dissident

[truepenny]

Thanks very much to everyone who has offered encouragement and moral support on the defending-the-dis front. Warm fuzzies to you all.

I have finished reading Bowers (somebody fetch me a minstrel to eat!) and have written a five page chunk of prose explaining just exactly why he's an idiot. I feel much better.

Was entranced to discover, via Bowers's most disapproving capsule summary, that there is a late-Caroline play in which the revenger, who spends the play disguised as a Moorish castrato, is revealed in the last act to be in fact a rape-victim (presumed dead by the other characters) revenging herself on her rapist. The play may be every bit as morally incoherent as Bowers says it is, but I want to read it anyway, just because.

Have also heard back from one committee member saying that a month's lead time is probably good, which means that if I want to defend in early November, I need to give my committee The Manuscript in early October. I think that's doable. I hope. Also earned myself brownie points by answering a question for her, so that's good, too.

Am now going to sit here and read The Second Maiden's Tragedy, in hopes of finding I have something to say about it.

Comments

[pameladean]

Hey, one person's "morally incoherent" is another's "complex and nuanced." And maybe the play just makes the standard-issue 20th-century male academic uncomfortable.

Of course, it could be a bad play, too. I'd want to read it myself in your position. I remember distinctly when I was just writing my master's thesis that, even though I really enjoy reading literary criticism, I completely quit believing anything anybody said at some point comparatively early in the process.

Pamela

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Well, since Bowers calls all Caroline drama "decadent"--that's the title of the chapter, "The Decadence of Revenge Tragedy"--I am highly suspicious of his impartiality.

According to Amazon, there has been an edition (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0918720079/qid=1058729781/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/002-1451273-0329605?v=glance&s=books) of The Fatal Contract, published in 1978, although it's now of course as out of print as the dodo. That at least gives me hope I may be able to find it in the library. Somehow I don't imagine that, if the library has it, I'll find it's been checked out.

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...a quick glance at your library's catalog reveals that it looks like microfilm or interlibrary loan for you for this title. It should be in Early English Books Online, as well, I believe (unless they're not completely done transferring the EEB microfilm set to electronic format yet? I don't know because it's not a resource I have access to), in case you want to see whether it's worth borrowing a print copy on ILL. Oh — you can request the 1978 print edition from UW-Milwaukee and they'll send it within a few days. That's nifty. Further wanderings reveal news of a production in 1983 billed as "the first production for 350 years" by The University of Birmingham's Cloak and Dagger Theatre Company as part of the Stratford-upon-Avon Festival. I've also seen reference to Love and Revenge by Elkanah Settle being "founded on The Fatal Contract, by William Heming."

La la la. Stopping now.

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

But you only use your mutant superpower for good, right?

[renenet.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, that comment just *totally* made my day! Thank you.

And as for the question itself...no comment.

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Have also heard back from one committee member saying that a month's lead time is probably good, which means that if I want to defend in early November, I need to give my committee The Manuscript in early October. I think that's doable. I hope. Also earned myself brownie points by answering a question for her, so that's good, too.

Yay you!

Does this mean we will all get to call you Dr Truepenny?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Does this mean we will all get to call you Dr Truepenny?

That's the theory. :)

[yonmei.livejournal.com]

Cool! My other potential doctoral friend, brandnewgun, is at least a year off from becoming Dr Brandnewgun. (She is planning to become a doctor by bouncing lasers off people's eyes, so she tells us.)

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

I have finished reading Bowers (somebody fetch me a minstrel to eat!) and have written a five page chunk of prose explaining just exactly why he's an idiot. I feel much better.

~g~ That is the sort of thing that makes postgrad life worthwhile.

I'm looking to submit in November too, but fortunately in Australian universities we don't have to stand a viva...just hand out theses over to two unknown persons who get to say yea or nay or could be better to the whole four years' work. Argh...

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

My department's system is actually very weird. It isn't a "defense"; it's a "dissertation conference." In theory, you have it when you're about three-quarters done, so your committee can give you feedback, which you can then incorporate into your work. Very PC.

I'd rather just have the damn thing be a defense. And because I've written things 'round the way I have, and because I'm a control freak, it's going to be as close to finished as I can make it before I hand it over.

Your system sounds insane, too. Such is the grad student's life.
*commiserating sigh*

Re:

[calanthe-b.livejournal.com]

My department's system is actually very weird. It isn't a "defense"; it's a "dissertation conference." In theory, you have it when you're about three-quarters done, so your committee can give you feedback, which you can then incorporate into your work. Very PC.

Ouch. I think I'd rather stand a viva than do it your department's way... Having to incorporate that sort of critique at that late stage would be enough to give me a nervous breakdown! I think I'd be trying to get it as close to finished as possible beforehand, too.

Your system sounds insane, too.

It is worryingly peculiar. Though at least, if your two examiners have radically different opinions on your thesis, they let it go to a third reader...

~commiserates back~

[vass]

Oh. I want to read that play too.

And I'm applauding on the sidelines re: dis. Who knew dissertation-writing was a spectator sport?

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

I sure didn't.

I'm amazed that people find it as interesting as they apparently do.