Hello everyone!
My name is Jamie, I’m a postgraduate student from the UK. I graduated from the University of Sheffield with a BA in Politics and Philosophy in 2014, and then from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) with a Msc. in Political Theory in 2015. I spent a year as a teaching assistant in a primary school and working in a secondhand bookshop before moving to the University of Oxford, where I’m currently an MPhil student in Politics, with a concentration in Political Theory. Plan A is to transition onto the DPhil programme (what they call a PhD here for some historical reason) and become an academic in a Politics department somewhere. Plan B (should my proposal be rejected) would be to take a year out and have a think about whether I want to pursue my other interests full-time.
I found myself drawn to this community for a multitude of reasons; firstly, I’ve been watching the Sloterdijk discussions, which I found fascinating, as I am alone in my department for even knowing who Sloterdijk is (aside from German students who perceive him as an irritant from public TV!), and I am probably the only person in the department who has ever attempted to read the Spheres trilogy. I have read both Bubbles and Globes, and I’m currently halfway through Foams, and I’d love to bounce some ideas off fellow readers on this bizarre sojourn into his mind.
The second reason I was drawn to the community was due to its anarchistic setup (a political ideology for which I have much sympathy) and its unashamed belief in the creative potential of human beings. I’ve been toying with the idea of writing a novel (I’ve been writing short stories since I was a child), and I’ve written several television pilot scripts (mainly hitherto-rejected comedies), and I’m looking forward to seeing if, with group support, I may return to my proverbial side cabinet full of half-baked ideas, and eventually conjure something remotely presentable.
I’ll try to be as active as possible as a member of the community, but keep in mind the time difference (I’ll be up at 1am my time if I am to contribute to Sloterdijk discussions!) and my hectic MPhil schedule (I’ve got a 25,000-word thesis due in two months!), so if I suddenly disappear, I apologise in advance!