Category Archives: papers

Turkey Trot

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Ah Thanksgiving.  A time to relax, ponder those things in life which we are grateful for, eat some delicious food, take a nap after dinner, and spend time with the family.  It’s the little break before the last leg of the race.  Just a breather before we launch into the final stretch.

Almost there.

So close.

It’s dangling right over my head, I can see it, I just can’t quite reach it (even if I jump).

Panic?  … …. …. PANIC!!!!

At the end of the semester every semester (and sometimes at the beginning depending on

Desk avec whiteboard. It literally looms over me as I work.

how overwhelmed I’m feeling), I dig out my giant whiteboard.  I list all of the assignments standing between me and the semester’s end.  I list their due dates.  Then I make a big check-box for each of them.

The whiteboard’s been out for about a month now and, while I can see that I’m making headway on all of these things I have to do, the big three (namely: papers) are beginning to loom ever-more-menacing.

It’s funny because I kept telling myself that, since I didn’t have class this week, I could get SO MUCH DONE and be in the BEST SHAPE EVER for that final push.  Well…. It’s Thursday.  So far I have managed to chip away at things, but no great or drastic improvement yet.  I don’t feel armed for this fight, I’m still waiting for them to alter my chain mail to fit me since I’m not amazonianly proportioned and, oh wouldn’t you know it, they stopped making chain mail in “short and stumpy” so they’re going to have to custom it and can’t fighting that dragon just wait another week, because they’ve got all these backorders due to black Friday and nobody gets work done during the holidays so it’s either go out there unprotected or wait a bit longer to get suited up and darn doesn’t it look like whatever pivotal equipment they need is going to fail horribly just in time to make my life incredible inconvenient?

Anyway, enough about that.  Let me take a moment and bow to the wishes of today’s holiday spirit and put some positive juju out in the air in hopes that it will come back to me when I need it in these coming weeks.

Let’s start with a heart-warming Thanksgiving story.

I wasn’t going to go home for Thanksgiving.  Driving down to New York to have dinner with my family, while appealing, was simply going to take too long.  I couldn’t spend what would amount to three days away from my work at this critical time in the semester.  So I regretfully tapped out of family dinner and went to start making arrangements as to how I could find some turkey to eat at my desk with my man Will.

My family is pretty much the best, because they decided that this meant (since I couldn’t come to them) they would drive up to Boston to spend the holiday with me.  My mom’s bringing a full turkey dinner.  My dad’s bringing bags and bags of high quality whole-bean coffee that he can’t drink anymore due to health reasons.  My sister is bringing her lovely self.  I’m really excited to see them.

So, while I still got up early to bang some things out today, as soon as they get here I’m putting the books down for the evening and taking a mental vacation for twelve hours.  I don’t care how far back it’s going to set me.  I have a lot to be thankful for this year and that pumpkin pie isn’t going to eat itself.

Ah the turkey. Nature's ugliest animal. Eating them is like beautifying the world, one drumstick at a time.

If you, like me, are still sitting at your computer frantically trying to put your affairs in order, I hereby give you permission to set it by a while.  There’s nothing you can accomplish in this twelve-hour span that’s going to be more important, or more rejuvenating, than a good turkey dinner, some booze, and good company.  Think about how lucky you are to be in the program you’re in, thank the fellowship gods, and then forget about it.  Life’s too short to let finals stand in the way of enjoying dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  I’ll catch you on the flip side with tales of the bloody battle to come; honor and glory; valorous victory; crushing defeats; injurious blows; and how to avoid death by library books.

Stay tuned.

Raiders of the Lost Archive

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This week’s adventure was brought to you by the words “Police”, “Microfiche” and “archive”.

So…. Have you heard about occupy Harvard?

…yea neither had I until I wound up in the middle of it this week.

The Harvard Theatre Collection is the largest and oldest archive of its kind in the United States (debatably the world).  They have all kinds of crazy and wonderful things, and it’s where I’m doing the majority of my research for one of my projects this semester.  This last trip to the archive is probably my last before I start writing, but I needed to digitize some microfilm (I know, my life is so exciting).  So I went.

Well, much to my amazement, the campus was on lockdown.  Being a New Yorker, I turned to my “deal with authority figures” survival instincts and whipped out the photo ID most likely to work (my Harvard special borrowers card), took out my headphones, gave the guards my most unassuming smile, and wha-bam had access to the yard.  No big deal.

