GRE Literature Exam

I have spent a lot of time lately studying for the GRE Literature exam… and I’m starting to realize how little I actually know about literature and literary history.

Being a student of nineteenth century British literature, I have rarely strayed from studying much outside my favorite century. I’ve studied Chaucer (I’m extremely thankful that I did so!!), took a couple of eighteenth century courses, and took one class on American Lit, but for the most part, I’ve stayed in the century that I know and love. And now I’m kicking myself.

As if it wasn’t already bad enough that I wasted so much of my time pretending that I was going to go to medical school. All the credits (and time) I wasted in science classrooms could have been spent broadening my literary horizons. My GPA would be better and I wouldn’t be scoring so miserably on all the practice exams for the GRE Lit.

I’m pulling on a number of sources trying to work on this latest (greatest?) project. I’ve managed to create a little “study plan” for myself so we’ll see how that works out. I’m working to study a little bit each day, even if it only means reviewing flashcards right before bed or over my morning cup of tea. I’ve also managed to work a little exercise into my plan. I’ll pick a set of flash cards to bring on every trip to the gym… and when I have my boyfriend give me quizzes, I have to do a set of ten workouts whenever I get a question wrong. I’m hoping the endorphins/increased blood flow will help stimulate my brain and will help me work through the questions.

The next exam is in April but I know I’m going to need more time than that. Hooray for a summer of studying and reading!! I’ll probably start posting my thoughts about a collection of readings, movements, or schools of thought that I find interesting. It will give me a chance to really cement the information in my brain and help me remember it. Wish me luck!

This is My Body.

An absolutely amazing video with an even better message. Your political, religious, moral beliefs might be different than mine, but we all have to stop waging a war on women and their bodies. WE have the right to choose how we live our lives. WE have the sole right to choose how we maintain, treat, and make decisions about our bodies. No one else has a say in the matter. They are OUR bodies… not yours.

“Do not be afraid of a world in which women know themselves, their voice, and their power. That world has arrived.”

Article Discussion: Gender on Twitter

I was reading a post on Ted Underwood’s blog and he linked an article by a group of linguists about using gendered language on social media sites and the use of computers in determining author gender/group.

The article, “Gender on Twitter: Syles, Stances, and Social Networks,” (Bamman, Eisenstein, Schnoebelen) discusses the multifaceted relationship between gender and language, discussing cases that both adhere to and deviate from gender language norms. Through a combination of computational techniques and social media theory, the authors provide a new perspective on how individuals “act out” language in social media forums.

The article begins by discussing a large amount of work that has been done by other researchers, covering a wide variety of research and theories. The authors discussed a variety of problems with previous research, indicating that one previous study focused largely on groups “with social network connections to unambiguously gendered entities: sororities, fraternities, and hygiene products.” Focusing on these groups undoubtedly lead researchers towards individuals with very specific gender identities, perhaps skewing their data. They also discuss the Eckert and McConnell-Ginet findings, illustrating that gender differences are not entirely stable throughout socioeconomic classes. The authors also use Eckert’s work to point to the fact that the social meaning of linguistic expression matters deeply on the social/linguistic context in which the expressions are used.

When the authors begin discussing their own findings, they list the three major contributions they are making to the current field:

“1. We attempt a large-scale replication of previous work on the gender         distribution
of several word classes, and introduce new word classes specifically for corpora
of computer-mediated communication.
2. We show that clustering authors by their lexical frequencies reveals a range of
coherent styles and topical interests, many of which are strongly connected with
gender or other social variables. But while some of these styles replicate the aggregated correlations between gender and various linguistic resources, others are
in contradiction. This provides large-scale evidence for the existence of multiple gendered styles.
3. We examine the social network among authors in our dataset, and find that gender homophily correlates with the use of gendered language. Individuals with
many same-gender friends tend to use language that is strongly associated with
their gender (as measured by aggregated statistics), and individuals with more
balanced social networks tend not to. This provides evidence that the performance
of popular gender norms in language is but one aspect of a coherent gendered persona that shapes an individual’s social interactions.” (10-11)

The authors provided their findings in a graph (15-16):

 Among those results, expressive lengthening was also determined to be a female marker (i.e.; nooo; yessss; coooool).

