We all need that little something to get us going in the morning – something to shift us from sleep/home mode to working mode. Once coffee started failing, I turned to music.
How to Read James Joyce’s Ulysses (and Why You Should Avoid “How-to” Guides Like This One)
Originally posted on Biblioklept:
Bloomsday, an annual celebration of James Joyce’s Ulysses, is upon us today with more excitement than ever. Even with the festivities, the book’s reputation for density, erudition, and inscrutability still daunts many readers–leading to a glut of guidebooks, summaries, and annotations. Ironically, rather than inviting first-time readers to the text, the…
27 Interesting Facts about Words
Words, words, words, words. Enough for a ‘Epizeuxis’? Interesting Literature Fun facts about words and the English language The stuff of literature is, of course, words. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge observed, ‘Prose = words in their best order; – poetry = the best words in the best order.’ In this post, we’ve gathered up 27…
The Gothic: Enlightenment’s Shadow
As much as I love digging through the history of the Gothic, 50 000 words quickly became a too tiny space in which to explore even the shallowest representation of its beginnings. Consequently, I’ve had to cut broad swathes of text from my thesis on Neo-Gothic fiction, and where better to use what literally elicited blood, sweat and tears than on my blog? I’m thus hoping (thesis-allowing) to post a couple of introductory excavations into the history and development of Gothic fiction as I explored it for my thesis. This second post gives some indication of the world into which the Gothic was ‘born’ or, more aptly, resurrected.
The Gothic: A Beast is Born
While the Gothic as an aesthetic and literary movement has dispersed itself into practically all areas of modern society, its roots and developments remain a murky and much-contested topic of discussion. Here I offer a brief introduction to the roots of the Gothic as it developed from the narrative of an ancient people to a polymorphous concept that was used to bolster various ideological agendas.
‘Scout’s Pace’: Or what I learned in Girl Guides that we should use in the workplace
A great post by Katherine Firth on Research Degree Voodoo (quickly becoming my go-to blog when I feel fed up with Master’s). While I’m not quite at PhD yet, anyone working on a Master’s thesis would agree that this is sound advice for any long writing project. It’s really easy to get stuck in one…
The Second Chapter: On the Up and Up
And so, another couple of months have passed without my posting, and I hang my head in shame. These almost two months were spent working furiously on my second chapter and checking books in and out at our university library as a student assistant. In April, tutoring Romantic Poetry will be added to this list…
The First Chapter: Done, Dusted and Casualties Noted
It’s been a strange couple of months since my last post. During this time, I’ve completed a draft of my first chapter, started preparing for my second chapter, received feedback and spent a week frantically responding to that feedback. All of this is why my blog has been languishing in lonesome repose. The year ended…
9 Fun Things About Reading Derrida
Jacques Derrida’s is a household name when you’re in the Humanities – a name generally mentioned with a sigh and the grating of teeth. I have come to the conclusion that I am, indeed, a masochist, for I have chosen to make Derrida my main source of theory. My thesis makes use of his Specters of…
Something Wild
Since I am currently trying to empty the freezer, I had to find a way to whip up some venison. I decided to make a pie in my ‘spare time’, and boy, did it come out good.
Amsterdam in Black and White: From the Water
One of the best ways to see Amsterdam is from its world-famous canals. While the city can be exquisitely quaint, something of its drama and potency can be glimpsed in black and white.
The Importance of Ritual
Every few days I get a call from my parents who inevitably want to know, ‘so what’s new with you’? I don’t often have much to say to that, except that, ‘Ah well, yeah, we’re just getting on with it, researching and stuffs’. Now that the year is basically over and I don’t have any…
Preludes 