I took my prelims (the exams that many schools call comps) in Summer 2010. During my three-month study period, I figured that I was making a big transition: I was going from writing a few 20-page seminar papers per semester to writing one giant, whopping, massive document for a long long time. What I didn't realize, though, was that the circumstances of my writing would also change. When I wrote seminar papers, I interacted with groups of my peers (plus a set of professors) a few times a week. We had all read the same texts for each class meeting; then, we spent hours discussing them, situating them in context, and debating the published criticism. Looking back, it was a fabulous way to kickstart my writing process. I have notes in my textbooks about the viewpoints of ten or twelve really smart people, and those notes encapsulate vivid intellectual exchanges, in a community setting.
Now, there's been a shift in the way that I write, and also in the way that I perceive writing. Instead of reading a common text, and hearing ten or twelve opinions about it at once, the onus is on me: I select a text myself (one that has to do with sleeping people). I mine it for data, and find out what others have already written about it, and create some writing of my own. Then, I share that writing--but on an individual basis. I have a fabulous dissertation partner and a fabulous advisor, who both read my work at least twice a month, and who offer their reactions. I'm really lucky to have both of them, and the one-on-one feedback has taken my writing to a more thoughtful and polished level.
At the same time, I'm also starting to wonder about the possibility of group-based togetherness after the coursework stage of the PhD. It seems pretty difficult to imagine ten or twelve dissertators, postdocs or professors coming together fourteen times per semester to discuss fourteen books--it wouldn't be a streamlined use of time, for a start. Still, the classroom model is the foundation of our scholarship, and I'm not sure it's wise to jettison it entirely after reaching a certain stage of the PhD. Thoughts?
I can relate to this! I also had a really good basis for my start back to academia by sitting in on a taught-course module. It gave me the opportunity to re-engage with other like-minded people, at similar stages of their research and a social platform on which to share, adopt and abandon ideas without the heart ache of committing it to paper first. I took a lot in from that, especially as I found that even if we looked into areas that were completely irrelevant to my work, the practices and approaches often had something to offer that was transferrable.
ReplyDeleteThats why I'm here and on Twitter etc! I think that this 'Digital Humanities' phenomena could be just the craze I need to keep hold of this informal method of sharing with peers (and superiors!) and to keep me sane through the formal research process!
Saying all this, is there any reason why you cant put together a group where you're based? If you spear-head a campaign of people working in the Early Modern period, even/especially across disciplines you never know what fantastic work and ideas might spring from giving up an hour or two at a time, and I'm sure any professor would encourage and get involved where possible. I say, give it a go!
Good points! I don't mean to imply that there isn't a rich culture of togetherness here--there are tons of one-off events run by an early modern colloquium, for example, and even a series of Corpus lectures about premodern bodies. What I was imagining was something more along the lines of a sustained proseminar, with readings for each meeting. For a while, the grad students here did something called EMERGE (the early modern english reading group, with an "e" stuck on the end because "emerg" sounded a little weird!)--and that worked well for a few meetings early in the semester, until people got bogged down with coursework. (Come to think of it, the people who came to that were mostly in coursework, and not writing yet--though there were definitely a few exceptions to that rule.)
ReplyDeleteI wonder if Twitter and blogging are maybe more sustainable approaches to text-discussion communities, because they don't require everyone to be available at the same time? Maybe I should post a sonnet as a reading "assignment" and invite discussion in the comments section. :)