SPRING BREAK IS HERE GUYS!

It’s finally spring break and my brain is (miraculously) no longer mush! It’s been an eventful two weeks: there have been strides regarding my IDIM and study abroad proposals, which I’ll talk about later, midterms, various philosophical conversations with friends, and much exhaustion. I’m not sure how time at college manages to pass simultaneously reeeeeaaaalllllyyy sllllooooooowwwllly and crazyfast. I both feel a sense of “how can it possibly already be midterms?!? I’m not ready for finals! I’m not ready to be halfway through my college career!!” and also “wait….[insert exciting event here] only happened last week?! but it’s felt like forever since then!” Basically I exist in a constant state of temporal confusion.

Anyway, I’m incredibly excited to not be on campus for a week. Even though I love the absurd tininess of my college, the way it manages to be this friendly tightly-knit community, there’s a point in spring semester when we’ve all felt trapped on campus by the snow and we’re all too busy to go beyond the two-square blocks of the campus and surrounding providers-of-relatively-cheap-foodstuffs and Macalester begins to feel claustrophobically small. And then spring break comes and we all escape for at least a few days and come back to a campus that now feels cozy-small instead of suffocatingly-small.

[I also might be somewhat excited about seeing my parents. And my cats. And the sun. And eating real food. And going to the Grand Canyon. But you know, no big deal.]

After I posted my blog last time and Charmaine and I went to the gym and played ping-pong and then returned and agreed that we’d be going to sleep early because so much work to do on Sunday, we accidentally fell into conversation about her religious beliefs and ended up having this rather epic discussion of belief and faith until about three in the morning. It was fascinating and challenging (though always respectful) and made me realize some things about Charmaine and myself that I hadn’t quite noticed before. Even though it was, at times, a difficult conversation and even though I really did need the sleep, I’m glad we were able to have a conversation like that.

On Sunday, I remembered why it was, exactly, that I’d planned to go to bed early the night before and consequently spent the whole day in the library doing reading for class (primarily selected sections of Tennyson’s In Memoriam, a gorgeous poem about grieving and loss and working your way through that, written over the span of about fourteen years following the death of one of his closest friends). I got coffee and found a study nook on the fourth floor and stared at the window at the (miraculously) blue sky when I needed a break.

Sometimes my life is just sickeningly collegiate and charming.

On Monday, I returned to the library to work on essays with Emma (which sounds like the name of a really excellent television show—“Up next, the delightful sitcom about an English graduate student and her adventures in student papers, research projects, and romance: Essays with Emma! When we return.” [Although that also just sounds like Clara’s life.]) for my Shakespeare Studies class. The paper was due Tuesday at midnight, but, as always, I had a ridiculous amount of reading for British Youth Subcultures, so I promised myself I’d just finish the paper Monday night and then edit it Tuesday afternoon. So Emma and I wrote and wrote and wrote until the library closed and then, slightly worse for wear, went to her friend’s room and wrote and wrote and wrote until I finally finished at three in the morning. When I walked outside to return to my room, I discovered that the snow which had been falling all of Monday had continued while we were writing and gorgeous fat fluffy flakes were drifting down in the streetlamp-light. All the sidewalks were blanketed with snow and everything was so quiet—that utter stillness of a snowfall mixed with the silence of the early morning.

It was completely gorgeous and definitely worth being up that late. (Plus I got an A on my paper, so there’s that.)

Wednesdays are “treat nights” in the English department where they have some sort of free food (nachos, this time) and all the Englishy people hang out and chat with each other. I went with Rachel and ended up having this awesome, complicated conversation about personhood (Chudgar would be so proud) and the ethics of reading private writings by famous dead people (and what this means for our generation, with nearly everything we write existing semi-permanently online) with Rachel, Erin (this awesome girl from my  Victorian lit class) and a girl named Kai whose name I didn’t know until the end of the conversation. I love that I can stumble upon these crazy discussions, that small talk in college can suddenly become lke an in-class discussion. This, everybody, is why I go to a tiny liberal arts college. It’s for moments like that.

[I’m writing this on the airplane and we just flew over the Grand Canyon!! And the clouds (which have been omnipresent since we took off) parted just long enough for a glimpse of it.

 

I’m going to be there in a few days!!]

Thursday and Saturday were performances for the Senior Directing Projects (the capstone projects for theater majors focusing on directing is to choose, design, cast, and direct a one-act play of their choosing) and since I have a rule about trying to go to shows that are readily available, and this one was free and five minutes from my room, I went to both. The first was “Remedial English”, which was about high school crushes and awkwardness and loving musicals while still being very aware of the absurdities of the genre. It was truly hilarious—my favorite scene was a fantasy ballet sequence that was clearly mocking similar sequences in canonical musicals (Oklahoma, for example) in the most loving way possible. The other was called “Freakshow” and it was a bit pretentious and unnecessarily obscure—the kind of “experimental” theater I find most annoying. But I’m still glad I went—there were some awesome moments.