The yard was quiet and there was a tent city set up on the far end of it.  At this point, my mind leapt to the most likely possibility: that the Harvard students simply could no longer

you can't tell me that this wouldn't perk up any "occupy" movement

afford exorbitant Harvard dorming and thereby were forced to make a make-shift hooverville within the yard.  The police were there, obviously, to stop and wandering gypsies who may get ideas about joining said hooverville.  Unless the gypsies had valid Harvard IDs in which case they were welcome to set up their wagons and perform peacefully (if loudly) for the masses.

I mean, it was a little odd, but nothing I haven’t dealt with before.

What came next was even weirder.

So despite having the nicest reading room with matching oak bookcases that I have ever been in as well as the most fancy bathrooms (seriously… their bathrooms are nicer than most apartments I’ve lived in), Houghton Library’s microfiche reader is a piece of donkey dung.  I get the feeling that they got the one that kind-of worked and thereby couldn’t be thrown away but nobody really wanted in their library so they sent it to the corner of Houghton.  This wouldn’t be a problem if the Houghton people weren’t emphatic about requesting microfiche copies of volumes when possible.

A critical piece of my current research is on microfiche.  This was going to be an issue.

After seeing the oh-so-fancy office-paper-and-handwritten “broken” sign on the printer by the microfiche reader, I inquired about the possibility of printing from microfiche.  The archivist informed me that this process had to be taken care of in Lamont library, the next building over.  “Oh.”  I said, “So I fill out a request sheet and they send my materials there, I pick them up and deal with them?”

“No.”  She said, “You take them there yourself.”

What?  Wait… no… WHAT!?  Like… remove materials from the archive?  With my own two hands?

You have to understand.  Reading rooms at these places are probably the most secure rooms in the university.  They post guards at the door, you need special ID to get in, you can only take certain things into the reading room (at Harvard you may take: a notebook, a laptop (but not the case), pencils, and your digital camera (but not the case)), they have buzz-you-in-from-both-sides doors, and they search your stuff when you leave.  I was going to REMOVE MATERIAL FROM THIS PLACE?

“Yea.”  The archivist said.  “I mean… it’s only microfiche.”

I guess that brought a little perspective to what I was doing.  After all, microfiche is secondary material… not really of any value since it’s not original and requires special equipment to deal with…

Steeling my nerve, I accepted the forms informing all involved security guards that yes, I was authorized to carry around these two rolls of golden microfiche for the afternoon and no, I wasn’t stealing them.

Feeling like I was carrying a case full of jewels and a bomb simultaneously, I worked my way out of the reading room and to Lamont.

So…. Funny thing about microfiche… it’s not glamorous.  At all.  And it doesn’t really require special conditions to be stored.  As a result, it gets foisted to the least appealing section of the library.  At Harvard, it’s in a sub-basement with few lights and locked wire storage cages at the back.  When I arrived in the sub-basement, there was one other student there.  I was somewhat glad because it meant that I had someone to throw at the

...and there wasn't even a counter to hide under!

inevitable zombies or velociraptors which would attack me because I had managed to find my way into their lair.  This other researcher proved doubly unnerving because, after a brief tour around the place, I realized that he disappeared completely without making a sound.  Standing, now alone, in the flickering fluorescent tube lights, I realized that I had to get out of there.  Now.  What if the velociraptors were particularly hungry that day?  What if they just had a penchant for stealing precious microfiche?  Then I would be found out!  Booted!  Clearly I wasn’t really a member of the academy because I fell for the old “velociraptors in the basement steal your archival material” trick!

Thankfully, I realized fairly quickly that while the microfiche lived in the sub-basement, the microfiche scanners lived on the main floor of the building (one of the ones with oak bookcases, comfy chairs, and professional velociraptor handlers… I mean librarians).  I made my escape as quickly as I could, clutching the microfiche to my chest in an attempt to hide its token scent.

And actually, microfiche digitizing scanners are pretty nifty!  I had a grand old time using them, and managed to return the microfiche unscathed to the archives before they closed.

