Quote of the Day

"It sounds like you need to change your attitude."
Sue Rosenblum

Truer words have never been spoken.

Photograph of the Day

Here is an uncharacteristic portrait of Woolf. She posed for Vogue in 1924 wearing her mother's Victorian dress. Her mother, Julia Stephen, was a legendary beauty who often posed for Woolf's great aunt Julia Margaret Cameron (there is a photograph of her in this very same dress!) It is unclear why Woolf would agree to sit for such a conventional photograph. She was known to be a bit of snob and looked down at middle brow culture. In fact, the nose that was such a big deal in the movie The Hours, which supposedly made Nicole Kidman ugly, was a point of pride for Woolf who remarked that she found her long nose quite useful in looking down on people. If you want to learn more about this photograph, check out Virginia Woolf in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.

Yet, I Persevere

Despite my pathetic post this a.m., some work was actually completed today. I was able to articulate this theory that has been rumbling upstairs (upstairs, as in my brain, not the second floor, where the only rumbling is a 4 year old who REALLY does not want to go to school).
Here's the theory: Homi Bhabha is a thinker who writes about postcolonial theory. He describes the relationship between the colonizer and colonized as "like, but not quite." In other words, the colonized (ie of darker skin than the colonizer) is suppossed to replicate the appearance of the colonizer. But the colonized cannot do a particular good job at this since, of course he (or she) can never be white. This is what the colonizer intended: his authority is in part based on the idea that there will always be a difference between the colonizer and the colonized. Bhabha is a genius and I am sorry to have to be so reductive but this is the best I can do at this hour.
I am using this theory to articulate women's relationship to visual media. We can model ourselves after the women we see in magazines but we can never quite look like her. And that is the point: she will always be thinner, taller, prettier with nicer hair and better skin. Since her image is impossible to achieve, we will keep buying magazines in our neverending attempt to look like her.

Somebody Said Something About Some Kind of Journey?

For a long time I have embraced the theory, albeit cliched, that life is about the journey, not the destination. You know, keep your eye on the prize but don't forget to stop and smell the roses along the way. (Did you know there is an entire dictionary of cliches?)
But to be honest, this journey sucks and I hate it. I am having trouble enjoying the process at all. It's not even a journey. It's being stuck on an airplane with loads of smelly people; there's a delay so we haven't even left the tarmac and the flight attendants won't so much as give me a wiff of water.
Every morning I get up and either feel guilty that I haven't worked on it or have worked on it and it felt like the keyboard was giving me tiny electric shocks the whole time. Oh, the pain.
Oh, the drama.
I think part of the problem is the pressure of the thing. You know THE DISSERTATION! and all it implies. I think another part is the idea that all the many years of school is just going to be boiled down to this one document. And lastly, the fear that ultimately it will all be a disappointment, a yawn a minute, a bore-o-rama, or worse, by the time I finish, someone else will have published it.
I've been told that I just need focus on telling people what I think. And I've said it myself, I've just got to feed the lake.
But if someone has any advice on getting through day to day, please share.

Word of the Day

The word of the day is "Dissercation"

1. noun
2. intransitive verb

Etymology 1: from Latin vacation-, vacatio freedom, exemption

Etymology 2: from Latin dissertāre to set forth at length

Date: Early 21st century

Definitions:
1: a respite or a time of respite from working, thinking or even mentioning the dissertation in any way. 2: a scheduled period during which dissertation activity is suspended either intentionally or accidentally.

Usage examples:
1: I didn't feel guilty about not getting any work done yesterday; it was my birthday and I decided to take a dissercation. 2: I know I said I would have a chapter by the end of the summer, but I didn't plan on taking so much time dissercating.

You saw it here first. Expect to see it in the next edition of the Oxford English Dictionary.

What I'm Reading Now: Camera Works

Welcome to the first edition of this regular feature. I am finding that "reading" does not mean starting and finishing a book. Rather, I read chapters, put books down, read chapters in new books, return to previous books, reread selections. My library is a buffet and I'm the guy in Momento who often can't remember a book's content after 10 minutes later. I should tattoo notes on my body. I'l settle for Zotero.
Right now I am reviewing Camera Works by Michael North. North's book helped majorly with my proposal. When of my struggles has been rationalizing my linkage between photographs and texts. I need to provide evidence that there is a relationship since, for example, I don't have a book that says Stein saw this Man Ray photograph on that day and said, "I am influenced by this." North writes that photography, among other new recording devices, "revealed an inherent instability in the relationship of human perception to reality" (9). My favorite chapter in this book is the one on The Great Gatsby. He talks about Nick (the narrator) as a voyeur . Reading into the narrative from Nick's perspective, North sees it as evidence of a new way of seeing. I want to make the same seamless link between the main character in Rhys' Voyage in the Dark and the concept of women as endlessly reproducible (as they are in photographs).
If you haven't read The Great Gatsby in a while, it is worthy of rereading. It's one of the best books ever written, I think, and Fitzgerald's concept of America still holds true today. Plus, you probably did not get all the sex parts when you first read in high school.

