Tuesday, February 28, 2012

DONE!

Finally finished my rough draft

If anyone has time today before my interview at 2 p.m to edit, I'd be happy to exchange for taking a look at your's as well! 

Monday, February 27, 2012

Teaser

Using the following information in my paper. Bet you can't wait to read that!



Here's a link to the article about the rat carcass in a Mountain Dew if you're interested -- of course you are, admit it.

More Tweethis Results

Conversation about my original Tweethis on Facebook:

Reactions to my "Outline" / Elaborated Thesis on Facebook:




Saturday, February 25, 2012

New Facebook Tweethis

Now I've gone the complete opposite direction (too long) and prolly no one will post on this either. LOL. 



I also posted a link to facebook of my rough rough draft. How brave is that?!


Shout Out to Alicia

A huge thanks to Alicia for her comments on my draft! Not only did she read and encourage me in the direction I was heading but her comments were actually thoughtful suggestions that have majorly influenced my paper. For example, her suggestion to "back the two sides (of my argument) up equally" made me realize I should reach out to some good social sources for the flip side of my argument. And her comment that she "like(s) that I incorporated more than one Shakespeare play" is awesome because I was debating taking the second one out. Now that I know it makes a difference, I most certainly won't!


You best believe I hopped right on over to her draft to leave her some, what I hope will be, useful comments! That's a major benefit of social media. Maybe it's a good idea to help out people via social media that you specifically want to help you out! :)

My comments on Alicia's Rough Draft:



Tweethis Succes

So, I connected my Facebook and Twitter feeds so that when I posted my tweethis to Twitter, it posted automatically to Facebook. 

I got two likes on Facebook. It was a little encouraging, but something about one being my mother-in-law and one being a close friend, didn't make it feel like any big success. I'm thinking that 140 characters is just not enough to invite attention on Facebook. Not enough at all. I'm going to post a much longer thesis on Facebook as well as an invitation for others to comment on my post following Ellie's example



BUT!!!

I did have something amazing happen with my Tweethis on Twitter!! Someone retweeted me! Someone I don't even know and who doesn't follow me... so I'm hypothesizing they must have found me in a search. Well, you better believe I started following them! I retweet! I'm so honored! sniff* Thank you GallowayNightSky!


And you better believe I thanked him:


Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Tweethis

Be honest, does this make any sense out of context?

The power of #Shakespeare’s plays to popularize #folklore frightened institutions much like modern fear of tech’s power to quickly share unvalidated knowledge

I'm sending it out into the twitterverse in a few seconds and I just feel like it seriously weakened my thesis to shorten it to so few characters. #anxiety!

Update:

Just kidding - the earlier tweethis was less than 140 characters without spaces. I hate the 140 character rule so much. Here is the actual tweet i'm sending out:

#Shakespeare’s power to popularize #folklore scared institutions much like modern fear of tech’s power 2 quickly share unvalidated knowledge


In case you didn't see the link earlier,


Here is my rough draft so far. It is a beautiful mess.

Books and Blogs: Research in the Digital Age

Books I'm Using

My "Research Station" pre-apocolyptic writing stage

The Fear of Folk

I can't find the embed feature I once used to embed a Google document into a blog post but my outline is up at this link and commenting is enabled. I'd love your feedback there. It's very rough at the moment but will update as I work on it.

Still working on my thesis/ tweethis because I'm changing tack a little here. I'm excited to get it up and out there though!

Tuesday, February 21, 2012

Wooden O Symposium - Cedar City, Utah

One of my contacts encouraged me in my thesis and mentioned the possibility of submitting my paper to the Wooden O Symposium in Cedar City this summer as part of the Shakespeare Festival. The call for papers deadline has been extended to May 1st. This is something some of us could totally consider if it appeals to you!

Monday, February 20, 2012

Progress Report: Phases 1 and 2 of Research Paper

I'm required to document my research and writing process for the Shakespeare research paper I'm doing this month. According to the assignment instructions, here are the components I must include. If I have met those requirements, I have included a link to a post or posts that document my efforts for that component:

Phase 1
Exploration
I did a couple of posts to explore my topic. I first found interest when I wrote this post about Jews in England and the folklore surrounding them in Shakespeare's time. Then I did a Twitter search and found THE leading work on the topic by Thiselton Dyer. Then I found both an essay and a Cardiff University course on my topic. Then I really started to explore a thesis for my topic. Then I settled on my paper topic and solidified what my thesis was by talking about it out loud. 
Textual Analysis
I didn't do this post till later, but I finally figured out what I wanted to do with my textual analysis post and performed digital analysis
Social Proof (finding) - 
I found a ton of people to contact and did a sort of annotated contact list. I did a google blog search and found a Shakespeare troupe, Shakespeare in the Ruins, the vice-chair of whom I wrote about my thesis. He wrote me back!