Oh and I saw some Tibetan monks trying to gain access to Harvard but being turned away

You can't make this stuff up, folks.

by the police on my way out.  Maybe that’s why the velociraptors weren’t in the sub-basement… they were otherwise employed at the gates of Harvard keeping the gypsies and Tibetan monks from gaining access to the sacred yard.

Three’s a Crowd

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So I have a new roommate.

We seem to get along pretty well. He’s into theatre (like… REALLY into theatre), he’s directed a bunch of stuff (even a lot of Shakespeare which is neat because we can talk about it at great length), he’s written a few published items, he’s smart, talented, and really I don’t think I’m over-emphasizing how great he is when I say he’s a visionary and the voice of a generation. He demands a lot of attention though and I’ve found that spending time with him has really cut into my social time (as well as hours I can devote to other projects). He just has a lot to say and I find that, when I think a conversation has finished, it’s only just beginning. He could talk for hours and hours.

Well, I guess he has the prerogative to do so since he is an eighty-seven year old man.

I’m getting to the point now, though, that I really wish he’d just stop talking. I mean, I know a great deal about him (and you can always know more, but sometimes there’s knowing someone and KNOWING someone and you really don’t need to KNOW everybody). His stories are beginning to conflict. I’m starting to develop cross information and mixed signals. It may just be that he’s somewhat forgetful…

To make matters worse, the more I know the more I feel like I’m obligated to tell other people when I go to introduce him. It’s no longer good enough to say “Hey, this is Peter and he’s a director.” Now I have to tell them about the shows he’s directed, the places he’s lived, random bits about his personal life… I mean, most of his accounts are professional so I don’t know too inordinately much about his personal life (not enough to be awkward at least) but I do know a thing or two.

His presence in my apartment is really beginning to put a cramp on my life. I have spent the weekend almost entirely devoted to him. Tonight I’m home alone with him while my roommate goes out gallivanting with her girlfriends. I mean, he’s not possessive or anything, but I’m beginning to wonder if my obsession with him is bordering on “unhealthy”. I feel like he’s watching me every time I sit down at my desk to type. He does tend to hang out on my desk (and sometimes even on my desktop). I’ve pushed Jerry aside in favor of his company multiple times. I even precluded plans with other friends to hang out with Peter. Tonight I started googling childhood images of him and I’m in the process of making a powerpoint about all the things I’ve learned…

He does have a charming accent though, so that helps matters a bit.

….working on a big scary presentation about RSC founding Director Peter Brook. I feel

The B-Man

like that’s all I have to talk about these days. Would love to review Whistler in the Dark’s Dogg’s Hamlet Cahoot’s Macbeth or The Donkey Show (both of which I saw in this past week), but am unable to wrap my brain around anything that doesn’t involve my new English beau.

Oh, and by the way, night-time Pajama-clad trips to the library didn’t go out of style in your undergrad. Or at least I hope they didn’t because if they did, I’m about to commit a gigantic fashion faux-pas. Maybe if I wait long enough, the library will empty of credible witnesses…

“It doth forget to do the thing it should”

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This week’s been hot for my research.

The buzz of being onto something is really incomparable.  There’s a nervousness compounded with an anticipation and a rush of adrenaline when you realize that you’ve found some topic that other people don’t seem to be talking about.  Then there’s this fear that well, maybe they’re not talking about it because it’s SO OBVIOUSLY OBVIOUS and EVERYBODY knows that and you’re a complete idiot for even thinking that there may be some unanswered question as to what you’re working on.

I’m stuck right now in a valley of no return.  I can’t go back because, well, I’m walking an (as far as I can tell) unforged path, but at the same time I’m wondering how very far I’ll be able to leapfrog down this path and where it may take me.  I have some vague notions, some of them more exciting than others, but in my experience with research (as with life) you never really know until you get there.

This week I was trying to articulate said feeling to a colleague of mine.  We were having the

oh hello, Hogwarts, I didn't realize that you were in Boston! (courtyard at the BPL)

inevitable “where are you with your projects?” moot during a trip to the Boston Public Library (BEAUTIFUL and WONDERFUL by the by, and totally worth checking out if you like books or pretty architecture or reading books while surrounded by pretty architecture).  I mentioned that I had found something… something that I wasn’t quite sure what to make of.  Something that no one else seems to have worked on yet.  Something that I was getting somewhere with.

