Summer 2.0

How’s everyone’s summer going? Mine is great in terms of relaxing, but I haven’t done the reading I’d like to do. I’ve started a few novels that I need to read in preparation for fields, but I haven’t finished anything (yet–fingers crossed!).

What are all of your plans?

so…my head is about to explode. just thought ya’ll should know.

It’s that time in the semester when I should be working on papers every second of every day, but, alas, I tend to spend more time reading online newspapers, watching television, and eating instead of thinking or writing. It has become a problem.

I certainly have other things I should be doing. I have 22 exams and essays that I need to grade, and more assignments will be coming in Monday. For class, I’ve got to write an abstract for a paper that I’ve done absolutely no thinking for. I just feel like I’m losing it and and that I really [*REALLY*] need a break. Have ya’ll reached that point? Am I just complaining into the eternal abyss of the Internet for the sake of complaining?

Anyway. Maybe after writing this post I’ll do some work. Well, probably not. I hope everyone’s semesters are wrapping up nicely.

Oh, Conferences

Has anyone gone to a conference lately? I presented at the New England Medieval Studies Consortium grad student conference (I know, it’s a mouthful) at the beginning of March. It was held at Brown, so I got to check out Providence. (I have to say, I wasn’t really taken with it.)  There were more historians and art historians than literature folks at the conference with the result that I came away realizing I know nothing about the Middle Ages. Always a good feeling. Conferences are such strange things. Everyone’s sharing papers on really specific topics–sometimes interesting, sometimes not–so most of the time no one else in the room has more than a limited knowledge of the subject matter.

I acquired a fair bit of presentation experience while at BYU, so I should have known better, but I still over-prepared for the question and answer session. My paper was about Piers Plowman and Inception (dreams within dreams, uncertainty about dreams’ significance, the dreamer’s potential for madness, etc.), so I was expecting all sorts of queries about medieval dream books, literary dreams, dream theory, and so forth. Most medievalists have something to say about dreams. Perhaps the problem was the dearth of literary scholars, but I only got one banal question about the reliability of the narrator. I guess I shouldn’t complain; it’s better than being thrown a question I have no idea how to answer, and the extra research I did won’t go to waste.

Does anyone else ever feel like what they’re doing is of no real significance?

Feeling accomplished?

Hi all. I hope everyone is enjoying their break, or, if your break is over, that you are enjoying the fresh start of a new semester. I’m just sitting here, suffering from vacation fatigue, wishing that I had accomplished something productive–anything, really–but all I’ve done lately is eat, drive to SLC, and sleep.

A couple of notable eats: Moochie’s (perfect Philly cheese steaks), Lamb’s (good ambiance), and, of course, the “Utah” In-N-Out (I dare you to click on this and watch/listen to the entire advertisement). Granted, I have had two friends from Taiwan with me for the past two and a half weeks, so I shouldn’t feel guilty for not reading anything for the last little while. But, I still do.

How do you all feel? What do you do during these breaks? I feel like I need to work in some way, but all I want to do is sleep or watch movies (I saw _True Grit_ today and quite enjoyed the Coen brothers’ sweetness). Anyway, am I alone in feeling like an unproductive lump of whatnot?

Materialist Interventions

The title of this blog post has changed several times, but I think I’ve finally landed with a keeper in this evocation of a phrase used regularly in one of my seminars. I’d like to do a “materialist intervention” of my graduate school experience thus far.

But first let me set the stage a little bit. I distinctly recall loathing my situation when I first arrived to grad school. I hated the place and I felt like it wasn’t “right” for me. I had all sorts of romanticized assumptions of graduate work and I thought that I had pretty much been dropped in a wasteland. Considering my forthcoming “materialist intervention” of my surroundings one would suppose that I’m either walking around with a bag over my head, or that I’ve grown up (a little). Here’s what rocks:
*I have a sweet office space. It’s quiet, I’m surrounded by books, and I have a window. Perfection itself.
*I (sometimes) teach students who are really committed to learning and growth.
*I’m not starving. That’s pretty material.

OK, I’m clearly out of the habit of writing blog posts. But, to end, how about you do a “materialist intervention” into your grad school career. I’m sure we all got some great and not so great (and freaking awesome, if your name is Dallin) things to share.

Hope all is well.

New personal blog

Just wanted to let you know I started a personal blog recently–we’ll see how long it lasts once the twins come. Here’s the link if you’re interested; there’s even a little post about falling on my face in a Middle English seminar.

Publish or Perish?

I’m curious to hear your opinions about publishing articles and presenting papers at conferences. Last week, as my Inbox was inundated with emails about upcoming conference deadlines and calls for papers, I started to panic and think thoughts like: “Ok, maybe I can write an abstract in anticipation of the paper I’m going to write for this seminar–even though I have no idea what it’s going to be about–and submit that by the deadline next week.” A part of this anxiety may stem from the fact that I went to a lot of conferences as an undergrad. In fact, my junior and senior years, I think I submitted abstracts and proposals to almost every conference I heard about. In short, I’d set an unrealistic expectation for myself  (motivated in part by my tendency to overachieve, in part by the current job market).

