Tag Archives: research

LOOK! SHINY!

Posted on by
Reply

It’s finals time.

That means a lot of things (among them: grinding the gears, burning the midnight oil, and lighting both ends of the candle for the next few weeks).

If your life is like my life, then inevitably when you become the busiest is when everyone suddenly decides that they would like to be social with you. And, while I do love my friends and family and do need occasional breaks from aforementioned clichés of business, it can be really frustrating sometimes that busy season of necessity means “the season in which I ignore people”.

I’m not doing it maliciously, it’s just the only way I can get anything done.

Distractions come in two varieties: the long-form distraction, and the momentary distraction.

The long-form distraction is by far the simpler type to avoid. If I don’t plan well in advance for a night away from my desk, I don’t spend a night away from my desk. As much as it kills me to miss the various parties, social functions, and gatherings that inevitably occur right before the holidays, it would kill me more to neglect my work and do poorly on my finals. Wise researchers take note: this policy works. Understanding friends will understand; this is what your job entails at the moment and, thereby, any declarations of “lameness” on account of it should be systematically ignored.

For that, a break is a break and it’s important to remember that the world doesn’t revolve

this is my desk from several months ago… the book fort gets built to the right and is, currently, taking up more space on my floor than my actual desk.

around nineteenth century circus clowns performing Shakespeare. Make sure you budget time for drinks, dinner, or some fun activity at least once a week or you will wind up an overwrought bucket of stress by the time things are said and done. Also, human eye contact is good for the soul.

So long as you can balance work and play, the long-form distraction shouldn’t prove too much of a problem.

The momentary distraction can come in several forms: an e-mail, a text, a facebook message, a gchat, or a well-meaning person (your landlord, your roommate, etc.) poking a head into your workspace to bring you news from the outside. While this may seem the less innocuous form of distraction, for me it’s deadly. I find that, reliably, for every thirty seconds I have spent being momentarily distracted, it will take me at least five minutes to get back to where I was in my stream of thought pre-interruption.

For me, the problem is several-fold. I have a hard time in general with my attention span, especially if I’m not yet into “the zone”. Once I hit the red, I can go for hours; but getting there is particularly difficult for me. I blame modern technology; I am truly a product of my generation who would rather have a constant influx of disparate information to keep my mind chewing than go deep-diving on any one thought. How I wound up a professional academic with this particular personality quirk is a giant question of the universe. In addition, I am extremely sensitive aurally and have found that external words in any form (music, TV, talking, etc) will completely take me out of the internal mind-tempest that research requires.

The best way to avoid these problems is (I have found) to turn off (or at least silence) my phone, keep my browser windows open to library resources ONLY, and work during the day when there’s no one in my house but myself. If I wind up working overtime (which is extremely frequent during finals crunch), I either try to arrange to work when my roommate is out of the house, or arrange a schedule with her that involves noise-canceling headphones (I am fortunate to have a very understanding roommate). Alternately, working after the household has gone to bed is something that I have found to be extremely soothing and productive (though you do have to plan for it so that you make certain you get your much-needed finals-time sleep).

Today’s short-form distraction: decorating the department’s desk with a menorah made from a Poland Spring bottle, some glitter, and a dream.

A great way to improve the quality of your finals life is to make your nearest and dearest aware of these distractions and what they do to your work. If those people most likely to distract you understand that encouraging text messages are best left sent between the hours of 9 and 11 PM, they are less likely to inadvertently interrupt your stream of thought with a mid-day friend-crisis. If those people can fathom that when you say “I’m buried in mountains of work”, you literally mean that your book fort is actually large enough to cause a deadly avalanche, they are less likely to give you a hard time for skipping Friday night beer-o-rama. Give them concrete examples of how their actions affect yours in this volatile, stressful time. If they really love you, they’ll let you go crawl into your cave and re-emerge sometime after December 18th.

So… what are you waiting for? You have finals to write! Heck, I have finals to write! Go stop procrastinating and get your butt in gear! (…unless it’s your pre-planned night off in which case have fun, relax, and get enough sleep. Drink lots of fluids, eat right, and we’ll all get through this together somehow, I just know it).

Thanks

Posted on by
1

Hello from the finals front!

Things are really starting to get hairy here. I’ve pinned down my seminar paper topics, I’m beginning to push up on some deadlines, and the book fort is full to toppling (though I did manage to return 25 books to the library yesterday with the help of some very sturdy reusable shopping bags). In addition to my own deadlines, I have the students’ deadlines to worry about and, what with the hurricane having set all of us back, what I am certain were some very well-planned due dates have become a muddle of insanity and piles upon piles of things for me to do over the next couple weeks.