Phase 2
Performance Analysis -
 I skipped this one, for lack of time in catching up from being sick. Sorry!
Annotated Bibliography
Digital media and online resources
I found a youtube video of a folktale behind Hamlet and posted about it. I had success with a google alert.
Social Proof (contacting)
I contacted two more people. Patrick Ryan who is a storyteller that wrote a picture book about Shakespeare and Folklore and Susan Nyikos who is a professor of English at Utah State University and teaches about Shakespeare and folklore. 

Phase 3
"Tweethis" statement - I think I've almost got my thesis down to a tweetable statement but it is difficult because there are so many components of my argument that build upon one another. 
Posted draft with peer interaction
Evaluation of a peer's draft

Scholarly Sources: Shakespeare and Folklore

I thought I had posted this already. I did this a while back!

Found at JSTOR:

Folklore and Shakespeare
Author(s): Kenneth MuirReviewed work(s):Source: Folklore, Vol. 92, No. 2 (1981), pp. 231-240Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1259478 .Accessed: 07/02/2012 14:51


The Folklore of Shakespeare
Author(s): Henry B. WheatleyReviewed work(s):Source: Folklore, Vol. 27, No. 4 (Dec. 31, 1916), pp. 378-407Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255592 .Accessed: 07/02/2012 14:58


Some Folklore Incidents in Shakespeare
Author(s): H. Coote LakeReviewed work(s):Source: Folklore, Vol. 39, No. 4 (Dec. 31, 1928), pp. 307-328Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. on behalf of Folklore Enterprises, Ltd.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1255967 .Accessed: 07/02/2012 15:07

Books (at our library):

This is the pioneering work on the Folklore of Shakespeare written over a century ago by T.F. Thiselton Dyer
My favorite find. A children's picture book about folk tales that Shakespeare drew on. An excellent way to introduce yourself to the topic.
A book about folklore in Elizabethen times, recommended for study by author Kenneth Muir who wrote one of the articles I found. 





No way: Google Alert Success!

Most of the stuff my Google alert on "Shakespeare AND Folklore" turns up for me is useless. A surprising amount of it is obituaries... no really. But I had a very happy find the other day! It may have just found me my next contact about my paper, someone who might be really interested to read what I have to say, an audience for my topic. 

Google sent me a bio article about a Hungarian English professor at USU who studies and teaches both Shakespeare and folklore! No way, right?! An English. professor. from Utah. IN Utah. Who knows about BOTH Shakespeare and folklore! Well, I thought it was cool. 

Her name is Susan Nyikos. From the article about her, she sounds like a delightful person and an excellent professor. So I hopped on over to the USU site and found her contact information in the English department directory. I promptly shot her off an email similar to the one I sent Mr. Ryan so that I had as much time as possible to hear back from her. 


Digital "Close" Reading

So I'm testing out a theory. I recently read Stanley Fish's article on The Digital Humanities and interpretation entitled Mind Your P's and B's. If you haven't read his three article series on the Digital Humanities, you are seriously missing out. Major kudos to my classmate Kaleigh for getting in touch with him about her project!

Anywho, in this article he asserts that we can begin our interpretation by using the tools of the digital age (i.e. a simple computer search for the number of p's and b's in a passage) as the spring board for our interpretation, by doing some very quick text mining, seeing what the numbers reveal, and interpreting those numbers. In Fish's reply to Kaleigh's email, he says the reverse might also be possible, which is what I've always considered text mining useful for: "If you had formulated a reading of Shakespeare and wanted to know whether certain formal patterns would lend it support , it might well be useful to run the numbers."

Might nothing, Mr. Fish. I say we come to the text with our interpretation pretty much already in our heads according to our life experience. Certain things are going to jump out at us and we're just mining the text for more support for our position. Hence, the digital tools we have just speed up that process.

