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.    

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:

1. 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".

1. 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?

1. 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. 
2. 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.

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:

Morituri, etc.

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

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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.

Echo becomes Ajax; Iphigenia fails to become Buffy, poor thing

Dollhouse characters. L to R: Paul Ballard, Victor, Echo, Sierra, Topher Brink, Adelle DeWitt, Boyd Langton (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know for a certainty that there are many other things I should be doing, but am enjoying writing about Dollhouse and Sophocles way too much to stop. Would Sophocles have survived if he'd had to write serial television? Can character development ever = character stasis? Does an ensemble TV series ever = Oedipus? Just how classical is Whedon?
However, today I will put off these questions because working on Iphigenia and Buffy. So, still having fun.

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Sophocles and Dollhouse

I have been struggling to revise an overlong conference paper I gave, or gave part of, a few years ago in Seattle, trying to see if I can turn it into an article; or, failing an article, a draft I can link on academia.edu in the "conference paper I don't plan to publish" category. So far, I'm failing dismally. The subject is in what ways the character "Echo" in Joss Whedon's series "Dollhouse" is a Sophoclean hero, and how that matters. But this subject leads me apparently unavoidably into philosophical questions that I really don't want to engage, at least not in what was supposed to be a light-hearted pop culture paper (What is reality? Do souls exist? Is chocolate a necessary food group?)
At the very least, I don't think there's any way I can revise the paper, which should probably have been titled in its original form "every single thing I can think of that interests me about Dollhouse, in no particular order", to make it answer the original question. I can start a new paper on that question, but I don't think I can revise this one to fit.
On the other hand, I have always hated revising more than anything. I would far rather write a new thing than revise an old thing so that it actually works. So perhaps I shouldn't throw in the towel yet.

I have, I think, thought of the solution: more research! Or to quote Matt Groening's advice to grad students on how to avoid the agony of writing: when all else fails, "Read another book". I'm sure someone out there has already answered all the interesting philosophical questions in Dollhouse, and I can just cite them, and get back to Sophocles.

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