Back to Square 1

Remember that show on PBS? Wow. That was when math was not only cool but totally do-able.

Anyway, I met with my actual adviser, who happened to be in town this week. Looks like I'm going back to the partial drawing board. My current idea was too narrow. He kindly stated that he could see it work as an article but not as a dissertation topic.

However, I think I want to stick with the concept of rereading practices. So, I need to find out ways to broaden the idea and limit it to choose specific texts.

Things I will be looking for after this semester is over:

• Prefaces
• Epilogues
• Advertisements
• Changes in Editions
• Sequels by the same author and other authors (the fanfic!)
• Marginalia and annotations
• Literary Criticism
  
• Whether I wish to examine satires, dramas, novels, etc.
• Secondary criticism
• A notion of how my argument will progress through the texts I am using
• What I found joyful about studying specific 18C texts... maybe this will give me a clue about what I should write on.

I also should find out about my new teaching appt for next semester. The fun never stops!

Some questions I am thinking about:

• How do authors engage their readers into a practice of rereading?
• How do authors reread their own texts?
• In what way does an author address his reader? Does this truly reflect the common response to a text?
  
• What does it mean to engage with a text through writing your own sequel and/or annotation?
• Are the ways we read and reread different when we approach different genres? Why or why not?
  

Other suggested authors

My sortadviser recommended Smollett and Manly in lieu of Austen. I have read Humphry Clinker, but not a few of his others (Roderick Random, Peregrin Pickle). I've never read Manly. I've heard she's quite a kick in the pants...

I suppose that the time is right to get back into the 18C soon. I just need to finish up these minor courses...And they are slowly eating at my soul. It's not that I don't enjoy their subject matter -- I just don't enjoy them now.


More to come when the semester finally ends. My last semester of graduate-level courses.... Woo!

My primary texts (so far)

Here are the texts I am considering for my dissertation:

• Martinus Scriblerus
• Tale of a Tub
• The Female Quixote
• Northanger Abbey

I also considered Tristram Shandy and The Man of Feeling, but those two are a bit problematic when it comes to defining them as satires. They also happen to be the craziest reader-oriented texts I can think of. Oh well.

I'm sure that many, many more minor texts will be addressed along the way, but these texts will spearhead my chapters. I think that Northanger or Tale of a Tub will be my job talk chapters... More than likely Tale of a Tub... How many times do I need to present on Northanger to call it "all good"? Seriously. I think I've presented on NA about 3 times already.

Is Tale of a Tub well-known for people outside of the 18C? Maybe I should ask for your opinions. Have any of you ever heard of Jonathan Swift's Tale of a Tub? If you're in this MA program, you had to read for your masters exam... Anyone else?

The real adviser responds

This week has been revelatory for me. I received immediate responses from my director/adviser which were both positive and critical. My adviser has the strongest moral character I've ever encountered in a person. It's as though he is the reincarnation of Johnson, dare I say it...

I need to sit down at this point to reread all of my primary texts. I think that I can do a great deal of this work during the winter break. Or at least after I complete the papers for my minor courses. I also need to accumulate secondary and critical material for my project. In the end, I think I may have 4 stacks of texts to read: primary/18C sources, sources on reading theory, sources on satire, and sources on the practice of reception theory.

According to my adviser, I still need to hone in and "conceptualize" my project. I'm just grateful that my project has a slight thumbs up instead of an outright thumbs down. Yay!

Well, well, well

So, I just submitted 3 double spaced pages to my sortadvisor. I call this person my sortadvisor because this person isn't exactly my advisor but is doing the job of one anyway.

At any rate, I don't think I'm quite ready to develop my prospectus yet... I still have a lot of reading to do, and I don't have much time to do it in this semester. Sure, I'm currently goofing off, relaxing at home, instead of working myself silly. But, after what happened to me last week, I don't think I can handle being stressed 100% of the time. It sucks.

My current interests are studying the figure of the reader and the practices of rereading in eighteenth-century satire. I've come to the conclusion that I actually enjoy reading satire. I love it. I thought I loved the novel more, but I don't. Satire is just so much more interesting. Who knew? I didn't realize my love for satire until after my prelims. I guess I just learned what prelims are truly good for...