Quantity Not Quality. Wait, That's Not Right.

In the English Department there is a very big office with loads of bound dissertations offering inspiration and intimidation. I checked a few out today to look at format and page count. It appears dissertations in the department range from 140 pages to over 300. I expect to have four chapters, approximately 40-50 pages each, an introduction of about 35 pages and a conclusion of about 15 pages. My master's thesis was somewhere between 40 and 50 pages so I figure each chapter is like a mini master's thesis. It seems more accessible that way.
And, if anyone cares, some have footnotes, some end notes at the end of chapters and some end notes at the end of entire text, just prior to the bibliography. The seem to all use MLA style.

Time on My Mind, Part 2

I am working towards graduating May 2010.

Time on My Mind

When perchance the next you meet a fellow soul pursuing an advanced degree, you might want to know the following: We in the biz like to inquire "How far a long are you?" rather than "When do you think you will finish?" We get defensive at the latter question because it often feels like a veiled way of saying, "What the hell are you doing anyway and when do you think you'll actually get a real job?" We are well aware that in the outside world it seems we take an awful long time gazing profoundly at our navels. No doubt there is a fair amount of navel gazing and time wastage We make very little money and seem to produce almost nothing until the very end, and then all we can squeeze out are three letters (one of them is even lower case). Don't worry, we feel plenty bad about not contributing to the world in the conventional sense of productivity (i.e. cashish). But we prefer to focus all that we have done rather than on all there is yet to do. As you might imagine, gazing at the mountain peak when you've got innumerable switchbacks ahead can be overwhelming. Sometimes it just feels good to take in how far you've already climbed.

Annoying lecture finished. 

Special thanks to...

Nina and Conor (in spirit) for hosting my cat and me while our building is being fumigated. We feel very luck to have a safe and non-toxic place to whole up for a few hours. Apologies, however to Conor, for getting cat hair all over his apartment and especially the desk. Viva la kitty! 

Content of This Blog

The blog will change as the dissertation and my own mental state changes. I expect it to focus less on the details of the project and more on my personal accomplishments in facing the challenges I encounter.
(The first rendition of this post was not nearly as positive think-y!).

About the Title of this Post

Sometimes I wonder to myself why I am spending so much time and effort on something that is challenging and insular. Jean Rhys had a theory on writing that I find particularly inspiring, what she called "feeding the lake" (full quote to the right). Her idea of "the lake" reminds me that exactly what I write is less important than contributing to the dialogue. Obviously, I want to be a part of the academic conversation about Jean Rhys and the other writers I have chosen. I am also motivated by the larger conversation regarding literary women and literature in general. Lastly, I am of the perhaps idealistic belief that my contribution to academia will filter out to the community at large. As I attempt to dig dipper into the many books I will be writing about and the issues that challenged these writers, I hope that I will inspire others to look beyond the obvious and find worthwhile meaning hidden between the layers.

Chapter 1

My first chapter focuses on the writer Jean Rhys. She is best known for her prequel to Jane Eyre, Wide Sargasso Sea. I am writing about two earlier novels, Quartet and Voyage in the Dark.

First Post

I've decided to start a blog to update my friends and family on the progress of my dissertation. I feel that many people are scared to ask me how things are going. Understandably, there are times things are not going so well and the mere question sends me into despair. More often, however, I am happy to update you all regularly on my successes and frustrations. The blog should keep you posted so you no longer have to hesitate to ask.
Now that I've written the above, it occurs to me that maybe the question gives friends and family pause because you don't want to hear a long explanation of exactly how things are going. Perhaps you just ask because you feel you have to. Well, if this is the case, you can simply say "I've read the blog" and I will resist the temptation to engage in lengthy monologues that will make your eyes glaze over.
For right now, this blog is just for the world not participating in academia. If I'm feeling brave, I will share it with others, perhaps even my committee!
I expect some of you will consider this blog just a distraction I've created for myself. This is of course true. However, I find that dissertation writing uses only one part of my creative mind and I long for another outlet. In addition, for those of you who have been to graduate school or done any writing at all, you know how solitary the work can be. I love having my afternoons to myself but I also get incredibly lonely and often want to share my inner world with the outer world.
Check the blog as frequently or as infrequently as you would like. For right now, I don't have a plan for updates.