In light of this, it is difficult for me to see these next few days as holidays. Yes, campus was technically closed today; I was still in dropping off papers and picking up books. No, I

the pile of drop-off books from the other day riding securely in my passenger seat. Also, validation for when I say “Shakespeare is my co-pilot”.

don’t have to go to class tomorrow; but I have still been up since before the sun working steadily on my piles of to-dos.

Despite this, I would like to take a moment now (as I do every year) to think about the things I am well and truly thankful for.

Inter-library loan; making it so that I don’t have to drive all over the city state country to hunt down the research materials I need. Thank you, ILL and the Boston Library Consortium, for bringing books in a steady flow directly to my home library.

My family who puts up with random phone calls at odd times of the day with the usual “sorry I haven’t called in a while, been really busy, I’m working on this new project about Shakespeare as performed in the [eighteenth/nineteenth/seventeenth] century by [aristocratic hacks/black people/circus clowns]. I’m working really hard for that class I’m TAing and I have a TON of grading on my desk right now, but I have to go because I’m on my way to [class/the library/a meeting/rehearsal] so… love you! Call you later!”

My dear friends who make my life a happier place and remind me that despite my best efforts, I am not a research machine and do occasionally need to leave my desk in order to make eye contact with actual human beings. Special shout-outs go to my gay best friend who knows both how to hash a research problem with me and the fastest way to make me forget about whatever the day’s stress was, my roommate who knows not to make eye contact with me before 10AM and that the best way to appease the savage beast is to feed me, my girls’ weekend girls who are always there for me (if not in person then in well-timed letters and boxes of comfort-yarn), and my Partner in Crime without whom I would be well and truly lost (and much sadder for the wear).

The faith of my department (which, for those who are keeping track, hasn’t gotten rid of me yet so I must be doing something right).

Totally my fairy godfather; this was taken at my MA graduation.

The aforementioned Best Professor in the World; my academic fairy godfather who somehow knows from two to three states away precisely when I’m in my darkest hours of crisis. Without even having to send up a bat-signal, I always seem to receive an e-mail of some kind from him during my most hopeless moments.

The theatre, my man Will, and all those who are keeping him alive onstage. Live theatre makes life worth living, and the people who make live theatre are no less than great magicians of our time. This means you, Bob Colonna.

And you, dear reader, because without you I would be talking to an empty room. And, really, there’s nothing engaging about a crazy person ranting about her insane life to an empty room.

So have a good holiday, take some time off, and for the sake of all things Bardy walk away from your desk for at least a few hours. Personally, I’m going to go finish packing and then I have a date with a turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving!

News from the Front

Posted on by
1

Random news from the front:

  1. For the love of all things holy, please don’t wear jeans conferencing. I’ve seen people do this from graduate students to faculty members and every time I see an offender, my blood boils.

Wearing jeans at a conference communicates that you don’t take the conference

sunrise over Nashville Saturday morning

seriously enough to dress professionally for it. The old axiom “dress for the job you would like to have” definitely applies. Would you wear jeans to a job interview?

I was networking every moment of every day in Nashville (including a clandestine encounter with a Yale reference librarian on the shuttle from my hotel to the airport). There was never a moment when I wasn’t, in some way, on display. You never know who you will meet or where you will meet them, and especially at a large conference where most of the participants are staying in your hotel, you want to make sure you look your best for any possible encounter.

So say it with me: I will not wear jeans at a conference.

  1. My book fort is up to 47 and counting. Of these 47, there are only six that I have not yet cracked. This means that, in addition to keeping up with my class reading, I have read all or most of 41 additional books since the end of September. No wonder my brain is tired.
  1. I spent four hours in the archives at Harvard yesterday paging through so much material that the poor reference librarians were working overtime just to pull my requested obscure folders, boxes, and files. I cannot say how thankful I am for all the work that these people put in to making sure that I can do my work.

On that note, paging through two hundred year old documents will never get old. However, I live in fear of the day that one disintegrates in my hands through no fault of my own, or I accidentally turn the page a bit too rigorously and tear something that’s older than my country.

