origin
I'm creating this online journal as a way to work out some ideas leading up to my dissertation. Ideally, I would like this "blog" to work as a virtual workshop. I'm (hopefully) going to be posting notes, quotes, extended ruminations, and perhaps more formal written explorations. I would love to read feedback on any and everything that makes its way to these pages.
In a forthcoming post, I will explain in more detail exactly what I'm working on. But for now the basics: I'm a graduate student in the English Department at the University of California-Davis. I'm in my fourth year, and I'm currently putting together my dissertation prospectus, which will lead to my qualifying exams and thence to the actual book itself. I'm surrounded by good folks--both faculty and peer--here, but with schedules being what they are, we don't always have the opportunity to sit down and talk out our various ideas, to bounce random thoughts around between us. And that's how I work best. I'm a talker, and I need to write or speak my ideas in order to make them make sense, and I need to hear what others say, so that I can learn and develop in response. It's my hope that this forum will allow me to do just that. With your help.
There are many other reasons for this venture, but that's the main one. Another is that as I get further and further away from coursework, I'm beginning to worry about the lack of critical writing that I've been engaged with lately. I worked over a paper for publication last summer (rejected, alas), but other than that, the last actual paper that I wrote was in Fall 2003, and that worries me. So another hope that I have is that by making posts large and small, formal and informal here, I will begin to work my ideas out in a more structured written form.
And so the hopes accumulate...
In a forthcoming post, I will explain in more detail exactly what I'm working on. But for now the basics: I'm a graduate student in the English Department at the University of California-Davis. I'm in my fourth year, and I'm currently putting together my dissertation prospectus, which will lead to my qualifying exams and thence to the actual book itself. I'm surrounded by good folks--both faculty and peer--here, but with schedules being what they are, we don't always have the opportunity to sit down and talk out our various ideas, to bounce random thoughts around between us. And that's how I work best. I'm a talker, and I need to write or speak my ideas in order to make them make sense, and I need to hear what others say, so that I can learn and develop in response. It's my hope that this forum will allow me to do just that. With your help.
There are many other reasons for this venture, but that's the main one. Another is that as I get further and further away from coursework, I'm beginning to worry about the lack of critical writing that I've been engaged with lately. I worked over a paper for publication last summer (rejected, alas), but other than that, the last actual paper that I wrote was in Fall 2003, and that worries me. So another hope that I have is that by making posts large and small, formal and informal here, I will begin to work my ideas out in a more structured written form.
And so the hopes accumulate...
posted by TRM at 10:30 AM
2 comments
