. Not a truth about whether your work is good. A truth about whether your instability actually creates costs for readers who don’t already care.

Because here’s the thing: the readers who already care will read your work no matter what. They’re not the test.

The test is the reader who has no reason to care. Can you make them care anyway?

That’s what costs and benefits are for.

Find that reader. Give them your draft. Listen to where they stop.

Then revise.

The Editor’s Hands

There is a café I dream myself to when writing isn’t working. The coffee is fine. What I like is the window. It faces a courtyard where an old woman waters her plants each morning. She touches the leaves as she goes. Not checking for anything. Just touching.

I think about her hands sometimes when I think about editors. What they do with a text. How it’s different from what readers do.

A reader tells you what they received. They are honest, if you’re lucky. They say: I got confused here. I stopped caring there. I didn’t understand who this was for. This is useful. This is data. But a reader leaves and takes their confusion with them. You’re alone again with the draft.

An editor stays.


I had an editor once who read a piece I’d written about my father. It was overwrought. I knew it was overwrought but I didn’t know what else it could be. She didn’t tell me it was overwrought. She asked me about the kitchen. The kitchen in the piece was described in one sentence. She wanted to know what the light was like in that kitchen. What it smelled like in the morning. Whether the chairs scraped when you pulled them out.

I told her. She said: write that.

The next draft was better. Not because she fixed anything. Because she saw something I hadn’t finished seeing.


Feedback tells you where you are. Editing helps you get somewhere.

This is not a small difference. It’s the difference between a mirror and a companion. A mirror shows you your face. A companion walks with you and points at things. Look at that. Have you noticed this. What if you went that way instead.

A good editor is curious about your work in a way that makes you curious about it again. They ask questions you didn’t know to ask. Not because they’re smarter. Because they’re outside. They see the shape of the thing. You’re inside, too close, your nose against the wall. They stand back and say: did you know there’s a door over there?


I think about the old woman with her plants. She’s not checking if they’re healthy. She knows they’re healthy. She grew them. She’s in conversation with them. The touching is part of the growing.

Editing is like that. It’s not assessment. It’s cultivation.


When I teach writing, students want feedback. They want to know if it’s good. They want to know what’s wrong. These are reasonable wants. But they’re not the wants that make writing better.

What makes writing better is someone who sits with your mess and sees something in it you couldn’t see. Someone who asks: what’s this doing here? Not accusingly. Curiously. Someone who says: this sentence—I keep coming back to it. I don’t know why. Do you know why?

And you look at the sentence and you realize you don’t know why either. But now you want to find out.


The best editors I’ve had made me want to write. Not made me feel bad about what I’d written. Made me want to keep going. Made me believe there was something in the draft worth finding.

This is rare. Most feedback makes you want to hide. Most feedback says: here’s what’s wrong. Fix it. The fixing feels like punishment. The draft becomes a problem to be solved rather than a thing to be grown.

But an editor says: there’s something here. I can feel it. It’s not quite visible yet. Let’s find it.

And suddenly the draft is alive again. Suddenly you’re not fixing. You’re discovering.


There’s a scene in a film I love. Two people are cooking together. One is experienced, one is learning. The experienced one doesn’t give instructions. She puts her hand over his hand on the knife and they cut together. The motion transfers. The knowledge moves through touch.

This is what editing feels like when it works. Not instructions from outside. A kind of doing-together. The editor’s hand over yours. The cut becomes possible because you’re not alone in making it.

Feedback is someone watching you cook and telling you the onions are burning. Editing is someone at the stove with you, tasting the broth, saying: more salt, and handing you the salt.


I don’t mean to be harsh on feedback. Feedback has its place. You need to know when things aren’t landing. You need the honest reader who says: I stopped caring on page three. That’s valuable. That’s necessary.

But it’s not sufficient.

Because after the reader leaves, you still have to write. You still have to figure out what page three could be. And for that you need something more than data. You need a kind of faith. Faith that there’s something worth finding. Faith that the mess can become something.

An editor holds that faith for you when you can’t hold it yourself.


The old woman finishes watering. She stands for a moment looking at her plants. Not inspecting. Just looking. The way you look at something you’ve been in relationship with for a long time. Something you know isn’t finished. Something still becoming.

She goes inside. The plants stay in the sun. Growing.


I think the difference is this: feedback is a transaction. You give me writing, I give you reaction. We’re done.

Editing is a relationship. We’re in this together. We’re both trying to find out what this thing wants to be. Neither of us knows yet. But we’re looking. And the looking together changes what we find.


There’s a loneliness to writing. You sit alone. You make choices alone. No one can tell you if the choices are right because no one knows what you’re trying to make. Sometimes you don’t know either.

An editor doesn’t fix the loneliness. But they witness it. They say: I see you in there, trying. And they reach in a hand.

Not to pull you out. To be with you in the dark.

Until slowly, something starts to take shape. Something neither of you made alone.


I went back to the essay about my father. The one my editor asked about the kitchen. I wrote three pages about the light. About the smell of toast. About the scrape of chairs and the particular blue of the gas flame on the stove.

My father was barely in those pages. And yet he was everywhere.

She didn’t tell me to do this. She asked me about a kitchen. I answered.

That’s the difference. Feedback tells you what isn’t working. An editor asks a question that opens a door. You walk through it. What’s on the other side—that was always yours. You just couldn’t see it from where you were standing.

Now you can.