Yes, there was a draft in there.

Comic on the quality of different methods of peer review (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We had our peer review for the draft of the lit review/definitions essay, and I got some good feedback (especially for the introduction:  I had forgotten to introduce the overall research project, so the rest of the draft didn't make much sense).  I was working on the revision this morning when I suddenly thought of this blog.  I was really shocked when I saw how few entries I had.

One thing that I should have blogged about happened last Saturday.  I usually have to work on Saturdays, but I put in 38 hours last week, so I couldn't have any more hours (if I hit 40, they'd have to give me benefits, etc.).  I worked on school stuff for a few hours, and then I decided to watch Star Wars:  The Force Awakens again.  I needed to settle on the scenes I'm going to use in the research paper.  I'll talk more about this in my next post.

Related articles

• 'Star Wars' Actor Ken Leung Joins 'Inhumans' as Karnak
• The 5 best Star Wars Lego sets coming this spring
• Star Wars' Mark Hamill tipped by J.J. Abrams to get Oscar for The Last Jedi
• This actor has taken over the R2-D2 role in the next 'Star Wars' movie
• Logan Director Explains Lack of Post-Credits Scene, Though It Should Be Obvious

A Different Shame Model

Shame (Photo credit: Joe Gatling)

I'm supposed to be describing one of the sources I am using for my bibliography and for my literature review, and I think I'm going to do this as a kind of draft for this book's section of the lit review, just to save some time.  Please bear with me:  I will be taking out most references to myself when I revise it.  And, I apologize for not being able to figure out how to do a hanging indentation.

Fox, Pamela.  Class Fictions:  Shame and Resistance in the British Working-Class Novel, 1890-1945.  Durham:  Duke UP, 1994.

I was immediately surprised by this book:  I looked in the index for "script theory" or some variation thereof, but there was nothing about it at all.  There was an entry for shame theory, so I went to that and discovered the reason for the earlier omission, which is that Pamela Fox a. is only interested in people in large numbers (like the working class, for example), and b. does not think that script theory has anything to offer in such cases or does not know it exists, which seems unlikely, as she writes, "[shame theory] has offered little to contemporary scholars searching for nuanced, respectful approaches to class cultural forms.  And in its traditional guises, it has little to offer me here" (10).  Yes, that's right.  She's written a book about shame in literature based entirely on a model that ignores a fairly large body of theory, dismissing it as "notoriously out of favor" (10), a status that has changed dramatically since the time that she published her book.  However, her model (definitely anti-psychoanalytic, sort of pro-anthropological) is not quite specific enough to stand in for all the ideas she has rejected, and it shows when she gets down to analyzing novels of the period in question.

In the years since 1994, a number of important examinations of shame in literature have been published, adding to the body of theory and opening new possiblities of shame theory as a critical approach to literature.  None of these follow Fox's model; nor will I, as her approach does not add anything useful to the model I am constructing.

I guess this shows you how I write a first draft-- lots of repetition and rethinking in the middle, so I have to edit a lot.  On the other hand, I think I've gotten out a lot of what I want to say about her book, so I'll consider it useful. 

Related articles

• Trauma Theory and Its Hermeneutic Dilemma: Interpretation or Poetics? (petermsinclair.com)
• My research (menstruationcomplex.wordpress.com)

Falling Behind in Mythic Fashion

And I Was There (Photo credit: Brave Heart)

Yeah, I'm behind again.  I've turned in my annotated bibliography, and I'm revising my literature review.  For now, I'd like to talk about one of the books I'm using.  It's Rick Altman's Film/Genre, and it's pretty much invaluable for my project, mainly because he covers all of the issues about genre criticism as an approach.  He's apparently an expert on musicals but writes on other genres as well, including sword and sorcery, but he doesn't say anything about sword and sandal, biblical, or pepla.  I've gotten some good material, and the way he talks about specific films has given me a feel for how to use this approach on PJ1.

Altman, Rick.  Film/Genre.  London: BFI, 1999.  Print.

Related articles

• Sword and Sandal ...Babes and Beef (retailfix52.wordpress.com)
• Sword-and-sandal romp Atlantis was a cheesy caper with plenty to get submerged into (metro.co.uk)
• Swords and Sandals 3 Solo Stratus Game (337gamesnet.wordpress.com)
• Lost beneath the greatest wave: the political philosophy of Atlantis (resgerendae.wordpress.com)
• Film Genre (ignaciokim7321.wordpress.com)
• Mythos: The Contest! (wineandsavages.blogspot.com)
• Using Scrivener for an Epic Fantasy (tariencole.wordpress.com)
• 'The Legend Of Conan' Moves Forward With 'World Trade Center' Screenwriter (slashfilm.com)
• Doctor Who: 10 Time Periods We'd Love Them To Visit (musingsofamildmanneredman.com)

New Ideas for the Research Project

Bilbo writing There and Back Again in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring; note subtitle "A Hobbit's Tale" (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Yes, I know I've fallen behind, so you can expect to see several entries in the near future.  I've been working on my literature review, mainly focussing on hero archetypes, and I think I've reached the point where it's not going to get any better.  Therefore, I'm moving on to the research paper itself, and I just got some more ideas by watching The Hobbit:  An Unexpected Journey yesterday.  There's an interesting contrast between its overall story and that of The Fellowship of the Ring when it comes to the makeup of the band of questers in each.  The guys in The Hobbit are NOT all heroes, unlike the fellowship members.

Once I noticed that, I started having some self-discussion (am I inventing that term?) about what the difference means, which led me to some other thoughts about what exactly makes the FOTR guys heroes that The Hobbit's characters lack.  And I'll talk about that next time.

Related articles

• NVivo for Literature Reviews (pennwic.wordpress.com)
• 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' Joins The Billionaires Club (moviesblog.mtv.com)
• 10 things you might not know about 'The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey' (digitaltrends.com)
• What Writers Can Learn From The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (kourtneyheintz.wordpress.com)
• First Impressions (teachingtolkien.com)
• The Hobbit Game Armies of the Third Age Launches (video) (geeky-gadgets.com)
• The Fellowship of the Ring Assembled (starrymantle.wordpress.com)