Study Leave: Occasional Posts on Research, Writing and Other Academic Matters: 2015

Tuesday, 30 June 2015

Monday, 22 June 2015

How beautifully our predecessors wrote

The van Bosch and van Lennep version of The Greek Anthology (in five vols., begun by Bosch in 1795, finished and published by Lennep in 1822). Photographed at The British Museum, London. Contains the metrical Latin version of Grotius's Planuedean (Planudes) version of the Anthology. Heavily illustrated. It also reprints the very error-prone Greek text of the Wechelian edition (1600) of the Anthology, which is itself simply a reprint of the 1566 Planudean edition by Henricus Stephanus. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just happened on this wonderful line, describing a collection of archaizing poetry dating from the Byzantine period:

"There is much tenderness and beauty in many of the poems, but the writers wrote in a language which they did not command, but by which they were commanded, as all who try to write ancient Greek are."

(W.R. Paton, Greek Anthology v. 1, Harvard 1916: viii)

I wish we wrote or could write like this now.

Related articles

Saturday, 20 June 2015

Convalescent TV Part 2

The Convalescent (ca. 1923-1924) is one of a series of ten similar portraits (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Other things I've been watching while I recover:

British Crime Shows:

Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries

Elegant costume mysteries set in post-WW1 Australia. The first season is knit together by Miss Fisher's quest to keep her little sister's murderer in jail. The second season is less coherent, but still very entertaining, largely because of Miss Fisher, a wealthy, courageous, unconventional free spirit who is at all times gorgeously dressed (the series is all about the clothes, really). Miss Fisher's determination to avoid male domination, in the form of exclusive relationships, plays against the romance the series wants to develop between Fisher & Jack Robinson, a determinedly monogamous and conventional police inspector. We will see.

Foyle's War

Very wonderful WWII and post-WWII British series staring Inspector Foyle as a police inspector who dearly wants to serve in combat but is just too good at what he does - and consequently too likely to offend those in a position of power - to be allowed to go to war; so instead he serves as chief of police in Hastings during the war, and is recruited into Intelligence thereafter. The seasons set during WWII are rather better, because Foyle's quiet but incandescent righteousness play better in a clearly black-and-white environment than in the morally gray Cold War. The series does a good job of showing what Britain was really like in the war, and that the united home front that we are now told existed is a polite fiction.

Inspector Gently

I liked this well enough to start reading the books, and it is better than the books - at least better than the early ones. Martin Shaw is phenomenal as the - again - incandescently righteous George Gently (I have a taste for uncompromisingly moral heroes), and his sidekick, Sergeant Bacchus, is unusual in this sort of series in that while not corrupt yet, he is weak and self-serving enough that one can see how he could go that way. The sub-plot of the whole series is Gently's re-parenting of Bacchus, to turn him into a good officer. And it's set in Durham. I love Durham. Would love to go back there.

Ripper Street

The tone of this series, starring Matthew McFadyen as a police inspector and that guy that plays Bronn in Game of Thrones as his sergeant, is very much based on the Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr - the same jangly soundtrack and penchant for unnecessary violence, particularly but not exclusively by the carefully labelled Americans (who also have a penchant for guns). Set in late-Victorian England, in Whitechapel. The acting and sets are excellent but it's too anachronistic and violent for me. Not every problem can be solved by shooting, punching or knifing someone; and the plots seem otherwise improbable, too. However, I have to say the acting is brilliant and I still watch the occasional episode.

Jack Taylor

This series is a waste of Iain Glen. I watched one episode and he did his best, but I have never seen a set of lazy writing clichés and character stereotypes shuffle so hastily to an uninteresting conclusion. Set in more or less modern Ireland. I gather it's based on a series of novels that I am grateful to be forewarned not to bother to read.

