Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, December 2018Being in academia I actually tend to think of years as beginni

Red Rock Canyon, Nevada, December 2018

Being in academia I actually tend to think of years as beginning in September and ending in August, but for the sake of staying in tune with those celebrating and marking the end of the year tonight, I’ll take stock here. 

My biggest personal accomplishment this year was the completion of (the first full draft of) my book manuscript. This required gutting and rewriting my entire doctoral dissertation, which was a hard process to begin but which was ultimately pretty rewarding. I also added in two new chapters, workshopped the manuscript with some extremely impressive senior scholars at Princeton University, and submitted it for review at a top university press. Fingers crossed for the outcome of that sometime in 2019 .

Second to completing my manuscript was receiving the Best Dissertation award from the Migration & Citizenship section of the American Political Science Association. Maybe external validation shouldn’t matter too much, but it’s so rare in academia (at least for me) that you kind of have to take it where you can get it. 

I also published two articles based off of my doctoral research:

Norman, Kelsey P. 2019. “Inclusion, Exclusion or Indifference? Redefining Migrant and Refugee Host State Engagement Options in Mediterranean ‘Transit’ Countries,”Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 45(1): 42-60.

Norman, Kelsey P. 2018. “Migration and Refugee Policy-Making in Modern Egypt, Morocco and Turkey,”Mashriq & Mahjar: Journal of Middle East and North African Migration Studies5(2).

A number of other articles are under review, including one article that has been under review for two years (!!). I guess 2018 also taught me just how frustrating and futile academic publishing can be. 

Aside from peer-reviewed writing, I contributed a series of posts for Political Violence at a Glance, which is a blog dedicated to analysis of violence and its alternatives. Two of the posts focused on the return of refugees to Syria, a topic I’ve been following closely and anxiously over the last year and that I expect will be an even more pressing issue in 2019.

“Concerns Over a Coercive Return of Syrian Refugees from Lebanon" (20 February 2018)

”What’s At Stake for Syrian Returnees“ (20 November 2018)

I also designed and taught my first course. The title was “Migration, Immigration and Displacement in the Middle East and North Africa” and I shared the syllabus online here for anyone interested. Teaching was both exhilarating and exhausting, and I definitely fell prey to imposter syndrome, but overall it was a good first experience. 

Travel was a big part of 2018 for me. Aside from a number of domestic trips and trips to Canada, I had the chance to travel to Australia, Singapore, Greece, Spain, Japan, and also spent about 21 hours in China. This was a combination of job interviews, presenting at conferences, reunions with friends, and a vacation with my husband. Despite how much I’ve been traveling, I’m still too persistently lazy to apply for TSA pre-check or Global Entry. Maybe a goal for 2019?

In August I started listening to The Daily every morning, which made a huge difference in how I consume US news. I’m consistently blown-away by the production quality and have come to love hearing Michael Barbaro’s voice during my morning commutes. It was especially helpful during the Kavanaugh hearing, the Khashoggi murder, and in the lead-up to the US midterm elections.

Aside from The Daily, my favorite podcast series in 2018 was from 30 for 30 on the topic of Bikram Chowdry. It’s a narrative podcast that tells the story of Bikram’s arrival in the US, the establishment of bikram yoga, the harassment and sexual assault of his devotees, and how the bikram community has tried to reckon with the truth of his depravity.

I also read some incredible fiction in 2018. Fiction is a huge part of my life and I read every night before I go to bed. Even if it’s just for a few minutes, it helps me disconnect from whatever else is running through my head and causing anxiety. Here are my favorites from this year:

The Power by Naomi Alderman 

The Perfect Nanny by Leïla Slimani 

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee 

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Marra Anthony

Storyland by Catherine McKinnon

Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits by Laila Lalami

And while not fiction, I have to also recommend:

Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova

The Return by Hisham Matar

This year I volunteered for an American political campaign for the first time since I was in university and John Kerry was running for president (I’m dating myself I realize). I was so disillusioned by US politics after Bush was reelected that I set my sights on working and living abroad, which I primarily did from 2007 until 2015. But this year, instead of reacting with disillusionment to the catastrophe of 2016, I volunteered for a local race and canvassed for Jason Crow running for the US House of Representatives in Aurora, Colorado. He won, as did many Dems running for the House across the country, and I’m excited to see what this new, more diverse, more female House will do in 2019. 

I also joined a running group this summer, the Denver chapter of International Frontrunners. I’ve found that a lot of the running groups I’ve tried in Denver are cliquey or just way too fast for my pace. But Frontrunners, which is for LGBT runners and their friends, is incredibly welcoming and open to runners of all abilities. 

In December I also found that I was going to be home in Denver for 30 consecutive days for the first time all year. I decided to take advantage of Kindness Yoga’s $30-for-30-days deal and pushed myself to take one yoga class each day for an entire month. It was difficult for the first week but then became something I looked forward to and craved. By the end of the 30 days I felt mentally and physically transformed, and my anxiety levels were at an all-time low. I’m trying to take the calm I found with me into 2019, but am also just storing this new-found knowledge of how much yoga can help when the going gets tough. 

This list of course leaves out all the work and job related rejections I received this year, and brushes over various family and emotional traumas I dealt with. But looking back on some of the things I experienced, learned and accomplished this year is certainly a nice way to close things out. 

I’m staying in this New Years Eve, both because it’s 15 degrees F and snowing outside but also because my husband and I have cobbled together a tradition of cooking good food and watching a film trilogy to end the year. We’ve decided tonight is going to be coq au vin with Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Trois Couleurs. 

Thanks for reading, and all the best for the start of 2019.