Friday was Founder’s Day, which is a school dance to celebrate Macalester’s birthday—part of Mac’s never-ending quest to seem more established and old than we really are. Charmaine and I ate cupcakes, took awkward formal pictures for free (the pose the photographers had us take was really bizarre…), and watched all the drunk people dance (which is always an entertaining pastime). Then the music stopped, a spotlight lit up part of the dance floor, and the Mac bagpiper (yes, we do have a bagpiper on staff) came marching in playing vaguely Scottish and familiar, followed by four kilted students carrying a palanquin on which rested a three-tiered blue and white cake. The marched it to the center of the dance floor, the student body sang “Happy Birthday” to Macalester (in about four different keys simultaneously), and then the cake was processed out to parts unknown. Charmaine and I certainly never saw it again. After we recovered from the excitement of getting to see a cake (is this an instance of having one’s cake but not getting to eat it too?), we decided to head off and ended up in Tori’s room taking about boys. Because not all of my conversations are sophisticated and intelligent.

I spent the rest of the weekend working on all of the crazy amounts of pre-Midterms homework I had, although I also had to watch Clockwork Orange for class on Sunday night. Which was not a particularly pleasant experience. By which I mean that I ended up calling my parents in tears for the first time (I think?) in my entire college experience. I’m not sure why it was so difficult for me to deal with in that moment—although it probably had something to do with overwhelming stress and fatigue in the other areas of my life—but it rather sucked. But I went on a walk through the snow and talked to my parents and came up with some analytical reasons for why someone would write something as deeply horrible as that book/movie and then I felt much better.  Unfortunately, we still had to spend last week and will apparently spend some of the week after break analyzing it in class, but at least that’s less painful than a first experience of a text. 

Random sunset picture to lighten the mood...

This last week has been all midterms and IDIM proposals and insanity. Wednesday was the hardest, being the day of both my art history midterm and a test for Victorian lit (we have four essay-tests of equal weight during the semester instead of midterms/finals or papers—this was one of them). I think both of them went well, especially my art history midterm. This may sound a bit crazy, but I always kind of enjoy art history exams because they’re kind of like a puzzle. If you’ve studied and done the memorization part, you just have to remember based on viewing the image the name/date/artist and artistic/cultural context. Which is challenging in a rather fun way. I also always like the attribution/unknown question, where we’re shown an image we haven’t seen before and are supposed to take an educated guess as to who created it and explain why. This one was kind of easy because it was so visually reminiscent of one of the paintings we’d studied and was in the Mannerist style, which is always rather distinctive. And I know I got it right because I looked it up on google images when I got back to my room.

After the Victorian lit test and a meeting, I ended up at another English department treat night—cake! for St. Patrick’s day?—where Erin and I had an incredibly deep conversation about how Netflix is the future and also Erin struggles to decide who is better: Rory from Doctor Who or Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer? This is the kind of important question my generation needs to answer!!

The rest of the week was filled with working on my IDIM, which—you may have noticed—I have written a new draft of. Since I posted my “final draft” last time. Whatever, it’s a girl’s prerogative to change her mind, yes? Anyway, good news. I OFFICALLY HAVE A COMMITTEE FOR MY PROPOSAL! That means that I have three signatures on my course list and proposal and three promises for recommendation letters soon and three professors who have agreed to work with me for the rest of my college career if my proposal is accepted. My committee is Joanna Inglot (professor for Art of the West II, chair of the art history department), Kari Shepherdson-Scott (professor for Intro to Visual Culture last semestser), and Casey Jarrin (professor for British Youth Subcultures). Professor Warde is tragically not part of my committee because he is apparently retiring at the end of this semester and would therefore be unable to work with me as an advisor. But he gave me some advice for my proposal and said he thought the committee would accept it—or at least that the committee when he was on it (about eight years ago) would have accepted it. So that’s exciting! Dr. J tampered my excitement about this slightly by reiterating her institutional distrust (she thinks that the college doesn’t actually like to allow IDIMs to happen), but Joanna re-enthused me by calling my proposal “super brilliant.” !!! Kari also said it was really impressive and well-written. So there’s that. I’m planning to turn in my proposal at the beginning of April so that I have plenty of time to stop worrying about it.

