Tag Archives: research

Pumping Iron

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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…

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.

“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.