Miscellany:

Grand Hotel

This was recommended to me, I don't remember by whom. It's in Spanish with subtitles for those (like me) who don't have any Spanish. It is essentially a well-produced Spanish tele-romance soap opera. I was expecting a well-produced Spanish murder mystery, so it didn't suit my tastes. It was interesting, though, how easily one can spot the conventions of a genre one doesn't like. Class warfare was very important, as was the ability of the extraordinarily handsome young male protagonist to move in both worlds (upper crust and servant class). And there was the inflexible upper-class matron forcing her daughter (obviously destined to be the male protagonist's love interest) into a loveless marriage with the sinister upper-crust hotel manager, and the largely virtuous servants, some of whom were comic relief, and one quisling servant who is in the pay of the privileged upper-class bad guy ... and so on. One episode was enough to tell me it wasn't my thing - actually, 10 minutes of one episode, but I watched the rest out of respect for the film makers. I liked Grand Budapest Hotel better but then, it was brilliant.

Slings and Arrows

Brilliant Paul Gross series about (obviously) the Stratford Festival; hilarious. I've just started season 1 but so far it's wonderful. Why didn't anyone tell me?

Friday, 19 June 2015

Maps

I've always loved maps, knowing where things are, possibly because I have no spatial sense at all and can't really visualize the world without one. Here is a map I have just cobbled up, showing all the locations mentioned by female authors of epigram:

Red = Anyte

Green = Erinna

Blue = Nossis.

Droplet = we are to assume that the author was there

Diamond shape = Author mentions the location but not as if she has seen or visited it herself.

Sunday, 14 June 2015

Convalescent TV

The Convalescent (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thank heavens for Netflix and DVDs. Another of the pleasures of sick leave: testing out an episode or two of everything and then binge-watching the ones I like. Here is a brief review of how I've been wasting my time in front of the tube (while doing my exercises! and folding laundry!)

Series based on comic books:

Marvel:

Daredevil

This was a really well-done series. Excellent female characters (Karen the secretary, Vanessa the love interest, Elena the determined old lady, Gao the crime lord), which flesh out the canonical comic-book males (Matt Murdock, Foggy, Wilson Fisk), who can be human while the canonical figures start out rather black-and-white. Matt Murdock is particularly well done because though he is the superhero protagonist, he is not superhuman. He is a good fighter but he can be beaten and when he is wounded the marks will still be there 3 episodes later, knife-wounds breaking open if he tries to do too much, bruises still visible on his face, moving stiffly and not up to as much in the next fight. He can interpret sounds and smells and so on better than others but he's still blind and it's not perfect. Emotional consequences are not shrugged off; if someone lies, three episodes later they still aren't trusted by those they lied to. Matt Murdock's insistence on going and beating people up, and getting beaten up, is clearly shown to be obsessive and irrational; these decisions are questionable and should be questioned. And very well acted and produced; dark and scary. I'm glad it's been renewed and I'm sorry I've finished off the first season already.

DC:

All of these are considerably more cartoonish than "Daredevil", meant for a younger (I'm guessing) audience. They've done an interesting thing and pitched the 4 shows to different age-groups, trying for a spread across the whole demographic. These are in order of target-age group as far as I can guess:

Flash

Teen romance, well played by the engaging lead, Grant Gustin, and the equally engaging lead villain, Harrison Wells. Painted in very broad strokes. Made a point of introducing not only a gay super villain but also a gay heroic ordinary human, Captain Singh, who has a good relationship with his male fiancé. I particularly liked that in a teen-targeted show.

Arrow

Mid-twenties bromance with girls. Spectacular protagonist, and filmed in Vancouver; the Queen mansion was filmed on Vancouver Island (I was sure I'd recognized it!) Engaging enough that I bought the 3rd season on iTunes, but there is a terrible hole in the show, which is the female lead, played by Katie Cassidy, who is cardboard. I have spent 2 seasons wondering why they haven't killed her off when they have killed off so many much more interesting characters. I will probably finish watching the 3rd season but honestly, I can't stand watching that actor.

Gotham

Same age group as "Constantine" but for different tastes - for an audience who likes black-and-white moral tales. Not as good as Daredevil (Gotham = NY which makes the comparison inevitable). But doing something very different. For one thing, it's a cartoon where Daredevil is an attempt to make it real. One clearly-marked bisexual female character; more hinted at. Lush production, well acted. I haven't got round to watching more than the first few episodes though.