Though if I ever need to hide from some murderous gunman, I’m going to do it inside of an archive. They are seriously the safest places I’ve ever encountered and the murderer would have to breech so many levels of security and protocol to find me that I’m pretty sure he would just give up when faced with the infinite yards of red tape at the library privileges office. And even if he didn’t they’d strip him of everything except a pencil, notebook, and digital camera before they would buzz him through three different glass door anyway. And that would be just to get into the reading room! Since we already know that archive librarians are superheros, he’d pretty much have to contend with the most badass of superpowers before he found his way down to me crouching behind the stacks of bad Hamlet Quartos (mostly because those would be the things most worthy of being destroyed that would actually be available in the archive). Although now that I’ve given away my planned hiding spot, maybe I should instead take cover by some collection of modernist paraphernalia…

  1. For the purposes of one of my research projects, over the course of the last week, I’ve clocked more hours than I care to relate conflating the first folio Richard III with Colley Cibber’s 1700 adaptation. While I cry inside to really and truly see the deplorable reworking of my patron Bard’s great works that so many generations of theatre goers were subject too, I also think that this should earn me some kind of stamp on my nerd card. I take every chance I get to bring it up in conversation because, well, who does this stuff? “Oh, yes, I spent another two hours conflating Cibber’s Richard with Shakespeare’s first folio… how was your day at work?” “How’s your paperwork going? Cibber’s just dandy.” “What did you do today? Oh, me? Just understanding adaptations of great works of literature and how they affected generations upon generations of theatre goers and their comprehension of Shakespeare… no big deal.”

another thing that proves my geek cred is my insanely awesome pair of Shakespeare socks.

  1. Dramaturgy is a weird job. To give you a small sampling of questions which have crossed my desk this week: “Define ‘moated grange’.” “What does x line of text mean?” “What are some ritualistic gestures of the Catholic mass?” “Woops! This character was cast as a woman! How do we solve this problem textually?” To my geek cred, I find it fascinating to answer these questions; when I know the answer off the top of my head, it makes my little bard heart sing. When I have to dig for the answer, all the better; I’m learning something about Shakespeare that I didn’t know before!
  2. It’s snowing in Boston! And, as everyone knows, there’s no business like snow business!

Ode to a Reference Librarian

Posted on by
2

I

O Noble Reference Librarian, thou keeper of ancient tomes,
Thou from whose ever-seeing eyes the musty dark
of ignorance runs; fleeting into caves it roams.

Knowledge’s power and its difference stark
stands tribute to the echoes of my heart
without your watchful guidance and wisdom to mark.

Though all alone my research I may start,
eventually I am lost without your aid,
read between the lines: you’re pretty darn smart.

When I feel my resolve begin to fade,
and madness overtake my lengthy notes,
one e-mail from you and my project is made. 

Wise sage, who art everywhere and nowhere;
preserver of my sanity; hear, O hear!

II

Thou with whom all knowledge of the archive’s content
rests, solely within the confines of your mind,
Thou may these hopeless finding aids augment!

When I a promising volume or folder find,
I cannot help but wistfully wonder
if by you this call number it has been assigned.

And when I am delivered my research’s plunder
if it contains not what I was expecting
I know it must be someone else’s blunder.

This fondness is not something I’m affecting.
You truly are my savior, through and through
when I, my primary sources, am selecting,

You always have an answer for me,
where should I look next? You tell me; O hear! 

III

Thou who didst calm me with thy helpful words,
your e-mails always packed with burning hope
and, within me, that hope to joy transferred.

When I am lost, you throw me strongest rope
with which to pull myself from doldrums’ grasp
(though afterwards I may feel like a dope).

 Sometimes I come to you with dieing gasp,
knowing my project may be at its end,
lack of sources killing it like venom of the asp. 

But then, my broken thought tracks you do mend,
and breathe into my research new life
when bibliographic entries you me send.

You always do more than I expect of you,
and bring me joy with your encouraging words; O hear!

IV

If I were forced to spend my days
in a world without you or your kin,
surely my research I would appraise

At much less worth than now it holds within.
And thou, O incomparable! If even
I were as in my career’s prime and had been

looking with my mind’s full potential heaving,
thou wouldst still my puny efforts shame
(thy power over the materials I fully believe in).

As thus, to thee with questions I came,
O! Help me in my research’s day of plight!
Without thee, my paper’s going to be lame! 

Help me to bring new knowledge to academy’s light!
And weave an argument from sources tight!

V

Lend me thy thoughts, even as I am merely
a Graduate students with small street cred,
I am most in need of your help clearly!

And (although I know by now I’ve said
this several times, it bears to be repeated)
Without you, all my evidence is fled! 

Sometimes I feel as though I may have cheated
by enlisting your skillful help in my fond chase,
but when my project’s finally completed 

I will ensure I’ve thanked you in the space
allotted for such words of grateful praise
(and also try to say it to your face). 

