Recap of Spring '05 and Here We Go Again

Tomorrow it begins again – first summer session, six weeks. I’m taking French from 8 – 10:40 a.m MTWR, and Victorian Studies from 6:45 – 10:00 p.m M & W.

Last semester, my first, was sans doute a learning experience in myriad ways. I realize now (having been told so repeatedly as well as experiencing it) that I was insane to take four courses, especially my first semester. But having survived them, I’m now glad I did.

Modern Humanities: Taught by Dr. Cloonan of the French Department who specializes in modern novels; as a result we read 15, starting with Liaisons Dangereuse and working our way from the 18th century to present times. I enjoyed LD and James’ The American but not Kafka nor some of the rest; I’ll never be a fan of postmodern lit. I remain feeling that I’m out of sync with the sensibilities of my time and place but have come to realize that’s probably a very healthy feeling, given the nature of those sensibilities. However, it’s important to understand them if you’re going to teach - or live in :) - this time period, and the course did greatly expand my understanding of it. I was strongly moved by The White Hotel and Like Water For Chocolate, the latter reminding me of Frida Kahlo’s paintings. I told Dr. Cloonan this and he invited me to give a presentation on her work, which I did and enjoyed very much. For the midterm I wrote on Einstein and Freud’s impact on the early 20th century as reflected in The White Hotel and my final paper was on the evolution of marginalized characters in modern and postmodern fiction.

Medieval, Renaissance, Baroque Humanities: Taught by Dr. Fleming, a former prize fighter who went on to get a Ph.D. from Harvard in Italian Studies. Beat that combo if you can. Again, my comfortable notions about these eras were challenged and Dr. Fleming’s critiques of my papers were extremely helpful. I wrote for the midterm on the changing nature of the visitor’s personal reactions to various souls in the Inferno; gave a presentation on Fra Lippo Lippi; and my final paper was on how self-portraits by Judith Leyster and Artemisia Gentileschi reflected the different values of the northern and Italian baroque eras.

Victorian Studies: Taught by Dr. Kennedy who just arrived here after a year’s appointment at Harvard teaching honors courses. The topic was Victorian periodicals and serialization, and the course was a great blend of history and literature. We read a number of novels that started out as serials in magazines, including Oliver Twist, Vanity Fair, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I enjoyed them all immensely and am very taken with the era itself, which is exciting because of the wealth of information they left and the social issues they struggled with as Britain left the agrarian system and was born as a modern nation. It was great fun to visit the archives and read the original opening issues of Punch (very funny still) and other periodicals. I gave reports on Punch and Eliza Cook’s Journal, wrote weekly on the readings, and my final paper compared two seamstresses in fiction (the plight of the poor, and especially needlewomen, was a hot topic of the time). I actually called it “A Tale of Two Seamstresses” which was tacky but I couldn’t resist. I loved learning about the Victorians and so many myths I had about them exploded in the course of the term. I had never heard of baby-farming, a truly horrible practice, and how Dickens and others linked it to the punitive Poor Laws. Very interesting and I’m looking forward to another Victorian Studies course starting tomorrow.

Northern Baroque Art: I wanted to take four courses, not knowing any better, and the pickin’s were slim (new students register last). I saw this course and thought, hmmm, Vermeer . . . okay! And guess what: we ran out of time and spent about thirty minutes on Vermeer. But I loved learning about the Dutch Republic – another amazing era – and art history is just fun. This was a cross-listed course, with about 25 Art History/Studio Art undergrad seniors, for whom it’s a requirement, and then myself and six other grad students. I was shocked when it finally sank in that those other six grad students were finishing their M.A.’s or Ph.D.’s in Art History. They knew one another and art criticism and theory and I felt like a party-crasher – a spectacularly dumb one, at that. I really had to put on my speed skates for this one. Dr. Neumann’s exams were frightful – a slide is thrown up on the screen, you try to contain panic while thinking of a plethora of facts ranging from identity (artist, place, date, title) to (at least) ten statements about the work's art-historical significance -- three minutes later that slide vanishes, another is thrown up, then taken down, and finally two works appear and you have to compose an essay around them that incorporates . . . everything. You start writing like mad and fifty minutes later you put down your pen and slump to the ground like a lifeless thing. I wrote my final paper on a lesser work by Michiel Van Musscher, which I actually got to visit, with Sarah, at the North Carolina Museum of Art, and that was really fun.

All the professors were outstanding and I remain very impressed with the school except for the disorganization of some aspects of the library; but I’m sure that will be resolved.

AND – here we go again. One semester down, I probably have five more to go; then I have Comps (comprehensive exams), which are four days of written exams and one day of orals. If I pass them all, I will be allowed to register for dissertation hours, I write it (sounds so simple), I defend it, I publish it, and there it is.