tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-79720694418270520502012-02-16T12:44:26.763-05:00Things that pertain to my dissertation.Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.comBlogger181100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-28276200814716725862009-11-11T18:40:00.002-05:002009-11-11T18:41:32.036-05:00

But if I were, I'd absolutely inform my students they were murders, when I discussed plot with them. I'd love to hear the resulting discussion.A fascinating read.

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-75204655865828028962009-10-21T18:57:00.004-04:002009-10-21T19:02:16.020-04:00

So I move some books from one shelf to another, to make room for the books on Bunyan (Hurrah for frolicking with the pilgrims!) - and I dislodge my copy of Witches Abroad. On picking it up, I sit cross-legged on the floor for a moment, reading the first two pages, and smiling. In the opening section, Pratchett waxes pseudo-philosophical on the nature of knowing, and the nature of stories. "Oh

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-81116142855395933682009-08-30T13:59:00.004-04:002009-08-30T14:22:13.535-04:00

I simply must take a break from an interesting and productive morning's writing/reviewing to exclaim - what on earth is going on with Shadwell's "The Libertine?"And to answer that question, I now present a feature I'm going to call: Vapid Reductionist Plot Summary By Someone Who Read It A While Ago!*It has a ghost in it - seriously - the ghost of the libertine's father comes back from the dead to

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-61317911305244101952009-05-21T15:14:00.004-04:002009-05-21T15:28:44.017-04:00

At the heart of the English novel there's a formal puzzle. The puzzle is: Where did the third person narrative voice come from? In some ways, of course, the third person narrative voice has always been with us. For as long as we have related our own lives in narrative we have imagined and related the lives of others, so it would be disingenuous of me to point to the eighteenth century and

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-63076332260426554162009-03-12T10:23:00.003-04:002009-03-12T10:27:23.354-04:00

Check out the UCLA library's special collection "Wilder Shores: Lady Travelers of the 18th and 19th Centuries."I am trying to design a board game in my head, where one is Lady Mary Wrotley Montagu, and goes to Turkey. Dallying in the seraglio for too long means you miss a turn, getting your letters published is plus ten points, and the first one to fall out with Pope AND bring smallpox

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-54667239599626041942009-02-02T12:29:00.006-05:002009-02-02T15:12:17.790-05:00

If you're reading this blog because you enjoy eighteenth-century literature, then the chances are that someone will have already brought this to your attention - but if not, permit me to be the first to say: Jane Austen's novels - but with Zombies.Seriously!The book is called "Pride and Predjudice and Zombies." Considering my fascination with all things zomboid this book could well have been

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-89196593791023132262009-01-31T00:40:00.006-05:002009-02-02T13:04:25.387-05:00

I have a cough.Woe!It's not severe, it's just irritating. Also, I suspect I'm feeling far sorrier for myself that the actual cough should permit, and that irritates me even more - and then I cough, and begin again. It's a good job I have a comfy sofa and a portable edition of The Tatler, at the moment.One of the pleasant aspects of spending Friday night in was trying a new recipe. I find that

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-37795400655028804182009-01-25T21:08:00.009-05:002009-02-02T13:06:20.503-05:00

I was sent gifts via Amazon. They were two books which contained the first 16 comics from the series "The Authority." They're good.I have spent the last four or five months looking for books (whether picture books, text-based children's books, or young adult novels) in which there are heroines that behave like the women and girls I know now and knew growing up. It's something to do with the

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-54030641719317105772009-01-23T13:39:00.004-05:002009-01-23T16:36:40.584-05:00

The nature of your blogger being as it is, you will find more posts here that show her struggling and complaining than any other kind. A friend has summarized this "I cannot believe I am complaining about my privileged existence" feeling with the phrase "Math is hard!" (The curious may wish to read the history of this phrase, and then spit upon any Teen Talk Barbies they may find.)And yet. And

MKGhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03423485149542083720noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-2116422123602332212009-01-14T10:27:00.002-05:002009-01-14T10:30:28.431-05:00

"Write", all the writing manuals and meetings about chapter-writing have told me. "Write!" Write if you feel like you have a cold coming on and would rather be in bed, write if events of extreme national and/or personal importance are happening and you'd rather be reading news, write if your legs fall off, write if your laptop is on fire, write if your brain really isn't in the mood and would

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-90463884173889940052008-10-23T12:43:00.003-04:002008-10-23T13:28:45.261-04:00

Oh dear. This PhD Comic.It's me.Well, not entirely true. It feels close, though. I might go so far as to say that in the last couple of weeks I have written a wodge* of a chapter, introducing Eliza Haywood's use of personae in her periodical The Female Spectator. The stack of grading on my desk is not diminishing at the speed I would like, but it's more pleasant to be writing than staring into

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-9507010543015759032008-09-24T08:58:00.007-04:002008-09-24T14:11:50.974-04:00

On a discussion over at twofold, Adela and our dear Mr Scriblerus note that they fear plagiarism if they post too intensively about their dissertations. Oddly, this hasn't ever occurred to me as a thing I ought to fear when talking about my work, either at the seminar table, in the cafe, or muttering to myself on the subway. Ought I to be concerned? I think even if I decide I should - I probably

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-29550157182111242282008-09-20T14:15:00.003-04:002008-09-20T14:19:44.179-04:00

I realise that this title suggests there is an innate opposition between sex and virtue in Richardson's fiction. This is not always the case, but. it's as near as damnit, so...Heh. I am planning out a class proposal for a course I want to teach in the summer programme next year. I had barely the vaguest idea of it last night, and I'm still on the 'doodling clouds with frilly edges around bullet

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-66208380939074154762007-09-14T13:20:00.000-04:002007-09-14T13:24:19.064-04:00

Well, I'm back. And I'm reading the lovely Robert Mayo's The English Novel in the Magazines 1740-1815 (Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 1962)So I shall hopefully be interesting about it, really quite soon.In other news, this morning amused me. What follows is a brief history of why I do not drink coffee.Scene: Institute for Research in Women, and Gender Studies: Graduate student

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-19655273349693336312007-02-26T21:54:00.000-05:002007-02-26T22:35:58.860-05:00

Oh dear. I have done almost anything rather than write this post. My anxiety about this poem, and writing about poetry, verges on the ridiculous. Particularly when I consider Johnson's subject matter - namely, the need to face up to the realities of life. Oh dear.People talk about 'the difficulty' of this poem, and the introduction to it in my Norton neatly remarks that The difficulty of the poem

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-56104279462832712822007-02-25T20:51:00.000-05:002007-02-26T22:27:05.813-05:00

I have felt disturbingly like Rasselas, this week – time is slipping through my fingers, and the Pre-orals draw ever closer. When I read that Rasselas ‘past four months in resolving to lose no more time in idle resolves,’ I wondered very much if the momentum that I needed to prepare for my exams is greater than that required to break out of the Happy Valley.I enjoyed reading about the wanderings

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-89170913930477322752007-01-30T14:52:00.000-05:002007-01-30T18:44:40.207-05:00

Writing, when properly managed (as you may be sure I think mine is), is but a different name for conversation […] no author, who understands the just boundaries of decorum and good breeding, would presume to think all: the truest respect which you can pay to the reader’s understanding is to halve this matter amicably, and leave him something to imagine, in his turn, as well as yourself. (Vol II

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7972069441827052050.post-19948428718600143612007-01-24T17:08:00.000-05:002007-01-24T17:11:56.683-05:00

There are going to be notes, here, on what I'm reading and thinking about for Orals exams.Coming soon: Tristram Shandy and the idea of Authorship.

Marinahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16387553977006099896noreply@blogger.com0