The knight of research’s call! O reference librarian,
If you forsake us, the academy you’ll raze.

(…an over-working reference librarian made my weekend today, so I decided to make his weekend.  Not even sure if he’ll ever read this.  If you’re slightly confused, you may want to google “Ode to the West Wind”….)

List, List!

Posted on by
2

This is another end-of-week drive-by sandwiched between a marathon research session, some much-needed laundry (especially considering I was laundering bits of my costume for tonight) and a visit with my family before I get my stuff together to go to the theatre (to be honest, I wasn’t certain I’d find time at all to post again this week).

As such, have a list!

 1)    I promise that sometime in the near future I will write a piece on the nature of

my family! …we are all making the most flattering faces in the land.

stage fright.  Because I have been extremely public about my stage fright, many many people have asked me about it over the course of the past week or so and that has revealed a few misconceptions about the nature of stage fright.  Briefly: stage fright has nothing to do with talent, or even experience.  Anyone, from the first-time actor to the seasoned professional, can be victim of stage fright for different reasons.  Mine tends to stem from the fact that I’m a) a perfectionist and b) my biggest critic (in other words: an artist).

2)    The middle of the semester has hit and, between the mountain of unread books that need to be worked into a presentation by the following Monday, the vast world of undone research that needs doing, the stacks of grading that continually accumulate no matter how bravely I beat them back, and the reading that just keeps coming, I’m absolutely swamped.

3)    Headed into the final weekend of As You Like It.  If you haven’t seen us yet, what’s your excuse?  Come on out, see some Shakespeare, remind me that there are people in this world who love me.

4)    My family (and a dear old friend) are in town to see the show this weekend.  How awesome!

5)    I hope your weekend is less stress-inducing than mine is.

Pumping Iron

Posted on by
1

Yesterday, in a rush of Hermione-esque academic over-achievement, I completed the first research project of the year.

About a week ago, I was given the syllabus to our class in Popular Entertainment and Iconography.  As such, I was also presented with this assignment.

As an exercise, the professor presented us with a list of 68 quasi-random items.  These items were presented simply as they were without any further explanation; just a list of words.  Upon further examination, it became evident that these items ran the theatrical gamut: some were people, some were phrases, some were theatrical devices, some were plays or the titles of variety acts, etc.  The assignment was simple: find out what each of these things were, their relative cultural importance, and cite a reliable print source for each item.

And so began the great academic scavenger hunt.

This assignment has easily been the most useful thing that I’ve been asked to do in my entire graduate career.  It required me to acquaint myself with library resources (some of which I knew we had available, some of which I did not); it demanded that I utilize lateral thinking to uncover what I didn’t know about a topic from what I knew (“I know this has something to do with popular theatre, likely vaudeville or circuses, maybe in the late eighteenth century… why is it on this list?”); and it prompted me to really think about how I research and how to research most efficiently (where would be the easiest place to look for this information?  What will yield the best answer in the least amount of time?).

The word “exercise” has also become important in this enterprise. To call something an “exercise” implies a repeated action which makes you stronger.  It implies that you’re going to sweat, struggle, and do things that scare you.  It implies that you will do these things until they come more easily.  You’re working out a muscle and, by doing so, making that muscle stronger.  Thinking of this assignment in that way made the assignment not only make sense, but also hold a great degree of import.  Doing things like this will, in the long run, improve me and my work.  This notion also positions my professor as a sort of coach; shouting at me to do one more set of pushups even though I don’t think I can get through the set I’m currently on, assigning me new creative ways to do things which will improve my game, and always always making me hurt so that so that I will emerge stronger.

Research methodologies are something one develops throughout one’s career and, often, not something that can be taught.  Certainly I can be shown where to find databases via my library’s website, or what archives may be useful to me, but how I document and catalogue the information I find is a system which is extremely personal to me, and one that I have cultivated through my years within academia.  Research is also rather personal; while we may talk about the things that we’re actually researching, we don’t tend to talk about the ways in which we process these things.  Often times, the processing portion is unable to be articulated.  How do you deal with information?  How do you change raw data into something that is useful to your project and presentable to a reader?

The research process is one that is rapidly changing.  When I was first introduced to a

the view from my chair in the library last night.

library, I was told to write every fact down on an index card with a citation on the back of each card.  In this way, my research was portable, traceable, and easily manipulated.  Now, I just take my netbook to the library (on the rare occasion when I need to even set foot in the library) and work almost exclusively out of word documents.  My iPad is also a valuable resource since, once I compile my information into a large word document, I can then keep my outline available while I’m writing.  Because of these changes in technology, research becomes both easier and more difficult.  While information is more readily available at my fingertips 24/7, it also means that I’m expected to know more and go deeper with this research.  Anyone can do a Wikipedia search; it takes a researcher to understand where the wiki article is wrong and why it’s not credible.

