How to Turn Your Academic Research Into a Bestseller

Type: 
Workshop
Audience: 
Open to the Public
Building: 
Nador u. 15
Room: 
Room 106
Tuesday, May 29, 2018 - 5:30pm
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Date: 
Tuesday, May 29, 2018 - 5:30pm

In this workshop author Jaap Scholten will discuss how he turned his research at CEU into a book for a general audience. He will speak about the differences between academic writing and literary non-fiction, sharing with the participants of the workshop what he learned about writing, storytelling and about the importance of being personal. In the second part of the workshop, participants can take part in a quest for storylines/methods to make their research accessible for a wider audience.

Jaap Scholten is a writer and 2009 CEU alumnus. He has published novels and works of non-fiction, and he turned his social anthropology MA thesis `From Ballroom to Basement, the Internal Exile of the Hungarian Aristocracy in Transylvania’ into literary non-fiction. This book, Comrade Baron, was shortlisted for best travel writing in The Netherlands, won the Libris History Prize, became a bestseller (with over 40.000 copies sold) and was translated into several languages. It is currently Helena History Press’s bestselling title (distributed by CEU Press).

The discussion is part of our series: “The Open Academic: Innovative Ways of Engaging in the Public Sphere

The workshop is free to attend.

Through a series of workshops and discussions we aim to give the CEU community the skills and tools needed to engage in debates in the public sphere in innovative, unconventional or ‘non-academic’ ways. Taken together, the events will foster a university-wide conversation about the role of academics and academic knowledge in public debates. Each session is devoted to a different mode of dissemination including comics, podcasts, popular writing, op-eds, social media, visualisation of data, policy briefs and audio documentaries.

The project is coordinated by the Center for Media, Data and Society (CMDS) with partners across the university including the Department of International Relations, the Visual Studies Platform, the Digital Humanities Initiative and the Communications Office. If you are interested in the workshop series, please get in touch with Ian Cook at CookI@spp.ceu.edu