Dear colleagues,
We hope this finds you well. 
This spring, the Early Career Scholars Network (ECSN) Committee of the ICTMD will host an online event on May 15, 2026, at UTC 12:00 Noon.

To register, click on the link.

The panel will include Prof. Ann R David, Dr. Jon Bullock, Dr. Noramin Farid and Dr. Shuo Niki Yang.

The Panel will be discussing “Regrounding in Flux: Navigating the Post-PhD Transition.”

Abstract:
Let’s face it—it’s precarious. You submit your PhD. Your university email gets taken away. You lose access to the library that you called home for many a sleepless night. The scholarly community you built over the years at your home institution feels out of reach. You find yourself sending out endless job applications and writing fellowship proposals, with little promised in return. Yet, somehow, we are meant to keep writing, researching, and maintaining our intellectual rigour.
It's tough.
So, how do we ground ourselves in this transition? How do we recognise and hold onto that hard-earned scholarly identity when the institutional scaffolding we are familiar with—our universities—falls away? How do we keep researching and keep engaging with our field when supervisor meetings and PhD milestones are no longer structuring our time? There hasn’t been enough conversation about how to stay resilient in this in-between grey space, particularly now, when the number of jobs at academic and cultural institutions is ever shrinking. This panel brings together four scholars at different stages of their careers to chat openly about how they navigated exactly this.
If you are currently in candidacy, freshly submitted, or still finding your footing as an early-career scholar, this panel is for you.

Come with questions!

Save the Date - May 15, 2026, at 2:00 PM Central European Time (CET)

Professor Dr. Ann R. David, is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of Bonn, in the Department of Asian and Islamic Art History. As Professor of Dance and Cultural Engagement, she was Visiting Professor at King’s College, London in the Culture, Media and Creative Industries (CMCI) department, and she holds an Emeritus professorial position at the University of Roehampton where she worked for 17 years, including as Head of the Dance Department for 6 years. Her research and teaching specialisms are in dance anthropology (ritual, migration, diaspora, embodiment) and South Asian classical and popular dance; her dance training includes ballet, contemporary, folk, and the Indian classical styles of bharatanatyam and kathak. She has published widely on this work, as well as on dance in Bollywood and on the ritual dances of Tibetan Buddhism and has completed a monograph of Indian dancer Ram Gopal, published by Bloomsbury. Prof. Dr. David has given public talks at the V&A, the British Library, British Museum and National Portrait Gallery and been involved in post-show discussions at Asia House, Nehru Centre, Sadler’s Wells, Southbank and the Bhavan, and has appeared on BBC radio and TV on several occasions. She is passionate about the need for the arts in education, working closely with policy makers, and is on the board of several arts organisations.

Dr. Jon Bullock is Assistant Professor of Ethnomusicology at the University of Notre Dame (in South Bend, Indiana). He completed his PhD in ethnomusicology in 2022 at the University of Chicago. Prior to coming to Notre Dame in fall of 2023, Jon was a Postdoctoral Associate at Yale University's Institute of Sacred Music. His work explores the relationships between sound, technology, and power in 20th and 21st-century Kurdistan. He is currently on leave this year on an NEH Fellowship, and is writing a book on the role of music broadcasting in Kurdish radio.

Dr. Noramin Farid is Senior Lecturer in Dance at Universiti Malaya, Malaysia. Bridging performance-making and scholarship, he works on
dance, heritage, and politics across maritime Southeast Asia. His research examines dance ecologies, gendered labour in training and
repertoire, and the politics of heritage-making across Malaysia, Singapore, and the wider Nusantara. He holds a PhD in Dance Studies from
Royal Holloway, University of London (2021), and an International Master in Dance Knowledge, Practice and Heritage (Choreomundus) (2016). For his activism and leadership as choreographer and scholar, he has received regional recognition including the ASEAN-India Youth Award (2018)
and Singapore Youth Award (2017).

Dr. Shuo Niki Yang is a lecturer in the Department of Musicology at the Central Conservatory of Music (Beijing). She holds a Ph.D. in ethnomusicology from the University of Pittsburgh. She has served as the East Asia regional leader of the ICTMD Study Group on Music, Education, and Social Inclusion, as well as secretary of the ICTMD Study Group on Indigenous Music and Dance.