I’m not going to say that this weight-lifting session wasn’t stressful.  It was extremely time-consuming and, being the slightly obsessive creature that I am, that meant that it was life-consuming.  I had a moment of weakness in which, after I had pulled out every trick in the book to try and uncover a credible source for the origin of the word/concept of “pastie” (that would be the burlesque accoutrement, not the yummy snack) and still came up empty, I began to devolve into an unraveled ball of perceived academic failure.  How could I call myself a scholar if I couldn’t even uncover this simple fact?  What was I doing with my life?  Why were pasties eluding me?

And it was at that moment when I had to lean back in my chair, and laugh.  I was stressed out over pasties.  I couldn’t measure my success in my career by a set of nipple shields.  It was time for a break.

Valuable lesson here: zoom in close enough and everything becomes daunting.  When this happens, take a few steps back, walk away from the computer for a couple hours, and remember why you’re doing this and what you’re gaining from it.  If that doesn’t work, make yourself some tea and hit the gym for a while.  If that doesn’t work, it may be quitting time for the day.

So here I am, my efforts boiled down to 15 pages of notes to myself and a list of citations as long as my forearm, and I can’t be more proud of my efforts.  I did it.  I conquered it.  There were only a few minor freak-outs along the way, and I even managed to have fun during the process.

This exercise has gotten me pumped for the semester.  Research, especially target and stalk research, is like a treasure hunt.  Each successful finding was a new chance to feel accomplished, a new chance to learn something, and a new chance to feel like, despite any misgivings that may crop into the recesses of my mind, I can accomplish.

So take that, semester.  I’m onto your tricks.  You had best watch your back.

Surprising Oneself

Posted on by
1

I’m coming up on the one-year anniversary of moving into my current place (this Sunday it will be exactly one year) and that’s made me rather contemplative.

That and, in the midst of the extreme pressure of high speed German-learning (a full contact sport which should have some Olympic equivalent), I’m trying to grasp at any small thing that will help me remember that I’m not a total mess-up and I can do some pretty astounding things.

With that in mind, this weekend I began to assemble a list of crazy-insane-amazing-wonderful things that I have done this year that, prior to this year, I would never in a bagillion eons have thought that I would wind up doing.  I’m fairly proud of what I came up with and, so dear readers, have a gander at the glamorous life of an academic….

1)    As a way to procrastinate learning my German for the day, I translated an article from Diderot’s encyclopedia for the encyclopedia project.  Between 1751 and 1772, Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d’Alembert published what they called Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, par une société de gens de

the man, the myth, the legend: M. Diderot

lettres, mis en ordre par M. Diderot de l’Académie des Sciences et Belles-Lettres de Prusse, et quant à la partie mathématique, par M. d’Alembert de l’Académie royale des Sciences de Paris, de celle de Prusse et de la Société royale de Londres. (Encyclopedia, or a systematic dictionary of science, art, and crafts, by men of letters, arranged by M. Diderot and the academy of science and belles-lettres of Prussia, and the mathematical portion by M. d’Alembert of the royal academy of science at Paris, to the Academy of Prussia  and the royal society of London).  The encyclopedia was the first of its kind, contained 71,818 entries, was published in 28 volumes, and has never been comprehensively translated into English.  The Encyclopedia Project is a free online resource through which individuals of differing levels of French-speaking have come together to translate it piecemeal.  I’ve volunteered my time to lend a hand with a few articles because I think it’s a neat project, I want to practice my French, and it lends me the ability to fancy myself a professional translator (SO far from the truth).

Reasons why this incident surprised me: I’m learning to read German?  I have enough French that I can reasonably translate an article from an eighteenth-century manuscript?  I am involved enough in the project to have assigned articles to translate?  How does this even happen?

2)    Sat up with my work until 11 or midnight for up to five nights straight and not had a bad thing to say about it.  Sometimes, you gotta do what you gotta do.  Often times, this means complaining.  Other times, you’re so enthralled with whatever it is that you’re working on that you don’t even think to complain.  If I don’t like something, I don’t lose sleep over it.  Period.

Reasons why this incident surprised me: I’m that kind of person?  I have work that’s important (and interesting) enough to be done when otherwise I should be relaxing or attending to other necessary life functions?