And he asked me the dreaded question which sent me into a Southward tailspin.  “Is it important?”

I blinked at him a few times, taken aback by the question.  It is important?  Oh the implications of this!  First off, I couldn’t understand how I had gotten so far stuck down the hole of research that I had lost track of the outside world.  How could I lose sight of some bigger picture?  How could I be so focused on such small details that I failed to see the whole?  Of course no one’s written about it, it just may not be all that important!

Then I found myself in this semantic existential crisis questioning everything I knew.  What

Is this the end of zombie Shakespeare?

was “important”?  How do you define “important”?  I mean, forchrisakes, we spend our days reading and writing about theatre.  Theatre never made dinner.  Theatre doesn’t even really make money.  And what’s worse, most of us spend more of our time talking about theatre rather than making theatre these days.  We’re intellectual hacks.  In the eventuality of zombie holocaust, we’re pretty much the top of the list of “zombie bait” because we have nothing to add to the post-apocalyptic human existence and we don’t even have any practical skills.  So really, “important”?  How can anything we do (or fail to do) really and truly be “important”?

Then I began to come up with excuses to justify my research.  It has to do with Shakespeare and Shakespeare is obviously important!  Everyone knows Shakespeare!  Everyone loves Shakespeare!  He’s the most-quoted creator of literature the world-over!  Just about every nation has appropriated him as their own!  Without Shakespeare, the English language wouldn’t exist as we know it today, so clearly what I’m doing as a small subset of this gigantic whole is obviously extremely important.

Then I wondered why it even mattered.  This is a seminar paper for a research methodologies course.  More important than what I find is how I managed to find it.  How did I solve my problems along the way?  What tactics did I use to solve these problems?  If I make a breakthrough and manage to produce something landmark, that’s frosting on the cake (what’s a cake without frosting?  Maybe I should be making a landmark breakthrough… everyone will be disappointed if there’s a cake with no frosting…. Wait, hang on, maybe it’s angel food cake which does not require frosting to be good… I can live with that).

though apparently my man Will can handle the zombies for me.

So I answered the only way I knew how.  “I don’t know.”  It was truth.  Pure and simple.  At this stage of the game, my research could be anything.  The important thing is that it’s interesting, it’s engaging, it keeps me busy, and I’m not chasing my tail as I grind grind grind away.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the archive to do some more digging.  Maybe in a few

weeks I’ll get back to this question of importance.  For now, I’m glad to have had the reality check and I’m super glad that there are no zombies at my window.

Treasure Huntin’

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So here’s the thing about research: it’s like a treasure hunt.

You enter into a research proposal sometimes with a very clear idea of what you’re looking for but, more often than not, with only a vague concept.  You have to be open to the notion that what you will find will shape what you’re on the hunt for.  You have to understand how to roll with the punches.  And you have to have a creative approach to digging through databases and texts.

A good researcher isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.  I can (and do) sit behind my

You know who else hunts for treasure?

computer and schlog through electronic resources, but it’s in the stacks that research really thrives and in the archives where research gets really exciting.

I’m taking a course this semester on Research Methodologies.  This is extremely important for me at this juncture in my career for several reasons: first because I will be using these skills for the remainder of my time within the Academy (an extremely long, if not indefinite, period); second because though I have performed research before it hasn’t quite been on the scale that I’m currently wading into; and third because my previous research has been primarily based in English literature not Theatre history.

There’s a great deal more archive work that goes into theatre research.  Oh sure, straight-up lit scholars have books and manuscripts and letters and printing presses to look at, but theatre people have mountains upon mountains of ephemera; playbills, drawings, paintings, sketches, character concepts, prompt books, actual theatres, the ruins of theatres, props, costumes, video and sound footage, the list drags on.

Here’s the distinction: literature, in many ways, is a two-dimensional course of study.  This is not to say that it is inferior or in some way smaller than Dramatics.  This is simply to say that the experience of reading a book is one which remains upon a page.  It is a relationship between reader and text and, for the most part, text can be (and has been) preserved since its initial readership.  Certainly the complications of editing, printing, revision, and historical context remain so lit crit is by no means a straightforward notion, it’s simply a field of scholarship based upon a process which is better able to survive.

