Summer Reading List...

So, I have a lot of reading to do this summer - 50 texts in about 12 weeks. And I have to be able to speak cogently about these texts by August...

Critical works

Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast, Holy Fast. Berkley: Univ. of California Press, 1987

Cohen, Jeffrey. Hybridity, Identity, and Monstrosity in Medieval Britain: On Difficult Middles. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006

Dinshaw, Getting Medieval: Sexualities and Communities, Pre- and Postmodern. Duram, NC: Duke UP, 1999.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Renaissance Self-Fashioning: from More to Shakespeare. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. and “The Mousetrap”. Practicing New Historicism. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.

Joy, Eileen, Seaman, Myra J., Bell, Kimberly, and Mary K. Ramsey (eds.). Cultural Studies of the Modern Middle Ages. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007

Korda, Natasha. Shakespeare’s Domestic Economies: Gender and Prperty in Early Modern England. Philadelphia, PA: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

Mulder-Bakker, Anneke B. Women and Experience in Later Medieval Writing: Reading the Book of Life. New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2009.

Schoenfeldt, Michael Carl. Bodies and Selves in Early Modern England: Phisiology and inwardness in Spenser, Shakespeare, Herbert, and Milton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 1999.

Steel, Karl. “How to Make a Human,” Exemplaria (20, 1), 2008, 3–27.

Wall, Wendy. Staging Domesticity: Household Work and English Identity in Early Modern Drama. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP, 2002.

Theoretical Works

Bahktin, Mikhail. Rabelais and His World. (1968) Bloomington, IN: Indiana UP, 1984.

Baudrillard, Jean. The Consumer Society: Myths and Structures. (1970) London: Sage Publications, 2003.

Certeau, Michel de. Practice of Everyday Life. Berkley: Univ. of California Press, 1984.

Deluze, Gilles and Guittari, Felix. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: Univ. of Minnesota Press, 1987.

Foucault, Michel. Care of the Self. New York: Random House, 1984.

Norbert, Ellias. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenic and Psychogenic Investigations. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1982.

Reynolds, Philip Lydon. Food and the Body: Some Peculiar Questions in High Medieval Theology. Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1999.

Serres, Michel. The Five Senses: A Philosophy of Mingled Bodies. New York: Continuum, 2009.

Williams, Raymond. The Country and the City. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1973.

Zizek, Slavoj. On Belief. New York: Routledge, 2001.

Literary Works

Alighieri, Dante. Divine Comedy. Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books, Inc., 2006

Beowulf. trans. Seamus Heaney. New York, Norton & Co., 2000.

Castiglione, Baldassarre. The Book of the Courtier. Ithica: Cornell University Press, 2006.

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.

Chretien de Troyes, “Perceval,” “Yvain,” and “Lancelot.” The Complete Romances of Chretien de Troyes. trans. David Staines. Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1990.

Christine de Pisan, Book of the City of Ladies and Treasure of the City of Ladies.

Codex Ashmole 61: A compilation of Popular Middle English Verse. ed. George Shuffelton. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 2008.

Dekker, Thomas. The Gulls Hornbook. New York, Nabu Press, 2010.

Donne, John. The Complete English Poems. New York: Penguin Classics,1971.

Geoffrey of Monmouth, History of the Kings of Britain. trans. Lewis Thorpe. New York: Penguin Classics, 1966.

Harriot, Thomas. A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. New York: Dover Publications, 1973.

Johnson, Ben. “Bartholomew Fair”. The Achemist and Other Plays. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2009.

Kempe, Marjory. The Boke of Marjory Kempe. New York: Norton & Co., 2000.

Langland, John. The Vision of Piers Plowman. New York: Everyman Paperbacks, 1995.

Lanyer, Aemilia. “Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum,” The Nortaon Anthology of English Literature, Volume 1. eds. Stephen Greenblatt, M. H. Abrams, Alfred David, and Barbara K. Lewalski. New York: Norton & Co., 2006.