3)    Cold-contacted organizations to request information, interviews, or tours of places related to my research/work… and actually got them!  This year, thanks to the courtesy of directors, actors, designers, curators, park rangers, and ever-toiling librarians, I was able to accomplish a great deal of original first-hand research.  I was allowed to tour historical sites not open to the public, handle and photograph original scene designs, chat with actors/directors about their work and document it, handle documents older than this country, and get the inside scoop on a great many items of interest otherwise left obscured to the general public.  So many many thanks to all the folks who lent their time to my crazy research escapades.  Valuable lesson learned from all these experiences: you’d be downright amazed what folks would be willing to do if only you asked them.

Reasons why this incident surprised me: Telephones frighten me.  Despite my swash-buckling bravado via textual interface, I’m actually rather shy.  In addition, acquiring this information means that outside forces took me seriously as a scholar and were willing to lend a hand to help me out!

The Tufts crew at CDC 2012 with Ms. Vogel. SHE WAS SO AMAZINGLY WONDERFUL! …I wanted to keep her.

4)    Was paid to present my work at two major conferences in a one-month period and traveled across the country to do so.  Oh, and at one of them I had jello shots with esteemed playwright Paula Vogel.  I love to travel, and the fact that I got to do so much of it this year makes me extremely happy.  Next year, I have a definite trip to Nashville, TN (the first time I’ve ventured to Tennessee), and I’ll likely have at least one more trip lined up before the dust settles.  Stay tuned!

Reasons why this incident surprised me: Someone believes in my work enough to send me places to share it?  And it’s valuable enough that when I do share it, people ask me intelligent questions about it?  Smart people like my work?  THEY LIKE MY WORK!

5)    Uttered the words “I can’t, I have a research trip.”

Reasons why this incident surprised me: Because who has a RESEARCH TRIP?  HOW COOL!?

I’m sure I could go on at length, but these are the big ones.  The basic theme that keeps cropping up is this: despite the long hours, hard work, small paycheque… despite the uncertainty of the job market, the funding, or really anything about my life year-to-year… they haven’t quashed me yet.  I’m still enthralled with what I do, I’m still excited about next year, and I’m extremely proud of myself for the things that I have done this past 365 days.

Here’s hoping that, at this time next year, this list is at least twice its current length.  And if not, I haven’t done my job right.

Party-induced Realizations; or; Why Academics Should not get their Hands on a Slip and Slide

Posted on by
3

Wednesday evening, at a party which answered the age-old question “what happens when a group of academics have access to a large house, copious amounts of booze, and a slip and slide?” (hint: the answer involved me re-evaluating how any child survived the

greasy little death-traps they are, but oh so much fun!

nineties, and mentally writing several obituaries beginning with the words “Promising academic [John Smith] perished in tragic slip and slide accident this fourth of July….”), I realized several things.

Realization one: Having survived my first year, I am now officially a “grizzled old-timer” of the department.  I’m debating investing in a flat cap and a cane.

Realization two: Come September, there will be a whole new crop of first-years, as wide-eyed and nervous and excited as I was last September, all ready and willing to begin their journey into academic theatrics.  This will mean many things in terms of atmosphere in the department, and I truly hope that those who do show (I’ve had the good pleasure to meet/exchange e-mails with/chat with some of them) add as much to the environment round these parts as we did.  Folks who pursue a PhD in Drama are interesting types; loud, smart, occasionally obnoxious, always eccentric, charming, witty, we’re all so very different from each other that when we’re put in the same room there’s the very real possibility of spontaneous combustion.  Here’s hoping we make fireworks and not forest fires.

Realization three: In just one short, arduous year, I too will join the ranks of those who have fondly galloped forth into the sunset of dissertation land.  Heck, a year from September and with any luck I’ll be ABD.  That thought is only vaguely terrifying.  Mostly because all thoughts about my dissertation at this juncture can only be vague.

Realization four: Summer is a time when academics get less work done than they had hoped to, more than they had planned to, and just enough to keep themselves going for the coming year.

while this is always what I imagine work-on-vacation to look like, it’s really not anything resembling reality.

Realization five:  Summer is also a time when academics are allowed to occasionally take a much-needed break.  When is the last time I walked away from my desk for more than a day and a half and not thought about work?  Normal people take weekends every week…. I’m allowed to have a day or two off (and should take them on a regular basis).  I also should not feel guilty about the week-long vacation I have planned.  I also should avoid bringing work with me (…but will I follow through on this?  Probably not).