I finished off the week with only one class on Friday—Victorian lit. A few days previously Professor Warde had informed us, via e-mail that we would be watching some Gilbert and Sullivan in class as a cheerful sort of send-off to spring break. He started out the e-mail like this: “Yet another extraordinary communication by means of the information highway.  Sweet Progress.  It's a beautiful thing.  Adapt or die.” This, THIS, is why I love Professor Warde. It’s like he’s actually a lost Victorian wandering around in the twenty-first century being all amazed by the technological advancements! He reiterated this point in class, saying that e-mail was basically amazing because he could send us something and we’d all get it right away at the same time and maybe he’d start sending us random e-mails to “see if it still works.” Basically a perfect professor. So Friday morning I did some spring cleaning and packing and then went off to watch selections from the 1980s movie version of Pirates of Penzance, which was absurd and utterly farcical with some slapstick added in for good measure. Erin and Rachel and Jenni and I practically cried with laughter during it, especially when the end of the film was a bizarre shot of some bowler hats flying away like UFOs into the night.

When I got back to my room I discovered that not only had Macalester approved my study abroad proposal (HUZZAH!), but they  had e-mailed the program I hope to go on (Huzzah…?) who then sent me an e-mail saying that it would be really cool if I could turn in my online application by the early deadline, March 15^th or ASAP afterwards (NOT-huzzah). So I ended up spending the evening working on that and then the beginning of my plane ride this morning writing my essay (when I wasn’t reading Macbeth). Once I get off the plane, I should be able to submit my application and then at least that will be done.

And now it’s time for a lovely week of freedom and food and hiking and family (with some unfortunately necessary homework thrown in because college waits for no woman) and sleep! Love you all (and I promise I’ll have Grand Canyon pictures next time I post)!

P.S. THOSE ARE BUDS!!

WHICH MEANS SPRING!!!

Self-Designed Major Proposal (THE FINAL DRAFT EVER!)

Thank you all for your comments and help! I've tried to incorporate what I could, but I've also significantly re-structured my proposal as a whole. Clara pointed out that I was framing it as a double major and then arguing as to why it was really something else and that it might be more effective if I framed it as something else. So this is the new form my proposal has taken (and the final form). It's what I'm showing to professors, getting signatures for, etc. And I'm really excited about it! (The course list is still the same, so I haven't posted it again here.)

Because I want it to be done, because I have shown this to some professors already, I'd rather not get suggested changes for this form (unless they're small grammatical or spelling errors that obviously need to be fixed). I'm just going to go with it and turn it in and cross my fingers!!

Anyway, here it is. Hopefully I'll soon be working on an official major in "Art and Literature as Cultural Texts!"

Proposal for an IDIM in "Art and Literature as Cultural Texts"

Our current understanding of divisions among disciplines is fast becoming an artificial one, particularly between the various subjects of humanities and artistic studies. The ideas of cultural theorists like Marx and Freud and their followers—used by many of these disciplines—barely acknowledge that these divisions are even present, especially with regards to the separation of visual art and literature. For these theorists, all artistic productions, visual or verbal, should be studied as elements of the same cultural moment. To use these theoretical frameworks in one field—literary studies, for example—without acknowledging the other artistic productions of the same cultural moment is to lose some of their strength. The artificiality of this disciplinary separation becomes particularly clear when inspecting the academic fields of Art History, English, and Theater Studies.

Not only do the theoretical frameworks of each field demand a more integrated study, but the artistic productions themselves demand it as well. The producers of artistic works have traditionally been in communication with each other (or have been one and the same person). The stylistic progressions of visual and verbal artistic productions throughout history are therefore inextricably linked: William Blake’s poetry cannot be studied without his accompanying artworks; Giorgio Vasari’s historical fiction on the lives of the artists is crucial to the study of Renaissance art; Rainer Maria Rilke’s artistic thought was influenced by Paul Cezanne’s paintings—the list goes on and on. Art history and literature are not parts of separate academic fields, but rather elements of linked creative movements.

           

Many of these works are even more directly linked. The text of most plays is claimed by literature studies and the performance by those interested in the arts, with the result that Theater, Art, and English departments all study both the texts and performances of plays. Less abstractly, any work that combines text and artworks—graphic novels, illuminated manuscripts, children’s books, much of our everyday visual culture, etc.—necessarily requires the study of both. Other works make overt references to previous artistic productions in other forms. For example, Pieter Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus was inspired by the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus and went on to inspire W. H. Auden’s poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” and William Carlos Williams’ “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”. In cases like these, it is insufficient to read the poem by itself—one must also study the painting that came before it (and the myth before that).

Various academic institutions are beginning to attempt to rectify the problems created by these artificial academic divides. A range of universities in the United Kingdom (including East Anglia, Buckingham, and Oxford) now offer both undergraduate and graduate programs allowing for concurrent study of these fields. At other universities, scholars are beginning to question the way their fields choose which works to study. As Robert Scholes, in a book about the future of English education, writes, “ […] we must stop ‘teaching literature’ and start ‘studying texts.’ […] Our favorite works of literature need not be lost in this new enterprise, but the exclusivity of literature as a category must be discarded. All kinds of texts, visual as well as verbal, polemic as well as seductive, must be taken as the occasions for further textuality”(16, emphasis added). The same could be said for studies of the history of art.