But take all that.  All of it.  And add the complication of a performance.  A performance is an experience, a three-dimensional thing as wonderful as it is fleeting.  No single performance can ever be repeated.  No audience will ever be re-assembled and, even if they are, they are fundamentally changed between first assembly and second.  They bring a different load of life experiences one day than they do the next.  The performers too; Wednesday I felt this moment, Thursday I didn’t, Friday I was sick and had trouble speaking my lines.

These complications are what make performance studies so very difficult (and so very engaging).  I’m still studying text, but the text is a jumping off point rather than an end in and of itself.  It’s the groundwork of the puzzle, not the entire puzzle.

HTC is housed in Houghton which, while not as impressive as their main library, is adorable.

So it’s the beginning of the semester.  I’m beginning to flesh out my research ideas for the fall.  I live down the street from the Harvard Theatre Collection, the oldest and largest collection of its kind in the United States (debatably the world in terms of size – they are in contention with Oxford for that title).  Archives are infinitely more exciting and frustrating than libraries.  Archives, by their nature, are more difficult to catalogue.  There’s a lot more that can slip through the cracks.  They are chaotic, hectic.

But the thrill of paging through the prompt script for the first ever production of The Importance of Being Earnest (which I got to do this week!  SQUEEEE!), the excitement of finding some remnant of days past which has become so important and focal to your life (hey, research is my life, leave me alone), the rush of realizing that you are looking at something which William Henry Ireland wrote himself (Harvard has everything… everything) simply can’t be replicated.

Some days, it’s the little victories which matter.  Locating that article which could be truly pivotal.  Hauling your bum to the library so that you can look at the books and hold them rather than dig through MARC records.  Making a long-awaited photocopy.

The hunt for evidence does not necessarily equate a hunt for truth.  It’s a search for the bones of an argument.  A quest for the stuff that dreams are made on.

In digging, I can’t help but think of a fellow academic who also famously hunted for

oh, Dr. Jones....

treasure.  His contention (“We do not follow maps to buried treasure and ‘X’ never, ever, marks the spot…”) is one, however, which I will have to disagree with.  While often I am required to deviate from a beaten path, generally X does mark the spot.  Every time I get a hit for my keywords, whenever an article is titled something similar to my thesis, when I find a document referenced which I, too, have referenced, I know that I’m on the right track.   Sorry, Dr. Jones, but I am inclined to respectfully disagree with you on this account.

And so the journey begins.  I’m slowly developing a treasure map.  Here’s hoping it leads somewhere fruitful.  I have no doubt that it will lead somewhere interesting.

>Time for a Quick Re-cap

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>You know what hit me today?
A few more weeks and I’m done. Done with the MA. Done with English lit. Done with Rutgers. Done with Newark. Not quite done with Jersey, that will remain for another few months, but almost there!

I have previously lingered upon how bittersweet this is. This program has been a wonderful and fruitful growth experience for me personally and professionally. I have met some amazing people; colleagues, mentors, students, and everything in between. The program also came at a time in my life when I was in a very dark place and, almost single-handedly, is responsible for my rehabilitation into the functional and successful (albeit often harried and eccentric) intellectual that I am today.

It’s been an awe-inspiring and sublime two years.

As I dive into writing the final few papers of my MA, I wanted to take a moment to dwell upon all of the work that got me here. Here’s a little review of the courses that built this degree for me, the papers I wrote for them, and what I did with those papers subsequent to the lecture ending.

Enjoy!

Semester one: Fall 2009

Intro to Graduate Literary Study

Final Paper: “One of These Things is Not Like the Others”

Analysis of Frankenstein using Race theory

Later Became: recycling. I didn’t have many ambitions at this juncture…

Rhetoric and the Teaching of Writing

Midterm Paper: “Great Expertations; an Examination of the Novice-as-Expert Predicament in College Freshmen Papers”

Analysis of a batch of undergrad papers in which I explicate what I call the “novice-as-expert” phenomenon. How does a college Freshman deal with being put in a situation where he must form an opinion on a field he knows nothing about? What rhetorical strategies does he use to accomplish this, and how can teachers use those strategies to better teach paper-writing to young college students?

Later Became: Conference paper

Final Paper: “If Lost, Please Return To… Imitation and Abandonment in the College Freshman Paper”

A second analysis of a batch of undergrad papers in which I uncover what I call “rhetorical abandonment”; students giving up on their arguments for one of several reasons. I discuss how students do this, why they may do this, and how we can use this discovery to (again) better teach paper-writing as a whole.