Realization six:  When attending a party with colleagues, try to come armed with conversation topics that are not your work.  This is much more challenging than one may think.  Academia can be extremely isolating; most of my work is done at my own desk without anyone else around.  The true kernel of my research is not something that I have occasion to discuss very frequently.  As a result, whenever I’m around folks whom I feel will get it, I’m so eager to talk about it that I lose sight of all other topics of conversation.  Suddenly I become a machine, a cyber-man, a single-minded zombie of academia with only one thought to drive my actions: SHAAAAKKKEEESSSPPPPEEEAAARRREEEEE.  It’s extremely easy for me to forget that my colleagues are people too who may prefer to have real-life conversations than talk about work constantly.  Next time; pocket-sized cue cards with tips for things that normal people talk about.  What do normal people talk about?

Realization seven: Wow, I know some really smart people.  Like… really smart.  Like… totally smart.  God, have I told you how smart you are recently?  And pretty.  You’re pretty.

Realization eight: When drinking sangria, don’t eat the fruit.

Getting Un-Stuck

Posted on by
Reply

As you, dear reader, have seen from my previous posts, it is, as they say, “go time”.

This semester, I have a unique conundrum.

I am a meticulous researcher and a slow writer. This is good for some things, but not for others.

In certain fields, it’s very easy to get bogged down by what everyone else has said before. There is so much writing on Shakespeare already that finding a place for one’s own voice can be extremely difficult. In this regard, the fact that I do spend so much time in the research phase means that it’s even easier for me to fall into the chasm of academic apathy: “Why bother saying anything when everything’s already been said?! Why do I even exist?”. It also means that it’s extremely exciting when I do come upon something within my own mind that has not been said before (“YAY! I’m smarter and more creative than a whole giant field of scholarship!” Disclaimer: not really true, it’s easy to get carried away sometimes).

Sometimes I go into the research process with an idea already formulating. Sometimes I just go into it with a general topic in the hopes that something will spark.

This semester (for one of my papers at least), I’ve been on a long and winding road of type two. I’m working on a project involving eighteenth century depictions of Shakespeare’s ghost onstage and, surprise surprise, there’s a WHOLE LOT out there.

So how do you go from “What have I done?” to “Look what I did!”? Well, let me give you a sneak peak of my process.

I’ve already written about the process which I follow to create a paper. But what if, as happened to me just this week, you hit a snag? What if you have all of your research together, piled neatly into little segments by theme, but no clue as to what it says? What if you are on a deadline and have to turn in an abstract re: what this paper is going to be about before you yourself even know? What if you simply can’t understand how the heck you’re supposed to fit your voice into this mammoth discourse already in progress, but you don’t have time to start over, and the thought of re-hitting the books is simply making you cry?

Don’t despair. Yet. Try a few of these things (they worked for me eventually).

*Take out a piece of paper and physically write down (not type, WRITE) everything

My writing-it-down led to something... as you can tell by my enthusiastic circling. Also: my desk ornaments.

you know about the topic which you have chosen to research. What are the big ideas? How do they relate to each other? Where are the holes in this web? This act in and of itself may spark something. Writing things down and thinking about them in terms of the big picture loosens up the information in your head. It gets your synapses firing in a meta way and forces you to draw connections which you may have already known, but hadn’t quite understood yet. It also demonstrates very graphically where the lapses in information are and those places are places for you to do some work. Fill in those gaps with your own thinking! Write and publish, people, so that students in the future will have to contend with your work as a roadblock.

*Don’t forget step three. The shower is the most important part of my creative process. And really, who couldn’t use more showers in her life?

*Re-read your source material. Now that you’ve done the research around it, turn back to the piece that originally inspired you (be it play or novel). Chances are, you will spot all the things that the other people have spotted, but you may also spot something new, different, and exciting. And really, you started this project because you were inspired by this piece, why shouldn’t it inspire you again?

*Go back to your theory. You haven’t just been reading it for your health. A straightforward, theory-driven reading is often times too simplistic for a graduate-level paper, but integrating theory is another great way to get you thinking about something differently. Applying theory can help you to arrive at some new conclusion, something you hadn’t seen before. Most importantly: theory is the building blocks of an argument. You can bat around theory, there are plenty of spaces for interpretation, and theory is universal and applicable almost anywhere. Get canny with your Kant, formative with your Foucault, dexterous with your Derrida, and brilliant with your Bakhtin!