My proposal is for a major that would hope to solve some of the problems created by this disciplinary divide, a major that would allow for the study of these separate academic fields as the inherently connected cultural productions that they are. The philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin writes:

Every literary phenomenon, like every other ideological phenomenon, is simultaneously determined from without (extrinsically) and from within (intrinsically). From within it is determined by literature itself, and from without by other spheres of social life. […] The truly scholar study of literary history can only be built on the basis of this dialectical conception of the individuality and interaction of the various ideological phenomena.(Medvedev and Bakhtin 134).

Traditional studies allow for (and encourage) the study of the intrinsic influences on a particular work of literature—what other works came before it and how they could have influenced its form. They do not allow, however, for a full study of the extrinsic influences on any particular work. Though we may study the economic or political atmosphere of the cultural moment, we do not study the other artistic forms that are being produced in the same moment. If important works in the medium of sculpture can have an effect on the painted productions of the time, then why would we assume that verbal productions could not have the same effect?

It has been suggested that I double major in Art History and English in order to achieve this goal. Although it would be possible to do so, such a decision would merely reinforce the divide between art and literature and make it difficult to study the interactions between the various cultural productions. Besides this rather philosophical reason, the logistics of double majoring (especially with study abroad) would limit the classes I could choose. Instead of always attempting to pick classes that would best study this intersection, I would need to choose based on the requirements of each individual major. Classes like “Shakespeare Studies”, “Twentieth Century British Poetry”, or “Baroque Art” might fall by the wayside, despite the contributions they could make to this particular area of study.

Additionally, the requirements of each major’s capstone would demand specificity of topic and would not allow for a project exploring the meeting place of these two fields.  Each major (as a whole) attempts to teach its texts separately from those belonging to the other field. But 18^th Century philosophical discussions of personhood can give insight into the visual productions of the twenty-first century abortion debate and any study of the literary works of the Harlem Renaissance would be incomplete without acknowledging the visual productions of the time. Furthermore, a self-designed major allows some classes in other relevant fields to be included. Classes like “Greek Myths” and “Texts and Power” allow for further study of both forms of texts, but would be impossible to include in the double major format.

Media and Cultural Studies has also been suggested as a way of achieving this goal, but while this field has much to offer with regards to the extrinsic influences (using Bakhtin’s definitions) on cultural productions, it has none of the emphasis on the intrinsic that classes in literary studies or art history demand. Nor does it have the same focus on the canonical works of art history and literature—it focuses more on other kinds of cultural productions like films, advertisements, etc.

As my current educational plans include a continued study of visual and verbal artistic cultural productions in graduate school—at one of the programs mentioned above or an interdisciplinary program in either field—allowing for this focus early on could be extremely beneficial. My proposed major and class list is therefore an attempt to study various kinds of artistic texts not only as they have been studied, but as they should be studied: as texts that are intrinsically in dialogue with each other and with other fields of study.

Lily is Incapable of Short Posts. It's a Problem.

Happy March, everyone! It’s crazy to think that it’s already so late in the year (two weeks to midterms/spring break), but also kind of lovely. It feels like I’ve been back forever and also like the semester just started (so how can it possibly be nearly halfway over?!).  It’s been a pretty crazy couple of weeks—busy and stressful, but much better now that it’s over.

Last week was particularly hectic because I had to work on (and finish) my study abroad application, which I’ve now done. I turned it in on Tuesday, so at least that’s over with—although I still have to fill out the application for the actual program itself, instead of just the one for Macalester. I really hope I end up getting do participate in the program because it’s shockingly perfect for me. As part of applying, I had to list the classes that I’d be taking, which only made me more excited. In Florence, I would take three classes—The Medici as Patrons of the Arts; Florence Through the Eyes of the Victorians; Italian Language—and in London, two—Embodying Spaces: Contemporary English Theatre in its Historical, Architectural, Cultural, Geographic, and Moral Settings; London as Visual Text. ALL OF THESE SOUND INCREDIBLY EXCITING. And, of course, I’m dying to visit these two cities. I’ve wanted to go to London for years now, and studying Renaissance art has made Florence seem incredibly exciting. *fingers crossed*

As part of turning in my study abroad proposal, the school required a copy of my self-designed major (IDIM) plan as well. So I finally had to just finish the damn thing, and I’ve posted as the blog post immediately before this one so that everyone can read it. If any of you have thoughts, suggested alterations, comments, etc., please e-mail them to me—I want this to be as good as possible before I go meet with my professors for the last time before I ask them for recommendation letters! I’m planning to do that sometime during the next week so that I can give them plenty of time to write them. The proposal isn’t due until I start registration for junior year classes (late April), but I’d much rather turn it in significantly earlier than that, not least so that I’ll be better able to pick my classes.