Today, I read an article by Cary Nelson (at Urbana-Champaign) called “No Wine Before Its Time.” Are you familiar with it? It was such a relief to hear his opinion about “preprofessionalization.” He says don’t be afraid to publish early and present at conferences, as long as you have something intelligent to say. On the other hand, he offers an idea of what’s realistic: two to three conference presentations at specialized conferences in your field. That’s it. And the best thing to publish is a chapter of your dissertation–not half-baked seminar papers. He says, “Diverting yourself from your dissertation by revising seminar papers is not preprofessionalization; it is misguided professionalization…Much the same can be said of the frenetic effort to add more and more conference presentations to your vita” (159-60).

A week or so ago, as I was attempting to plan the next several years, I felt a little at sea. I wasn’t sure what my goal should be in terms of publications, etc. Now I think I do. This year, I’m hoping both to submit something from my undergrad thesis for publication and to prepare a paper to present at a notable conference (like Kalamazoo–the “big one” for medievalists) next year.  My third and fourth years, I’d like to be presenting papers that are coming from my dissertation. My fourth or fifth year, I’ll aim to submit a chapter-article for publication. I really want my dissertation to be my focus so that I can have something that’s ready to be made into a book when I go on the job market. And I don’t want to feel overwhelmed by conferences–like I did last week.

That’s the plan for now. What are your plans for/ thoughts about preprofessionalizing?

Advice to Incoming Graduate Students

I found this article from ProfHacker to be a helpful list of suggestions for any grad student; many of these things I found true for my first year and some I want to start implementing (for instance, developing a “personal research library” where I make notes of the things I’ve read). What do you guys think? What advice would you give to first-year students?

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/An-Open-Letter-to-New-Graduate/26326/

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Faithful and Autobiographical Liteary Criticism

I’ve been thinking about something for a quite awhile, ever since I read and discussed Richard Bushman’s “Faithful History” essay with some friends at ND. The  paper explores the idea of writing “faithful” or “Mormon” history, but concludes pretty early that the typical definitions of this type of word–apologetic, faith-promoting narratives of church history–tend to be both unsatisfying and easily dismissed by the broader academic community (plus, what if 19C American religion isn’t your focus?). Still, Bushman feels we shouldn’t completely divorce our Mormon identity from our work. If we expect car salesmen or accountants to still be Mormon car salesmen or Mormon accountants (that is, they live their religion throughout the work week) how would this shape our way of doing history? Bushman suggests a couple of possible ways of doing “faithful history”–history that fuses our professional identity with our faith; for instance, we might approach historical narratives with an awareness of humanity’s struggle between idealism and our baser natures–the constant struggle between striving towards Christ-like living or reveling in the natural man. You wouldn’t necessarily cast the narrative in these terms, but you are open to how these types of narratives inflect the history you are crafting.

Here’s what I’d do, if I were you…

Here’s why I wouldn’t mind being at Notre Dame next semester: “Joyce and Beckett” taught by Maud Ellmann and “Modernism and Magazines” taught by Barbara Green. To be honest, I have no idea who the professors are, I’m just tired of grading and I wanted a good distraction. I thought, what better way to distract myself than to longingly look at everyone’s class options!

I say longingly (with a hint of *strong* jealousy) because next semester I have slim pickings: a seminar on material culture and nation building in the early U.S. (actually, a class I’m looking forward to for aim to theorize archives and archival research); a seminar called “new directions in ecocriticism” (I double hate any thing with the word “new” after my class on ‘new formalism’); and then a possible class on “romantic negativity,” British civil war literature (theorizing violence and the nation-state) or on how to suck on egg. The last one sounds the best.

OK, so if I were at Minnesota (oh, lucky, lucky Katie!)–in addition to probably bugging the heck out of Paula Rabinowitz with silly, puerile questions designed to make me look smart but only expose my academic insecurities–I’d take “Old Age in Film and Literature” with David Luke and “Readings in Narrative” co-taught by Nurrudin Farah and Charles Sugnet. But it appears that there are some really cool medieval classes. The “Gods and Monsters” class looks great.

At Colorado, I’d take Paul Youngquist’s “Black Romanticism,” Adam Bradley’s “Ralph Ellison” seminar, Nan Goodman’s “The Rhetoric of Law,” and then I’d finish myself off with a poetry fix in Julie Carr’s “Politics and Poetry” (the title is much, MUCH longer). Speaking of Colorado, how’s the town, Jeremy? You haven’t started disappearing from the world at 4:20 each afternoon, have you? (Oh!)

Kaila, the course descriptions for Duke aren’t available for my perusal, but I’d take Wald’s, Aers’s, and Baucom’s class (not just because our last names are nearly identical, but that certainly helps; I may have applied to Wisconsin last year because they have a building called “Bascom Hall”).