Mandeville, John. Travels of Sir John Mandeville. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.

“Mankind.” Early English Drama: An Anthology. ed. John C. Coldewey. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993.

Marie de France, Lais. trans. Hanning and Ferrante. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1978.

Marvell, Andrew. “The Mower Poems.” The Complete Poems. New York: Penguin Classics, 2005.

Milton, John. Paradise Lost. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005.

Montaigne, Michel de. “On Cannibals,” “On Friendship,” The Complete Essays. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.

More, Thomas. Utopia. New York: Penguin Classics, 2003.

Rabelais, Francois. Gargantua and Pantagruel. New York: Penguin Classics, 2006

“Second Sheppards’ Play.” Early English Drama: An Anthology. ed. John C. Coldewey. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1993.

Shakespeare, “Antony & Cleopatra.” The Norton Shakespeare. eds. Stephen Greenblatt, Walter Cohen, Jean E. Howard, and Katharine Eisaman Maus. New York: Norton & Co., 2008.

Silence. trans. Sarah Roche-Mahdi. Eat Lancing: Michigan State UP, 1992.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. trans. Simon Armitage. New York, Norton & Co., 2008.

Skelton, John. “The Tunning of Elinour Rumming”. Selected Poems. New Yourk: Routledge, 2003.

Spencer, Edmund. “Book 2.” The Faerie Queen. New York: Penguin Classics,1979.

Sydney, Phillip. “Defense of Posey,” “Astrophil and Stella.” Selected Poetry and Prose. Madison, WI: Univ. of Wisconsin Press, 1983.

Summer Plans...

So, existential crises aside, there are things that must be done this summer...

First, fitness... Since moving to the DC area, I have lost weight - a good thing. However, I have also started to jiggle more in places that I didn't before. This may be a lack of exercise in my life - even if that is not why, I am feeling a lack of exercise in my life. So...
I am starting, slowly, to work with kettlebells again. And to hula-hoop again. And to go on more walks. I am also contemplating Couch 2 5K, but I am still not convinced that running isn't for suckers, so I am not yet committed to that particular method of fitness.
My new early morning habit is useful in this effort, as I am awake, but my brain hasn't engaged yet - and I don't really need my brain to exercise, at least not all of it.
Also, I think that exercise is helping to settle my stomach, so in addition to eliminating some of those annoying jiggles, it is helping my digestive fitness, as well.
Speaking of digestive fitness, I am also going to have to adjust my diet somewhat - and more consistently than has been required by my ulcer flare up - more veggies, less dairy, more whole grains, less processed food... I think you can see what I mean.

Second, Qualifying Exam... In August I have to take an oral exam which will determine whether I get to continue in the PhD program, so I will be reading and studying - another reason to exercise, to limber up my brain for all the new theory I am going to have to cram in it. I'll post the reading list later this week for those interested. I am the only one taking the test this fall who has a Medieval/Early Modern concentration, which means I have no study buddies for this particular academic milestone. On one hand that is fine - I'm smart, I generally get things pretty quickly, I have a high level of reading comprehension, and I read comparatively quickly. However, I am also very deadline driven, and lack a general motivation, and this is not the kind of project you can cram for at the end and be fine. I think I am going to have to schedule, and follow that schedule, and that is so not my natural mindset, so having study partners would help give me a sense of motivation, or at least more of one. And I need to figure out a useful method for taking notes on these texts, because they will be the foundation of my teaching career and I will need to be able to easily reference them in the future.

Third, local opportunities... I have lived in the DC area for almost a full year now, and there are still so many local activities, most of them free, that I have not taken advantage of yet. I want to get my Library of Congress readers card, spend some time in the many museums, visit the aquarium - probably more than once, learn more about early American history - I am pretty up on Western Am. history, but not so much on the stuff before the Gold Rush. There are so many opportunities available here and I feel like I am not giving them their due.

And also, I need to get a job.

So, I guess I have a busy summer ahead of me...