Although I’d read all the information on the registrar office’s website about turning in an IDIM, some of the language of that suggested that there were particular forms that I had to fill out, so I asked about it when I went to declare my Art History major. (Which is a thing that I just recently did—I need to have declared a major in order to apply for study abroad, so my study abroad advisor suggested that I just declare either English or Art History [since those are my back-up plans anyway] in order to make things less complicated.) They gave me this crazy packet of forms, but I’ll need to e-mail or visit them to clarify some things anyway—I can’t tell exactly how they want the letters from faculty turned in.

I just turned in my first paper for Art of the West on Friday, so here’s hoping I did well on that. I’m feeling a little unsure about it because Joanna requested a visual analysis—which is a very specific type of paper based entirely on the visual components of the image—and then asked for some sort of argument regarding the image based on historical and cultural information. Which doesn’t really compute with the connotations of the original assignment. And she wanted this in four pages, which doesn’t seem like enough space for a thorough job of both a visual analysis as well as a cultural one. I mean, you could do a good job of one or the other in four pages, but both?? I’m not sure how well I did balancing the two (even though I may have possibly gone to about four and two-thirds pages) rather different demands (and, from what I could tell regarding people’s mood in class, no one else felt any more certain).

I wrote the paper on this painting:

which is entitled The Annunciation (unsurprisingly) and which was painted by Girolamo da Santacroce (who seems to be entirely unremarkable, according to the internet). The only requirements regarding our choice of painting were that it be from between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries and that it was housed in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (so that we could observe it in person). I went last week to the museum for this purpose, which was rather nice. I always like going to the MIA, even if I spend most of my time there in front of one painting. But this painting actually ended up being rather interesting, both because it has a certain complexity of style (late Renaissance, but with some of the artistic ideals of early Renaissance painting) and because of the message I eventually settled upon. My argument was that this painting focused on the redemption of women by Mary’s actions. In medieval and Renaissance theology, Mary acted as a similar savior figure for women as Jesus did for men, especially as a way of redeeming women from Eve’s actions. While there are several reasons for my belief that this painting focuses on this element of the annunciation story, the most convincing (in my opinion), is the series of ‘carvings’ to Mary’s left in the painting. Here are my (kind of crappy, sorry) close-up photos of those:

The top is the creation of Eve, the second is the temptation, and the last is the expulsion from the garden. What is interesting about these, though, is that they all focus on Eve as the main character. For the top image, this is unsurprising (although one might expect God to be a more prominent figure), but what is surprising is that there is no corresponding image of the creation of Adam (as there is in the Sistine Chapel, for instance). In the second image, Eve again seems more prominent because of the cast shadow darkening Adam’s figure, and in the last, she is probably the figure in the forefront and center of the panel. Although it is not entirely clear which of them is which, the middle figure covers its chest and the other (to the back and right) does not appear to have breasts. When I first looked at the image, it seemed like a pretty regular representation of the annunciation, but all of these details made it way more exciting. There were a great deal more things about this painting that I would have liked to write about or research, especially the left side of the painting, which is generally confusing. Given the disguised (or not-so-disguised) symbolism rampant throughout the rest of the painting, it seems extremely likely that there is some meaning to the ‘painting’ on the wall behind Gabriel and to the mysterious ‘statue’ above it:

I have no idea what’s going on with him, especially since I could not for the life of me read what was on the banner/sash/thingy he’s carrying. Seriously, you could write a freaking thesis on this painting—there is so much weird stuff going on in it. Anyway, as confusing as Joanna’s instructions were, I really enjoyed doing this ‘close reading’ of this crazy Renaissance painting. (Also—FLYING BABIES. It’s a thing.)

This class has otherwise been pretty great. We’ve moved on to high Renaissance art (huzzah!) and Mannerism. My general theory of art and literature (and one reason for wanting to study it in my academic career) is that the more you know, the more you love. When I learn about the cultural context or techniques or details of an artwork, I can usually learn to love even the things that aren’t immediately fascinating—you can appreciate them for their complexity and skill. This has been true for me with some of the high Renaissance artworks that are far over-shown. Leonardo’s Mona Lisa or Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, for example, have become refrigerator-magnet-ubiquitous to the point where it’s hard to appreciate them. But studying them as revolutionary for their time gives me an entirely new respect for them.