Later Became: Conference paper; Presented at the NJCEA annual conference 2010

Chaucer

Final Paper: “Act One Scene One: The Tabard Inn; Performativity and Theatricality in the Canterbury Tales”

A theatrical examination of the “Canterbury Tales” postulating that the Tales were, in fact, the first modern example of playwrighting.

Later Became: Conference Paper; Presented at the Virginia Tech Graduate Student Conference Jan. 2010; also became the basis for the paper which I presented at the University of Montreal’s Graduate Student Conference in Feb. 2010

Semester Two; Spring 2010

Studies in Satire

Midterm Paper: “Everything you Wanted to know About Dildo but Were Afraid to Ask”

An analysis of the Earl of Rochester’s Signior Dildo arguing that it is more pornography than lampoon.

Later Became: submission for 1st ever Rutgers Newark MA Publication

Final Paper: “Dirty Words: The Utilization of Graphic Imagery Within Satire”

An examination of the use and purpose of graphic imagery which runs rampant through (especially eighteenth century) Satire. Expectedly, I focused mainly upon Swift, Rochester and Voltaire.

Later Became: not much of anything due to the fact that I can’t present it to a professional colleague or especially mentor without blushing (I still have trouble looking Jack in the face because of this one).

Rhetoric of the American Revolution

Final Paper: “Obnoxious and Disliked”

An examination of the character of John Adams within the musical 1776 and his relation as a projected political personae within the play to his projected personae via letters, biographies and historical documentation.

Later Became: a bragging point that I actually got to write a legit academic paper about a musical.

Intro to Renaissance Literary Studies

Midterm Paper: “More Will than Will Serve”

A look at how Shakespeare uses the word “Will” in Sonnet 6, as informed by Erica Zilleruelo’s similar examination of Sonnet 135.

Later Became: A conversation starter. Will really loved his Willy.

Final Paper: “Walk Like a Man”

An examination of the roles of cross-dressing within The Merchant of Venice and As you Like It

Later Became: Not much of anything because there was almost nothing original about this paper. I really think I was running out of steam that semester…

Semester Three: Fall 2010

Science Fiction

Final Paper: “Let’s do the Time Warp Again”

Well, if you listened to my podcast earlier this week, you’d know exactly what this paper was about. So go listen! Go on!

Later Became: Conference Paper, presented at the first ever Rutgers Newark MA Consortium

Romantics

Final Paper: “Beyond the Sea”

A discussion of the role of the ocean in “The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner”.

Later Became: the reason why I’m friends with my arch-nemesis. She’s my doppelganger and will likely be forced to kill me someday because we two cannot live in the same world. If you think I’m joking, ask Ben. He will (once again) corroborate the facts of the case.

Jane Austen

Midterm Paper: “Parlor Theatrics; Jane Austen and the Reader/Audience”

An examination of the role of theatricality within Northanger Abbey and the implicit suggestion that the book is more of a play script than novel. Also a defense of Catherine Morland as a theatrical character for an actor to play rather than a novelistic heroine.

Later Became: My PhD writing sample. Also hoping to publish this…

Final Paper: “Jane Needs More Brains”

A look at Pride and Prejudice and Zombies as a piece of literature as well as the role of the Zombie within it. 

Later Became: Again, hoping to publish this.

Semester Four: Spring 2011

Research Sources and Data Technologies

Final project: research proposal based upon Kenneth Brannaugh’s Love’s Labour’s Lost. That’s about all I can say about it right now. What? I’ve still got time!

Henry James

Midterm Paper: “Daisy Miller: Leading Lady”

A look at Daisy Miller as a character, a piecing-together of her role within the book as well as James’ play by the same name. Daisy has (notably) never before been assembled this way as a conglomeration of all the parts which James wrote for her.

Later Became: Proof that I could write a paper and study for an end-of-the-world exam from hell.

Final Paper: something about Gothic, “The Turn of the Screw”, and “The Uncanny”.  Again… I have time!!

Gothic

Final Paper: An analysis of Macbeth as a Gothic piece. A lot of work has been done with this and Hamlet, but almost nothing about this and the cursed Scottish Play.