A life of the mind...

So, as you may or may not know, February, at least for me, is something of a mortal enemy... For years, it has constantly and consistently sucked the joy from my outlook, stamped down my energy, and in various ways preyed upon my mind... It's cold grayness goes far beyond any sort of SAD sort of disarrangement (or perhaps, derangement)... February has been soul crushing in a way that makes other things I've been through - death of loved ones, divorce, distance from dear friends, postponement of dreams - pale by comparison... And perhaps the most baffling aspect of this soul-crushing is that I don't even know why; why I feel as though February is a living, devious, being, one that hates me... And this year was no different, February came and I wanted to curl up and hide until it had passed...


I give this explanation, so that it might be understood just how crucial the timing of this post and the events (some, largely mental) that led up to it are.


Leading up... In November, I had settled into Korea well enough to turn my mind to writing - thinking about projects I wanted to start, work on, or possibly complete. Then my computer died, necessitating a great reduction in the time spent on my computer, as I was running from my backup drive until I could comfortably afford the purchase of a new one... and as a devotee of Apple, that took a few months... This break threw me off track of any sort of creative process - my computer is largely the way I communicate with my family and friends, the scholarly and literary communities I follow - the connections that sustain me in a very real way, despite their virtual nature... Towards the end of January, I knew I would be getting a new computer soon, and those thoughts of writing began to return...


But then February happened... cold, gray, soul-crunching February... it made me want to sleep constantly, while preventing me from sleeping most nights... that is the daemon that is February...


So, Friday night I was up anyway, unable to keep my attention on my novel, having blown through my rss reader, and too enmeshed in the blahs to find other distraction on the internet, when my calendar reminded me that it was time for the live stream of the Exemplaria Symposium of Surface, Symptom, and the State of Critique... Not something I had read or prepared for in anyway other than reading Jeffrey Cohen's handout on In The Middle... In fact, until that late moment, I hadn't even looked at the schedule beyond glancing and noting it on my calendar. After all, Korea is a long way from Texas, and distance and time meant I would probably not see it anyway. So thanks, February... this is all your fault...


On opening the live stream, I was immediately swept under (pardon the pun). I had little context, beyond foundational literary theories, for the thoughts the presenters were raising and responding to, yet I was immediately fascinated - so much so that I, couldn't sleep through the next panel, or the next - when I tried to sleep between them my brain kept waking me up, wondering what I was missing. The symposium brought my brain to life - in a somewhat uncomfortable fashion, even. So, now I have pages of notes, and an extended reading list on a topic I had not really considered at all - at least not in a conscious matter (though anyone associated with the Popular Romance Studies field will confirm that how and why we read is never far beneath the scholarship, due to a frequent necessity to defend what we read and study).


Now my brain is so filled with new (to me) thinking about reading, scholarship, and creative generalization that it has pushed out of February's hold... The symposium has cost me quite a bit of sleep, but has re-affirmed my deep, integral need for a life of the mind... 


Now, I only hope that this thinking will lead to writing, and maintain the pressure keeping February at bay...

A List of Project Proportions...

So, I really have been doing stuff, and here is a list to prove it... ok, actually it's a list of projects that are in progress, not actual completed work...

• Classes: Past Intimacies - the senses in Early Modern literature and world. I have to come up with a paper proposal and I still don't know what I want to write about - there are too many interesting options. Independent Study - Food in Medieval literature. Also need a paper topic for this one, but the reading has been super interesting and narrowing it has been a problem here, too. My mind is going in too many directions.
  
• My paper for the PCA conference on how food and religion shape the romantic relationships in Nora Roberts Three Sisters' Island Trilogy.
• Researching Medieval stones and lapidaries.
• TA-ing for "Shakespeare in the City" - I taught "Taming of the Shrew." I still have a bunch of papers to finish commenting on.
• Putting together a reading list for my qualifying exam that is comprehensive of period (Medieval/Early Modern), genre (poetry, prose & drama), and methodology (theory & criticism) in 50 texts and accompanying rational for said list.
• Keeping up with an endlessly growing To Be Read pile/list of both scholarly works and genre fiction. The commute has helped me keep up with the genre fiction end of things, because I don't generally take notes on them, so I can read them on the train without getting motion sick. Trying to write is guaranteed to nauseate.
  

All of this has been impeded by a semester fraught with illness and snow. I feel like I am in constant catch-up mode. So for those who wondered, that is why I haven't been posting... this time...

PCA Conference Paper Proposal

So, weeks after I had planned to I have finally put together my PCA national conference paper proposal. I am really excited to write this paper, as I have been increasingly interested in the connections between food and religion. I think as I talk about some of my other paper plans you all might see a trend...

Recipes and Rituals:
Food and Religion in Nora Roberts’s Three Sisters Island Trilogy

Many religions involve the use of food both on a symbolic level and on a practical level. After celebrating the Eucharistic meal, Catholics meet in the fellowship hall for coffee and doughnuts. The Passover Seder combines ritual and nourishment to create community with Jews from centuries ago. Baptists’ Wednesday night bible study follows a potluck supper. Wiccans record their Sabbat ritual spells along side family recipes in their Book of Shadows. Food is used in all these cases to both cement common beliefs and to establish and maintain community. These elements of a shared belief system and community are necessary elements for an emotionally satisfying and believable love story. The religious aspects in Nora Roberts’s Three Sisters Island Trilogy demonstrate food as an integral part of the foundations of community and belief. She also shows food to be just as essential to the relationships that develop over the course of the books.

Roberts sets the three love stories against a background of a struggle for good and evil. This timeless conflict is acted out in terms of three good hereditary witches facing progressively stronger evils, and the community of couples fighting evil forces comes together over food. In this paper I will look at how and why this group comes together over food. What is it about Modern Pagan Witchcraft that lends itself to the incorporation of food? What do these stories tell us about why people share food? I plan to explore the questions of how food factors into their struggle to win over evil and how it shapes the relationships that develop along the way.

What do you think, sound interesting?