My other classes have continued in much the way they began. Professor Warde continues to be fascinating and charming and frequently hilarious (although sometimes I’m not sure his hilarity is exactly intentional­). We had our first test (an in-class essay) last Wednesday on Mary Barton, which I got an A on (yay!). Then we read Darwin’s autobiography (which was fascinating) and now we’re going to read Tennyson’s “In Memoriam” for Monday. The most interesting part of Darwin was probably his very frank discussion of his religious beliefs/fears/doubts and the most HILARIOUS part is a young Darwin’s musings on whether or not to marry. They’re not actually part of the autobiography, but Darwin’s granddaughter put them in the appendix to her edition. Darwin debates with himself in the most absurd way I’ve ever seen—simultaneously scientific and childish, emotional and emotionless. My favorite part is when he says that, if he marries, he’ll have “less money for books &c”. I admit, it’s a convincing reason not to marry! (Here’s a link to the whole thing: http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/darwins-notes-on-marriage.) When we were discussing this, Professor Warde brought up a supposed statistic saying that 80% of married people have met the person they’re going to marry by the time they’re twenty-one (at which point everyone in my class quietly [or not-so-quietly] panicked). One student asked him if this was true for him and, after a moment of thought, he said that it was, adding, “Which is amazing, because I went to an all-boys school and I didn’t marry a guy. What are the odds?” This is the kind of Wardeian earnestness that is so fantastic when applied to the literature we’re reading.  

British Youth Subcultures hasn’t been moving as quickly because two weeks ago everyone was kind of mmphy and having trouble being articulate in discussions and this week Dr. J was home sick with the flu. On Tuesday we watched a movie instead of having class—this crazy glam rock fantasy story. We’ve been focused primarily on glam rock lately—David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Susie Quatro, etc.—and although I’m never going to be a fan of Bowie’s music, his performances are fascinating. Studying glam rock has also given me a better way to talk about why I can respect Lady Gaga as a performer and businesswoman without particularly wanting to listen to her music. She’s kind of a perfect manifestation of a new wave of glam rock.

Shakespeare continues to be rather boring, but we have our first paper due Tuesday, so at least I’ll have to work hard for that class for a weekend or so. We read Othello for this week and we’re starting Macbeth soon. I think I’m still going to write my paper about Richard III and prophecy, but I’ll give you an update about that next time I write (WHICH WILL BE ON THE FIRST DAY OF SPRING BREAK—WHAT).

Otherwise, I’ve been keeping myself busy with reading a few books for fun and (of course) getting obsessed with a new television show. I swear, it’s like eighteen years without television set me up to get really excited about it now. I BLAME YOU, PARENTS. Also I just really love fan culture. My newest show is Battlestar Galactica (damn it, Clara!). Last semester, there was a point when this show came up in the midst of our C18 discussions on personhood and this one girl and my professor got into this really excited conversation about the show. I’ve been curious about it since that, and then Clara said that it was really good, and then I started watching AND NOW EVERYTHING IS PAINFUL. At least having new characters to cry over has helped console me for the tragic demise of one of my old favorite shows. I used to (how tragic it is to use the past tense!) love this sitcom called Community that was this loving, hilarious parody of all things television/fandom/nerd. It never crossed the line into obvious satire, was constantly surprising (and occasionally moving—I actually cried during one episode), and made fun of the conventions of every genre ever while simultaneously celebrating them. Now, though, the showrunner/head-writer was forced out and it’s now a sort of bemused-but-snarky pastiche of nerd culture. *sob*

The books I’ve been reading are Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (okay, so not a book, but still), this charming, sparsely-written, YA prose-poem of a novel called Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, and this annoyingly melodramatic (and strangely highly-acclaimed) YA sci-fi series called The Mortal Instruments that I’m only sticking with because there’s this one secondary character that I really love and I NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS TO HIM.

Today I had a breakfast teatime with friends (with a chocolate babka roll from Breasmith—YUM). My lovely friends from Doty 4 and I sat around and chatted about our lives, the things that are stressing us out, tea, and the relative sexiness of geology as a profession. These people are hilarious and lovely and the best (non-family) support system that I could ask for and hanging out with them makes everything better. I only wish we were able to do this kind of gathering more often.

I finished off the day with a DELICOIUS cheese shop sandwich and half of an absurdly large brownie from Breadsmith.

Yes, the brownie half  IS as big as half of the sandwich. No, that is not a trick of the photography.

In a few minutes, Charmaine and I are going to head off to the gym for our continued exercise-buddy-ness and hopefully a rousing post-work-out game of ping-pong.

Though I know the weather is perhaps a silly way to end, I just have to say that—to my great delight—the temperatures are warming up and the clouds are receding. Best of all, the other morning I woke up and realized that, for the first time in a while, I could hear birdsong. SPRING MUST BE COMING!!! Prepare yourself for an influx of tulip pictures.