Constantine

Early thirties audience, people old enough to have some real regrets. Really good so far (3 episodes in). Matt Ryan is excellent as the disreputable, entertaining, chain-smoking (so we know he's not morally trustworthy) protagonist who lives in the gray zone. He isn't as obviously bisexual as John Constantine is in the comics, and they seem to be setting up a romance with a woman, which I disapprove of because too obvious. But the series is still worth watching.

Science Fiction/Fantasy:

Orphan Black

The series that convinced me that Joss Whedon is not the only TV writer to watch.* Orphan Black is a SPECTACULAR SHOW, carried entirely by the excellent writing and the amazing, really amazing, lead actress. I am only part-way through the first season. Everyone should go watch Orphan Black right now. You will not be disappointed.

Game of Thrones

I avoided watching this for the longest time because I read Sady Doyle's article on Tigerbeatdown, which pointed out that there was a lot of misogyny, sexism, rape as tool to motivate positive character change in women, and also racism in Game of Thrones. And then I read her follow-up article on a reaction to that article; and then I read her follow-up a couple of months later on the spectacularly brutal and violent personal threats she had been receiving by the thousands since she wrote the first article. And at this point I thought, I don't want to be in any way associated with any of the people who have been attacking Sady Doyle because eww, these people are creeps, so if they like Game of Thrones I likely won't. But eventually I started watching it anyway and although I wish it weren't, it is awesome. I am enjoying it very much indeed. Mostly because of Peter Dinklage/Tyrion Lannister, who has not raped anyone so far and is not particularly misogynistic either, though he may be racist. But also I like Catelyn Stark, and Ned Stark, and every other Stark. I gather it would be very foolish of me to get too attached to any Stark however. (So far only one is dead, but I'm only halfway through season 3).

*In fact, after Age of Ultron and Agents of Shield (though I like Agents of Shield), I have regretfully recycled my "Joss Whedon is My Master Now" T-shirt. Not that he is not skilled and tells good stories, but he has been toiling in the Marvel mines for a long time now, and I would like to see him telling his own stories again. I am just not the target market for 4-hour fight scenes (though, for some reason, I loved them in Mad Max).

Next week: British crime series; and miscellaneous other series.

Convalescent reading week 5

The Murder at the Vicarage (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Murder mysteries, and one trashy romance

Camp, C. (2011) An Affair without End. United States: Pocket Star

Given to me by friends the day after surgery, as something to read while recovering. Hilarious. Recommended to anyone who is drugged to the eyeballs.

Christie, A. (1970) The Murder at the Vicarage. Dell Pub Co

What on earth made me think I didn't like Agatha Christie? This was excellent. I didn't guess the murderer until I was told in the last chapter. Miss Marples' first. I shall go read the rest of them.

Christie, A. (1980) And Then There Were None. Pocket

Also excellent. A bit disconcerting that the murderer, whom I half-guessed but was then fooled by a cunning plot twist, reminded me decidedly of a family member. Not very much, I hasten to say. But a little.

French, N. (1998) The Memory Game. Penguin Books

Nicki French's first novel I gather. Really good. A murder mystery of the best kind - I didn't guess who the murderer was and was willing to be fooled, as was the protagonist, but when the murderer is finally revealed it all falls into place quite satisfyingly, and all the puzzling little clues suddenly make sense. Engaging protagonist, also. Rather too much about cooking, which made me feel inadequate.

Rendell, R. (2000) Harm Done (Inspector Wexford). Arrow Books

Ruth Rendell is another one I thought I didn't like. I think I'll make an exception for the Wexford novels though and go find some more. Puzzled by the several different story lines, one of which is a massive red herring. Satisfactory conclusion though, and well-researched on the subject of domestic violence.

Friday, 5 June 2015

Wednesday, 27 May 2015

Japanese tidying manual

Kondo, M. and Hirano, J. C. (2014) The life-changing magic of tidying up: the Japanese art of decluttering and organizing. 1st edn. Berkeley, California, USA: Ten Speed Press.

