I'm elated: My dissertation-turned-book project-"The Ghostwriters: Lawyers & the Politics Behind the Judicial Construction of Europe"-has been awarded @APSAtweets's Edward S. Corwin prize in public law! A personal thread on dissertating, mentorship, & sticking to your guns (1/9)

My book project ( https://www.tommasopavone.com/#/learn-about-my-book-project/) reconstructs how entrepreneurial lawyers advanced European integration by mobilizing nat'l courts against their own gov'ts. As I was writing it for my @PUPolitics PhD, I often worried about how it would be received by my discipline (2/9)

I wanted to write an interdisciplinary, fieldwork-intensive, & historically-grounded book that could speak to audiences spanning judicial politics, law & society, and comparative/European politics. It sometimes felt like too much & that I lacked focus... (3/9)

I also worried that I wasn't using the methodologies often perceived as necessary for polisci research. But my heart was in the field, the archives, the interviews, & the maps. I stuck to my guns thanks to my advisors-Kim Scheppele @rdanielkelemen @pfrymer & Andy Moravcsik (4/9)

As I applied for funds for fieldwork, I wanted to embrace inductive learning & serendipity. But a senior reviewer of an initial app wrote that interviews "won't reveal anything" & I should focus on deductive theorizing & "testing of covariates." I worried I had it backwards (5/9)

In truth, I ended up learning more from 1.5 years of fieldwork than any other time during my 8 years of grad school. Kim Scheppele advised me to make the most of this: "Write a book about the world, not a book about the literature." That advice has stuck with me since (6/9)

Personally, the Corwin Award validates what, as a PhD student, I kept hoping would be true: That it's worth it to write about what intrigues you most about the world, to do research that you enjoy, to break from conventional templates, & to trespass disciplinary boundaries (7/9)

I want to thank Pamela Corley, @mjnelson7, & @DanielNaurin for the time they took to read dissertations under challenging circumstances, & for seeing the value of my work. & to again acknowledge my advisors for their mentorship & support that made the dissertation possible (8/9)

Let me end w/ a personal note: Kim Scheppele, my PhD supervisor, won the Corwin award in 1985. Unless I'm mistaken ( https://www.apsanet.org/PROGRAMS/APSA-Awards/Edward-S-Corwin-Award), she was the first woman to receive the award, & she did it as a sociologist by training. I'm honored to follow in her footsteps (9/9)