Back from Inner Space

So, here I am, back again. It's been a long and busy semester, as the cliché goes. I passed my Oral Comprehensive Exam on the 15^th of April, which is nice, as I am now ABD. For that exam, I wrote and defended what amounts to the rough draft of my dissertation's theory chapter, in which I explained what I meant by "medieval utopian function" by going through some general/Marxist utopian theory (Marx/Engels, Karl Mannheim, Joseph Gabel, Ernst Bloch, Lyman Tower Sargent, and Fredric Jameson) and a few of the more medieval-oriented discussions (Michael Uebel, Hilario Franco, Karma Lochrie) that did not focus specifically on the genre of utopias. Having identified the two uses to which general theorists put utopia—ideology and culture critique—I noted that the trend in medieval uses of utopian theory has been some ideology critique, primarily by finding spaces of hope (Lochrie) or social difference (Uebel). From both major sources (general/Marxist and medieval) I derived the following definition of the medieval utopian function:

A form of social dreaming before the modern period that critiques some contemporary ideological “truth,” such as a point of church doctrine, the nature of fame, or the order of society. Part of that dream includes some solution to the problem, a solution that may take any form from basic wish-fulfillment to planned and dialectically open-ended society. The solution may or may not have been effective in the dreamer’s own time, but it can inspire hope and social critique in our own age.

This is, of course, still pretty vague, but until I've done more readings in the the texts, it will have to do. Speaking of, right now, I intend to work with the following texts: House of Fame, Pearl, Winner and Waster, Piers Plowman, Regiment of Princes, and Vox Clamantis. I have some ideas about all of them, and I may float some of those ideas here as the year rolls by.

Oh—also, I received an award from my department: the Blair Rouse Fellowship, which is given for "Superior Academic Achievement by a PhD Candidate in English." It came with honor, and with money, and I'm thankful to my department for both.

Meanwhile, I have been assured that there will be no jobs whatsoever in the coming year, and that I have picked the worst possible time to try to begin a career in academia. I have yet to be sure if that's true, but it is a cause for concern. We'll see.

Mass Media Consumption Day

What have I been doing all day? Was it "finish reading the things on which you'll be lecturing on Monday"?

NO!

Was it "offering editorial suggestions for the thesis of the Bachelor C---- P---- of Elkins, AR, as you agreed to do yesterday?

NO! (well, mostly—there was a bit of a lag in the morning before I could off, so I did read most of the rest of it. . .)

Was it "running to the post office to pick up your package from Canada, which contained your copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which you then, on receiving, drove straight home, opened, and read through from 9:30 AM - 5:30 PM?"

YES!

That's right, friends, I'm now up-to-date on the latest bits of Harry Potterdom. I've learned all about his last adventures, and have come to several conclusions:
This book beats Half-Blood Prince, and while it's true that a dead mackerel coated in polystyrine could have done that, it's also true that
J. K. Rowling has become a better writer over the past 17 years.
This was a much better book: she's got a stronger sense of pacing, for one, and for another, the fact that SPOILER most of it takes place outside of Hogworts frees her up to explore much of the rest of the world. Frankly, that castle was becoming a bit of an annoyance, and it's good she's gotten away from it. END SPOILER.

That said, I'm looking forward to seeing what her post-Potter literary career is like.

I'm also looking forward to some Monty Python's Flying Circus, and probably MST3K's riffing on Ring of Terror.

I'll do the school stuff tomorrow.

Things I Did Today

In no particular order:

1) Discovered Manchild, the BBC's answer to Sex and the City, but with men. Equally self-absorbed, though deadly funny and British. It's like an older version of what the movie version of High Fidelity ought to have been (i.e. set in London, possibly with Nigel Havers doing the voice-overs).

2) Finished a draft of my House-of-Fame-is-utopian paper, then read two paragraphs in and realized that a definition of "utopian" would probably help.

2a) Made one.

3) Collected the last of my students' final exams, and, barring a few stragglers, will have grades up by Tuesday (for the first section) and Wednesday (for the second).

4) Started going through all the Libri legendi notecards I've made over the course of the semester (how did I get up to five this time?). If you don't keep lists of things you'd like to read, you're clearly not an academic. I think I'll be adding 50 or so volumes to the already 38-volume list.

5) Eyed the rest of Alan Bray's The Friend that I was thinking of finishing; watched Manchild instead (see #1).

. . . and that is all. Soon enough I'll be done and can relax properly.