Marie Kondo runs a consulting business in Tokyo, helping people tidy their houses - or, more precisely, helping people throw out (on average) 2/3 to 3/4 of their belongings, and keep only those that bring them joy. What's left after the initial discard is much easier to keep tidy! This is far far too drastic for me, as one might expect. Still, her respect for objects, and her expectation that we ought to treat everything we own with dignity and care, is genuinely appealing. Her insistence that there are no half measures – to progress we must simply dive in and throw out everything that we don't truly love, right now, rather than carrying on gradually throwing things out for years or in fact (most likely) forever - is probably correct. On the other hand it seems very unlikely to happen. Very enjoyable read, but extreme. I'm still mulling it over.

Wednesday, 20 May 2015

Sick Leave, so far

I had a hip replacement on May 8, and am on medical leave until (at least) the end of July. I'm not allowed to do any real work while on sick leave. (The university grudgingly allows that it cannot keep me from reading and thinking, but asks me to on no account leave a paper trail.) So instead I'll keep track of the totally-unrelated-to-anything-approaching-work novels I read while convalescing. And possibly add a few notes about them.

Since May 8, I have read:

Carter, A. (1992). The Bloody Chamber, and Other Stories, 1st ed. New York: Penguin Group USA.

The Bloody Chamber (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Interesting collection of stories; the first one (The Bloody Chamber, based on Bluebeard) is the best, with the mother as the gun-toting horse-riding hero; though Puss in Boots was very entertaining. (Okay, Puss reminded me of my cat.) And that remarkable line that explains, in a nutshell, why we feel such aching sympathy for abusive jerks of all descriptions - narcissists, psychopaths, self-absorbed creeps, liars, louts, two-faced cheating philanderers finally caught with their pants down - and sometimes, so sadly, so much sympathy that we forgive them and take them back: the moment when the heroine of "The Bloody Chamber" looks at the husband that she knows is about to murder her and thinks "The atrocious loneliness of the monster!" The horrible loneliness of one whose own actions have cut them off forever from any kind of human connection; but still we can imagine how we would feel if we were so cut off, and if we forget how the monster got there, we empathize. "The Courtship of Mr. Lyon" and "The Tiger Bride" also good, 2 sides of the same coin. Wasn't sure what to make of "Tiger Alice."

Rankin, I. (2014). Saints of the Shadow Bible. United States: Little Brown and Company.

Delighted to see Rebus back in the saddle. Characters good, but plot got a little over-involved and quickly-resolved towards the end. Oh well. I wasn't reading for plot.

Sayers, D. L. (1926). Clouds of Witness: a Lord Peter Mystery. T. Fisher Unwin Press.

Sayers always repays rereading. I suspect I will reread all of her novels while I'm laid up. Always liked this one, though I'm not as enamoured of the nobility as I was when I first read this in my teens; or as Sayers was then, though I think she got over it later. Writing with a shrewd eye to her audience, I think, most of whom wouldn't mind imagining themselves living at Duke's Denver with servants to bring their tea and brush the mud from their shoes at night.

Smith, Alexander McCall (2013). Trains and lovers. Toronto: Vintage Books Canada.

In a lot of ways my favourite AM Smith so far, because not so condescending. Though in general I like the ones set in Scotland, possibly for that reason. A great deal better than "Emma", which I got halfway through and stopped, unusual for me; but Smith is not Austen, and not remotely the same kind of writer. "Trains and Lovers", though, was pleasant. Smith is a comic writer, though, and never goes for the hard choice: all the love stories had happy endings, even the one that (one felt) shouldn't (at least, it probably did), and the one about a youth who falls in love with another youth is resolved by his marrying a young woman and becoming a philosophy professor, which was rather anticlimactic. He speaks of how his love for the other boy changed his life, but it's difficult to see how. (Actually, the trilogy about Portuguese Irregular Verbs is still my favourite, come to think of it. Much sharper-edged)

Vickers, S. (2000). Miss Garnet’s Angel. London: HarperCollins Publishers.

Really wonderful; the best of the lot. Union of Venice, Rafael, Tintoretto, angels, and a retired atheist schoolteacher whose best friend has incontinently died before they could go travelling. I do wish I could write like this. Must visit Venice.

