Since people have been asking ...

[truepenny]

I'm getting my Ph.D. in English Literature; my period is the Renaissance (defined by my department as 1500-1660); my specialty is drama. I'm writing my dissertation on ghosts in Renaissance revenge tragedy; the specific texts I'm using are:

• The Spanish Tragedy, by Thomas Kyd


• Bussy D'Ambois, by George Chapman (the Chapman of "On Looking into Chapman's Homer," in case you were wondering)


• The Atheist's Tragedy, by Cyril Tourneur (pronounced "Turner")


• The Changeling, by Thomas Middleton and William Rowley


• The Revenger's Tragedy, by either Tourneur or Middleton, depending on whom you ask


• Richard III, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus, by W. Shakespeare

Hamlet and Titus Andronicus get their own chapters; the others are in the smorgasbord chapter.

Despite my general state of fed-upped-ness with the dissertation, I still love my topic and am capable of babbling about it for hours on end. I think this is a sign that I chose my topic well.

[There are also a chapter on Seneca (wearing his playwright's hat rather than his philosopher's fez) and a chapter on contemporary accounts of hauntings (1643 to 1683, so actually not contemporary, but as close as I'm going to get). This addendum brought to you by heres_luck, who suffered for my, um, art.]