From December 6 to 8, student members of the Centre for the Digital Research of Religion were on the first-ever writing retreat organized by CEDRR.
Academic writing is an activity that we need to be focused on and have time for. However, both time and focus for writing are rare commodities for students in the context of their study activities or everyday responsibilities. The concept of a writing retreat is a response to these difficulties. The principle of a writing retreat is to move from the burdens of everyday concerns to a space and time specifically dedicated to a single purpose - focused and undisturbed writing. To test this concept, we rented a house in Černá hora, near Brno, where we spent two nights to have one full day of academic writing, framed by group discussions at the beginning and end. It was a successful experiment in terms of both productivity and team building, and we will organize such events in the future again. The program of the main writing day is attached below for inspiration.
December 7
8:00-9:00 Breakfast
9:00-10:30 Writing segment 1
10:30-11:00 Coffee/snack break
11:00-12:00 Writing segment 2
12:30-14:00 Lunch and a walk outside
14:00-15:30 Writing segment 3
15:30-16:00 Coffee/snack break
16:00-17:30 Writing segment 4
17:30-18:00 Snack break
18:00-19:00 Group discussion and wrap-up
19:30- Dinner and evening program
Aleš Chalupa, Tomáš Glomb, and Juraj Sarkisjan published the article: Stations of the Publicum Portorium Illyrici are a Strong Predictor of the Mithraic Presence in the Danubian Provinces: Geographical Analysis of the Distribution of the Roman Cult of Mithras in Open Archaeology.
In this short text, Tereza looks back at the experience of attending summer schools focusing on quantitative methods and evaluates how beneficial it was for her research and self-development in the Study of religions.