Tuesday, 3 March 2015

epigram bibliography

For giving one the illusion of being "in control of the material", nothing beats a nicely laid-out

bibliography. There isn't anything quite as soothing as sorting through mounds of references, stacking them in groups, arranging by subject, date, journal author - doing anything, in fact, but actually looking at the contents. But I have at least figured out which articls I shall reread first. (Hallett, Judith P. (1993), ‘Feminist Theory, Historical Periods, Literary Canons, and the Study of Greco-Roman Antiquity’, in Rabinowitz, Nancy Sorkin and Amy Richlin (eds.), Feminist Theory And The Classics (New York and London: Routledge), 44-72.)

Should put a plug in here, for those who use a Mac, for "Bookends", the best reference-management software I have come across, in many years of trying out new software.

Sunday, 1 March 2015

Editing, anxiety, and change

High Anxiety (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yesterday, a workshop on "leadership in times of change". This had no relevance to research, one would have thought, but in fact two ideas were transferrable:

change doesn't occur unless the fear of the consequences of not changing ("survival anxiety") is greater than the fear of the consequences of changing ("learning anxiety").

The strategy for encouraging change is not to increase survival anxiety, but to decrease learning anxiety.

"Start using Excel in 3 months or lose your job!" is not nearly as effective as "Excel is really pretty easy, we've set up a couple of seminars to take you through the key concepts".

There are two basic types of problem: "technical" - nobody can hear the prof, say - and "adaptive" - no one can understand what the prof is getting at.

Technical problems are easy to fix: get the prof to use a microphone.
Adaptive problems are much harder, because complex. Why doesn't anyone understand the prof? Is the subject too difficult for this level of class? Is the prof not explaining things clearly? Is the class not doing the homework or the readings? Is the textbook badly written? Do the assignments need to be broken down more clearly?
It is very very seductive to apply a technical solution to an adaptive problem.

Nobody understands the prof? Probably they just can't hear her! Let's get her a microphone! Problem solved. Except most likely it isn't solved. But we LOVE to use technical solutions because they are simple, quick, and we can tell ourselves we've done something and can move on to the next problem. Even though what we've done has not actually fixed anything, usually.

So, how do these apply to research?

I am often tempted to persuade myself to embark on a new project, or finish an old one, by increasing the stakes ("survival anxiety"). I'll pick a project with a firm deadline set by someone else, because then the consequences will be awful if I don't finish on time. But breaking the project down into doable steps ("decreasing learning anxiety") is actually much more effective both in getting the work done, and applying myself to the process.
The solution to research snags is NOT to try out new word processing/ database software. I should cross-stitch this on a sampler and hang it over my desk.

NEW SOFTWARE WILL NOT SOLVE YOUR RESEARCH PROBLEM. RESEARCH WILL SOLVE YOUR RESEARCH PROBLEM.

But playing with new software is so much fun, and look how productive I'm being!

So: today, reading over the revisions on 3 articles for an edited collection. Is this research? Well, not my own research, but worth doing, anyway.

Thursday, 26 February 2015

okay, really avoiding those epigrams

But here's this remarkable timeline! Which shows the importance of every major empire in world history: importance by width, duration by length. Click on "Wait but why" for the full-size version, with legible text:

Thursday, 19 February 2015

Morituri, etc.

From time to time I feel we should all be reminded of the immortal wisdom of Matt Groening.

Wednesday, 18 February 2015

English: Marble bust of Nossis (Greek poetess, 3.rd century B.C.) Italiano: Nosside di Locri (poetessa greca), III secolo aC. Busto di Francesco Jerace (1854-1936) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In brief, the Dollhouse/Sophocles idea has not really panned out, though I think I have (after prolonged fiddling with other alternatives) finally found a way in, using Nick Lowe's book on The Classical Plot and the Invention of Western Narrative. But I have set that aside for the moment to look at female-authored epigrams in the ancient world. I wrote on Nossis, one such author, several years ago, and am now taking a look at the entire corpus (there are only about 40, some dubious). Anyte is the other major author; there are a couple by Moero of Byzantium, a couple said to be by Erinna, and 3 attributed to Sappho. The Hellenistic period allowed women both to be poets and to be known as poets in ways that were not permitted in eras in which all poetry was publicly performed by the author. This week I have put together a collection of all the source material.

Study Leave: Occasional Posts on Research, Writing and Other Academic Matters