Shakespeare's Brilliance

The first half of this post has been deleted out of respect to the subject who asked me to remove references to them from my blog.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Update to post: Shying away from Brilliance?

I reached out on Facebook to my friend group to see what they really think about Shakespeare. Here's what I asked and their responses.

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Sick

Sorry I haven't been in class and have been a little out of the loop. My baby and I are both really sick. I have a double ear infection and sinus infection and he's got a nasty chest cold. Needless to say, even if I was feeling well enough to come, I can't leave a sick baby with his healthy friends and their mommies. Instead of learning about Shakespeare this week I'm learning all about how moms and babies share everything, especially sickness. I'll get back on top of everything as soon as possible. Thanks for your understanding!

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Shakespeare in the Ruins Reply

Yes!!!! It worked! I'm now excited to look for evidence of scholarly scorn towards A Midsummer Night's Dream and to take a look at The Striker (see below). This social proof thing is kind of exhilarating when it works. I've been in several of Dr. Burton's classes and this has always been the aspect of his teaching that intimidates me most and always seems to fall by the wayside, but not so this time!

Here's Kevin's response:

Hi Bri!

How great to receive your e-mail! It's always a relief to know that someone is reading those things...

I love your thesis, and I definitely concur. As a matter of coincidence, the next show that SIR will be "stripping down" for this fall's tour is A Midsummer Night's Dream which, as I'm sure you know, is bubbling over with folklore and fairy tale references, and is almost certainly Shakespeare's most popular and most produced comedy. In my experience, it also tends to be the subject of a certain level of scorn among "serious" scholars as well as actors, which, as you appear to be suggesting, is likely no coincidence.

I would be thrilled if you decided to reference my story, particularly if it in any way helps to promote Shakespeare in the Ruins (perhaps a link to the website...)

Let me know if there's anything you need me to do!

Thanks Again,

Kevin
Artistic Co-Chair, SIR

---

Hi Bri,

As a bit of a sidebar, I wonder if you're familiar with Caryl Churchill's play "The Skriker"? It's an incredibly complex, fascinating treatment of traditional English folklore for adult contemporary audiences. If you haven't already read it, I highly recommend it.

Cheers,

Kevin

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

The Original Cinder-Fella

This post has been removed out of respect to its subject who has asked that all mention of them be removed from this blog.

Poking Around for Interest in my topic

In response to a blog post (http://www.shakespeareintheruins.com/2012/02/for-forth-he-goes/) I discovered, because commenting was not enabled and because I was really curious what the author would have to say in response to my hypothesis, I sent the following email.

Kevin,

I have just had the pleasure of stumbling upon your blog for SIR and thus discovering your delightful theater company. I was particularly intrigued by your most recent post about performing Romeo and Juliet for the students of Gladstone elementary. What a meaningful experience!

I am currently working on a thesis about Shakespeare and folklore, because I am a student of both. I hypothesize that Shakespeare's incorporation of folklore and retelling of folk tales is precisely why his works are so universal - why, as you put it, "shakespeare is for everyone".

Folklore is often a representation of societal anxieties or tensions and designed to protect a class of individuals (pregnancy folklore, for example, is centered around the anxieties our cultures have about protecting the young). Thus there is something in folklore for everyone. I believe Shakespeare really understood the folklore of his day and by drawing on this, increased not only his popularity but also his timelessness because many of the same folk tales and the same cultural tensions exist today. Folklore is well engrained in even young minds, as you witnessed at Gladstone.

Interestingly enough, individuals often label folklore as "for children" or lesser minds and "untrue" and thereby distance themselves from it. Not all folklore is fantastic or false. Many folk remedies in the past have served as the basis for the development of medication we use commonly today. But folklore tends to makes modern audiences (who adhere to "age of reason" ways of thinking) a little uncomfortable, which I hypothesize may be another reason they distance themselves from The Bard.

I wondered if you wouldn't mind my using your story (while of course crediting the source) to further develop my hypothesis on my shakespeare blog - zabriskiebri382.blogspot.com. I am currently documenting my research process there. I would love to hear your thoughts about my theories if you can spare the time while ensconced in your bed and breakfast castle.

Bri Zabriskie
brionlyshe07@gmail.com

Sent from my iPhone

I'll let you know if I hear anything back.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Settling on a Paper Topic

I seriously love the thumbnail Youtube chose for this video ... oh so flattering. 