It’s possible that I will fail to write in two weeks because I’ll be travelling all morning, but I promise to make the attempt. If not, I’ll write at the end of spring break.

Love you all!

P.S. When I sat down to write my blog, I thought, “What on earth am I going to talk about?? Nothing ever happens to me.” Then I wrote four pages. Oops…


UPDATE: Charmaine and I did get to play ping-pong for a while after our exercise, which was lovely and also absurd. Neither of us, it turns out, are particularly good at ping-pong, although by the end we had drastically improved. There was much hilarity, some Matrix-esque dodging, an accidental attack of some poor girl sitting near the table, and a creation of a new art form: ping-pong arabesques.

And, for the doubters, a picture of Kofi Annan's signature:

Charmaine pointed out that if we pronounced Kofi like coffee....it's KOFI TABLE! Thank you, roommate-selection gods, for pairing me with a roommate who is not only extremely kind and intelligent, a fan of poetry and Singing in the Rain, and an excellent friend, but also A FAN OF BAD PUNS.

Lily Decides to Fight The Establishment in the Tamest Way Possible, or Self-Designed Majors are Hard

This is entirely a post to allow those of you who are curious to read my proposal for my self-designed major (IDIM). Any comments (especially title suggestions for my major) would be hugely appreciated--just e-mail me!

First, the guidelines, as posted on the registrar's website:

“ An individually designed interdepartmental major (IDIM), reflecting a disciplined area of inquiry crossing departmental lines, may be designed and submitted for approval to the Educational Policy and Governance Committee acting on behalf of the faculty. The provision for an IDIM—as one of the ways in which a student may satisfy the graduation requirement of a major—is to accommodate students with special educational goals which may be achieved within the College’s overall curriculum but not through any of the existing majors or interdepartmental majors (see 1 and 2 immediately above) set forth in detail elsewhere in this catalog. To take advantage of this provision, students are expected to design their program of study in advance of doing the bulk of the course work for it.

Students seeking an individually-designed interdepartmental major (IDIM) must present, not later than the beginning of the registration period for the first semester of their junior year, a completed proposal, signed by the student and three faculty members, to the IDIM Subcommittee of the Educational Policy and Governance Committee for consideration. In consultation with three faculty members of the student’s choosing, the student must design a program of courses of study which crosses departmental lines and, in doing so, represents a disciplined area of inquiry not conveniently possible within the provisions of any of the existing majors in the College’s curriculum. The proposal must include the following: 1) A list of courses to be taken to complete the IDIM. This list must include a minimum of forty-four semester credits in courses from a maximum of three departments, and may include up to twenty-four additional semester credits in courses (for a maximum of sixty-eight semester credits) from any relevant department. There must be evidence of progression in the proposed courses. One way to show progression is to use courses that have one or more prerequisites. 2) Letters of support from the three faculty who comprise the student’s IDIM committee (a coordinator and two sponsors). These committee members must be from departments that offer courses listed on the student’s proposal. Two letters of recommendation must be from faculty members who have had the student in class, who may or may not be members of the student’s IDIM committee. 3) A carefully prepared written rationale. In this rationale the student is expected to describe the focus and cohesiveness of all the courses of study included in the IDIM and to indicate how this program of study meets the student’s particular educational goals. The IDIM committee will also designate the appropriate means for the completion of the senior capstone requirement within the IDIM. The committee will meet with the student at least once every semester to discuss the student’s progress towards completion of the IDIM. ”

And now, the text of my proposal:

Proposal for an IDIM in Visual and Literary Arts

The fields of art and literature studies overlap constantly, not just in the actual works chosen for study, but in the methods and history that go into understanding them. In art history classes we “read” images and in English classes we find imagery in written works. Paintings and photographs can be said to describe a narrative as effectively as the text that inspired their creation and can, in turn, inspire further texts. For example, Pieter Brueghel’s The Fall of Icarus was inspired by the Greek myth of Daedalus and Icarus and went on to inspire W. H. Auden’s poem “Musée des Beaux Arts” and William Carlos Williams’ “Landscape with the Fall of Icarus”. In cases like these, it is insufficient to read the poem by itself—one must also study the painting that came before it (and the myth before that).

This intersection of art and literature not only occurs frequently, but is often a location of particularly interesting study and thought. One of these moments of intersection is the entire discipline of theater studies. The text of most plays is claimed by literature studies and the performance by those interested in the arts, with the result that Theater, Art, and English departments all study both the texts and performances of plays. Less abstractly, any work that combines text and artworks—graphic novels, illuminated manuscripts, children’s books, much of our everyday visual culture, etc.—necessarily requires the study of both.