*If none of these things work, and you still feel buried and struggling, contact your professor. She is a pro. She’s been doing this a lot longer than you have. If you have your research in order, if you are on top of your writing schedule, there is nothing to be ashamed of. Floundering happens to EVERYONE and your professor has also, in her time, floundered. She will have tips and tricks to help you. She will understand the discourses you are dealing with. She will likely also have a few ideas about your project that can help to unstick you. Trust in her experience, trust in your ability to articulate your own work eloquently, and turn to your mentors for support. That’s why they’re there, after all.

And if all else fails, just remember the sage words of the good Doctor (no, not THAT

not THAT Doctor

Doctor…):

You won’t lag behind,
because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang
and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.

Except when you don’t.
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
that Bang-ups
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.

You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.

You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?

And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.

You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles cross weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.

The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come,
or a plane to go
or the mail to come,
or the rain to go
or the phone to ring,
or the snow to snow
or the waiting around for a Yes or No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.

THIS Doctor

Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for the wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.

NO!
  That’s not for you!

Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.

So go! Off with you! Find those boom bands and make those papers sing!

…I’m off to take a shower.

Idea Time

Posted on by
2

We have reached that point in the semester at which one is not only expected, but required, to have original thoughts.

Yes, folks, it’s paper-topic-pitch time.

You see, before you begin work on your final paper, you need to check in with your professor and ensure that you’re on the right track.  You need to ensure that your idea is A) what the professor is expecting from a final paper, B) viable in the confines of your time schedule and resources, C) interesting both to you and said professor, and D) not an egregious example of something totally done before (which you didn’t know about because you’re a lowly grad student, but your professor does because he’s a total rockstar).  To check in with your professor, you need to first formulate an idea, then do some amount of preliminary research to ensure that (should you be given the green light), this is a viable project in terms of the amount of work already done in the field.  In addition, you never want to walk into a professor’s office and sound completely “green”; knowing what you’re talking about (even if you don’t really know what you’re talking bout) is KEY in academia.

For some, this process  occur later in the semester than for others.  I personally like to start

Romantically, I would like to think that he NEVER had this problem. Realistically, he probably had it ALL THE TIME.

as early as I can.  While it is POSSIBLE for me to pump out a research paper in a month, ideally I like six to eight weeks to produce something complete, intelligible, and intelligent.  Especially when I’m working on multiple projects at the same time.

Which means that, now that I’ve done about half a semester’s worth of reading in each class, I now need to have something to say about it… something original, something ready to be backed by research, something that can sustain the breadth and depth of a twenty-ish page research paper.

This comes easier in some classes than others.  Sometimes I’ll have an idea going into a class.  Sometimes something will spark when doing class reading.  And sometimes I’ll be left with pen in hand, a blank screen, clutching my Norton fervently and paging through the reading furiously to try and eke something out.  Usually, I’ll have a fairly solid idea for one class, then something more amorphous for a second, and only the barest hint of concepts for the third.

This semester, for whatever reason, I’m feeling extremely pinched to come up with something worth exploring.

It’s not that my classes aren’t interesting or thought provoking.  It’s not that there hasn’t been enough reading to spur ideas from.  It’s certainly not that my professors are sub-par.  I think my current state is simply an immediate effect of second-semester burnout.  My mind has gone so numb with EVERYTHING I AM CRAMMING INTO IT EVAR! that original thought is almost beyond me at this point.

The worst part is that idea conception is probably one of my favorite bits about academia.  The creative spark is something that, as an artist, I’m always excited about.  There’s nothing quite like that moment when the lightbulb flicks on and a single idea snowballs into something feasible, even more interesting than you had initially thought, and something which you’re excited to share with the world at large (or at least your colleagues… or at the very least your professor).  I’ve been fascinated in recent years by the idea of structured creativity; the sort of artistry that an academic can bring to one’s work.

There’s no doubt that creativity is a must-have for my job.  The ability to think laterally is what makes a good researcher, a good idea-chewer, and a good scholar.  The ability to effectively communicate the culmination of this makes a good writer.  In order to be successful in this field, one needs all of these qualities.

Far too often, creativity is suppressed in the graduate student.  As I addressed in my post earlier this week, we are simply force-fed so much information that digesting all of it into one’s own self is simply impossible.  There is no way that I will walk out of this semester able to truly own the majority of what we’ve been given.  The best I can hope for is a lasting memory (aided by good notes) of the Wise Words of Wisdom my professors have uttered, a sense of the dominant theories we’re dealing with, and a few good papers which I can advance as personal projects.

Of course, that is, if I can come up with some brilliant ideas about what I should write.  Or

one of these! That's what I need!

even a starting place.  I’ll take a starting place at this point.

…maybe I just need a drawing board.  It can’t hurt, right?  I bet I could find room for one in my apartment…