This is a 3 min video of me brainstorming my paper topic. I think I've finally landed on something. 


So because of the research I've done today, I have a few people I can talk to for my "social proof" - finding an audience who is invested in what I'm talking about already and talking with them about my ideas/ getting feedback. I'm super nervous to even approach these people, but here's the reasons why I think each of them might work and as soon as I can think of interesting questions to ask them and write what I consider a worthy email about my ideas, I will.

Give-n-Take

After pondering my posts about possible paper topics, I came to realize I was much more enthused about the folklore topic than the Jungian one. Which is really awesome cause Elle emailed me this morning and let me know she is super into the idea of analyzing Hamlet and Jungian's concept of the persona. Because I'd already done a little research and found some critical articles on Hamlet that may have to do with Jungian philosophy, I decided to pass them on to Elle and also share here! 


http://people.brandeis.edu/~teuber/philnotes.html - down to philosophy goes to the movies


psychoanalytic critcism of hamlet - http://www.hamlethaven.com/psychoanalytic.html

Let me know if they end up helping you out at all! 


Friday, February 3, 2012

Hamlet, Inception, and Jungian Philosophy

In another class, we're reading the script for Christopher Nolan's Inception from a Jungian/ archetypal perspective. Since I'm so entrenched in this process, I started to wonder about Hamlet through this lens. I wonder if it would be interesting to analyze and compare the two ... what universal themes and archetypes as expressed in Hamlet does Nolan carry forward into contemporary film?

I thought I'd do some preliminary study on Hamlet through archetypal or cultural criticism. Here are two articles I found: One is about the scapegoat archetype of Polonius and one about the universal disappointment in imperfect parents.  It also brought me to a resource that many of you might find particularly useful, an online annotated bibliography to Hamlet research called Hamlet Haven.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

The Folk are Changing the Ways We Learn

Folklore is the cultural way in which a group maintains and passes on a shared way of life. Our culture is passed on through arts, belief, traditions, stories, adornments, jokes, celebrations... in more ways than one can count. Folklore is not processed work though; it is raw and unworked. It does not include published writings or fine art. It's less rigid than that. It doesn't follow institutional rules. Traditionally, the academic definition of folklore has allowed only those items of folklore that are passed on face-to-face.

But this definition is being challenged. Go figure, right?

Instead of face-to-face, the folk are spending more and more of their time face-to-Facebook. And so, though many scholars resist this change, grasping wildly and desperately at what is familiar and stubbornly refusing to adapt and evolve with their changing environment, the way folklore is passed on has moved online.

I had this brilliant realization when I was assigned to collect folklore for a class a few semesters back. My professor wanted us to go to our friends' homes and start random conversations with them in the hopes of collecting folklore from our discussions. But as a student, I just didn't really spend a lot of time in other people's homes having conversations with them. A significant portion of my interactions with friends and family were online.

At the time, I was three or four months pregnant and apprehensive about the prospects of bringing a child into this world. It was not the parenting aspects I was particularly concerned about (at least not yet)... to be frank, it was labor. There is so much conflicting information out there about the process of giving birth and I was anxious, not only about knowing what to do, but more so about where to even begin.. what questions to ask! So, as is natural to me, I reached out to my network of woman friends and since I live so far from many I am close to, I reached out online.

I asked my friends what to ask my doctor. The response I received was overwhelming. It also had nothing to do with what to ask my doctor. What I got was pregnancy folklore. The conversation is pasted below.


I was delighted (and terribly amused) by this response. Two of my friends (that don't know each other) got into an all-out battle about whether or not epidurals contain cocaine.

What is my point in telling you all of this? I better figure it out quickly because my baby is stirring from his nap.

We have to be willing to challenge traditional means of scholarship. Our culture has changed drastically in the last decade. Our means of sharing information (passing on folklore) has changed. The way we seek out information has changed -- we don't just ask mom anymore, we Google it. In fact, when you do go to mom, she says, "I don't know. Google it." All this means the way we educate ourselves (the accumulation and incorporation of knowledge into our minds) has changed.

Bloggers are not just a collection of Mormon housewives scrapbooking their lives for all to see. They are one of the new primary ways of distributing information and opinion. And blogging isn't the end-all. The traditional write-and-read to learn is being challenged. People learn from podcasts, video clips, audio books, movies streaming online, comics, animations, etc.