Moreover, those practicing art and those writing literature have traditionally been in communication with each other (or one and the same person). The progressions of visual artworks and literature throughout history are therefore inextricably linked: William Blake’s poetry cannot be studied without his accompanying artworks, Giorgio Vasari’s historical fiction on the lives of the artists is crucial to the study of Renaissance art, and Rainer Maria Rilke’s artistic thought was influenced by Paul Cezanne’s paintings—the list goes on and on. Art history and literature are not parts of separate academic fields, but rather elements of linked creative movements.

Considering this, it seems possible that the divide between literature and art studies in academia is increasingly an artificial one. A range of universities in the United Kingdom (including East Anglia, Buckingham, and Oxford) now offer both undergraduate and graduate programs allowing for concurrent study of these fields. Furthermore, Robert Scholes, in a book about the future of English education, writes, “ […] we must stop ‘teaching literature’ and start ‘studying texts.’ […] Our favorite works of literature need not be lost in this new enterprise, but the exclusivity of literature as a category must be discarded. All kinds of texts, visual as well as verbal, polemic as well as seductive, must be taken as the occasions for further textuality”(16, emphasis added). The same could be said for studies of the history of art.

My proposal is for a major that would hope to achieve what Scholes is suggesting—a study of both English and Art History not only as their own fields, but as inherently connected ones. Although it would be possible to double major in these subjects instead, such a decision would merely reinforce the divide between art and literature and make it difficult to study the places these studies intersect—an area that interests me particularly. Besides this rather philosophical reason, the logistics of double majoring (especially with study abroad) would limit the classes I could choose. Instead of always attempting to pick classes that would best study this intersection, I would need to choose based on the requirements of each individual major. Classes like “Shakespeare Studies”, “Twentieth Century British Poetry”, or “Baroque Art” might fall by the wayside, despite the contributions they could make to this particular area of study.

Additionally, the requirements of each major’s capstone would demand specificity of topic and would not allow for a project exploring the meeting place of these two fields.  Each major (as a whole) attempts to teach its texts separately from those belonging to the other field, but 18^th Century philosophical discussions of personhood can give insight into the visual productions of the twenty-first century abortion debate and any study of the literary works of the Harlem Renaissance would be incomplete without acknowledging the visual productions of the time. Furthermore, a self-designed major allows some classes in other relevant fields to be included. Classes like “Greek Myths” and “Texts and Power” allow for further study of both textual forms, but would be impossible to include in the double major format. As my current educational plans include a continued study of both types of texts (visual and verbal) in graduate school—at one of the programs mentioned above or an interdisciplinary program in either field—allowing for this focus early on could be extremely beneficial. My proposed major and class list is therefore an attempt to study both art historical and literary texts not only as they have been studied, but as they should be studied: as texts that are intrinsically in dialogue with each other and with other fields of study.

Source:

Scholes, Robert. Textual Power: Literary Theory and the Teaching of English. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985. Print. 

Proposed Course List

My goal in choosing the classes listed below is to focus on this intersection of Art History and English. When possible, I have chosen classes that specifically interact with the meeting of visual and literary texts (Introduction to Visual Culture or British Youth Subcultures, for example). The study abroad program I propose also follows this goal admirably, allowing its participants to study theater, literature, and art history in London and Florence. Other classes are chosen from historical periods during which the literary and artistic movements were in particular dialogue with each other (Harlem Renaissance, for example).  The rest are selected to enhance my historical and disciplinary knowledge in each field to allow for better understanding and analysis of the texts I may encounter. The course list is as follows:

°         Introduction to Visual Culture [ART 149]                               

°         Topics in African American Literature: Harlem Renaissance [ENGL 380]                   

°         Twentieth Century British Literature [ENGL 240] or Twentieth Century British Novel [ENGL 341]

°         Contemporary Art and Critical Theory [ART 264]                               

°         Texts and Power: Foundations of Media and Cultural Studies [MCST 110]                             

°         Topics in Theory and Method [ENGL 305] or Readings in Critical Method [ENGL 205]        

°         Art of the West I [ART 160]                         

°         Art of the West II [ART 161]                                                        

°         Shakespeare Studies [ENGL 310]                                             

°         Drawing 1 [ART 130]                       

°         Intro to Creative Writing [ENGL 150]                       

°         Theater and Performance in the Twin Cities [THDA 105]                

°         Twentieth Century Poetry [ENGL 350]                   

°         Baroque Art [ART 278]                  

°         Greek Myths [CLAS 129]

°         British Youth Subcultures [ENGL 294]

°         Classes from London & Florence: Arts in Context (ACM) Study Abroad Program (if approved):

§  Embodying Spaces: Contemporary English Theater  in its Historical, Architectural, Cultural, Geographic, and Moral Settings

§  London as Visual Text

§  The Medici as Patrons of the Arts

§  Florence Through the Eyes of the Victorians