All entries for Wednesday 19 November 2008

November 19, 2008

other things

Contrary to what my recent posts would suggest, I have been doing things other than the PG seminar series and conference organising! Although it mostly involves teaching-related activities - reading, prep, marking - and not a huge amount of research. Reading week turned out to be a godsend on the research front and I've constructed a reasonable plan of my next chapter, and have worked my way through a few more novels- Dombey and Son, Adam Bede, and The Mill on the Floss, all of which will be useful for my research (and were really enjoyable!). Wilkie Collins is next on the list, I reckon. Reading has been fairly time-consuming as I note down every potentially useful quote, in full, and then type it all up into Word databases that catalogue everything thematically/ geographically. It goes without saying that I like things to be well organised, and it does draw out some interesting comparisons, not to mention saving time when writing (for those times when, say, you get to footnote 85 and need to recall exactly where all those references to sun-burned travellers occur in Dickens' novels). It's been tricky fitting in research around everything else this term, as I find it hard to settle down to work on days when I have only the odd hour or two spare, and I can only focus on writing when I know I have a few empty days ahead. So right now I'm counting down until the Christmas holidays, and planning to get the next chapter properly underway then.

Next year's Literary London conference looks interesting and I think I'll get a proposal in (the deadline isn't until March).

I'm also hoping to get to the current exhibition at the Women's Library, Between the Covers: Women's Magazines and their Readerswhich runs until April.

I missed the last Nineteenth Century Seminar at the IESbut I'll definitely be heading to the next, on Saturday week.

At some point I'm also going to get round to watching the BBC's Little Dorrit (I'm hoping it's still on the iplayer)- I watched the first episode and really wasn't that keen (ok, complained all the way through) so lost the will to keep watching (not helped by the annoying scheduling) but I am interested to see where they went with it and whether my initial complaints will be resolved in subsequent episodes.

Charlotte Mathieson : 19 Nov 2008 22:16 | Tags: Conferences English Exhibitions PhD Victorians | Comments (0) | Close comments | Report a problem

Arts Faculty Postgraduate Seminar Series Week 9

Arts Faculty Postgraduate Seminar Series

Week 9 Panel - Wednesday 26th November

The next seminar will meet on Wednesday Week 9 in the Wolfson Research Exchange (Library). Papers will be presented by PhD students from the English and German Departments:

JA Kusaka (English Dept.): "Hunger, War, and Communal Bonds in Ken Saro-Wiwa’s Sozaboy"

Jeanine Tuschling (German Dept.): “Hide and Seek: Authorship and Media Publicity in Elfriede Jelnek’s ‘Greed’”

Chair: Adam Putz (English Dept.)

Papers will start at 5.30pm, lasting approximately 20 minutes each with time for questions between each, followed by discussion and time to socialise over refreshments at the end - wine, soft drinks, and nibbles are provided.