Though their findings initially seem to cohere with previous findings, the authors point out that categorizing these results will undoubtedly lead to problems: to say, for example, that females are more expressive (due to expressive lengthening, emoticons, and punctuation) would be difficult because swear words are also expressive forms of language and are predominately used by males. Women also utilize a lot of abbreviation (lol, omg) which prevents one from arguing that women must avoid swears because they wish to adhere to standard language. The authors point out that these differences and problems lead them to conclude that a much more nuanced manner of analysis, allowing for the formation of several different categories of language.

The authors then moved on to create “clusters,” organizing authors according to subject matter or area of interest. These groups were not organized using gender but the authors discovered that the clusters had a strong gender bias.

Cluster Results, p. 23

Fourteen of the sixteen clusters demonstrated a significant gender difference, measuring at least 60% for the dominant gender, even in the smallest sample set. The authors point out that a 60/40 spread is at a probability that is less than 1%, making their findings all the more indicative of an important relationship between gender and language use.

The cluster method allows the authors the ability to break down how gender is constructed in each of these individual groups. Men, for example, are largely represented in the ‘sports’ cluster; but do men that enjoy baseball define masculinity in the same way that men that enjoy wrestling do (26)? These differences in gender construction allow us the opportunity to determine the performance/construction of gender in each group and understand how and why it differs.

This article is definitely a fascinating read, bringing to light the ways that we use social media to communicate (and in a way, define) who we are. I can’t claim to have a huge understanding of linguistics (I took one course on it in college) but I think that this article is accessible enough that people without a linguistics background can understand it.

I hope that you get the chance to read the article. It is truly interesting and may impact the way that you think about gender, language, and social media sites.

My Current Thesis Project

So, it’s been quite a long time since the last time that I had a second to post anything on my blog. For that, I apologize.

Since then, I’ve done A LOT of things. My son is now 18 months old, I’ve been through two more semester of college, I graduated from college, and I started hunting for a job. I also started writing (and am nearly finished writing) my “senior thesis.”

Even though I already graduated, the professor that I’ve worked with has agreed to continue advising me on my project. It was a lot of work to get finished in one semester and I honestly wasn’t thrilled with what I had at the beginning of December, when UMD’s semester ends. It’s taken me a long time to think, research, and write on this topic and I wanted to make sure that I had the best possible product. That, and I am interested in finding a place to submit it when it’s finally finished.

So what is it about? Well let me give a little background.

I was reading Our Mutual Friend (one of my absolute FAVORITE novels ever) and I noticed that something a little weird happens at the end. Bella has just married John (then Rokesmith) and she has started reading all these domestic manuals (think Isabella Beeton) to learn how to become a good housewife and mother. That part is totally normal (for the nineteenth century) but Bella also does something a little out of the ordinary: in a conversation with John about what her perfect house would have, Bella states that she would love an aviary filled with exotic birds.

This might not seem weird to you, but it instantly struck me as something that I needed to look into. After months of learning about animals in the nineteenth century and finding nothing useful on birds, I finally decided to look back to the place where Bella started: the domestic manuals. I read as many as I could find (in total I found 6) and noticed that three books talked specifically about birds and their place in the lives of young women.

Since then, my project has developed into an argument about the role of domestic manuals in creating the domestic woman and how the inclusion of animals in these manuals impacts what we think the manuals are doing. When most people think about domestic manuals, like Isabella Beeton, we commonly imagine a text that is creating the perfect housewife, the perfect image of domesticity. And I’m not arguing that that isn’t true because I believe that it is, I just think that it’s more complicated than that with some of these manuals, including the most popular text of the nineteenth century (after the King James Bible, of course).

Beeton’s Book of Household Management

Some texts obviously totally support the idea that a woman belongs in the home and no where else, drawing hard lines between the male and female spheres. But a lot of the texts that I have looked at, including Isabella Beeton’s, draw lines that are a bit blurry. While many of these still encourage a woman to cook, clean, and raise her children, they also encourage women to learn as much as they can about the natural world around them. Some provide ‘practical’ reasons for this education (like understanding where one’s food comes from or being able to raise one’s children) but some do not: they merely present the biological and taxonomical information to the reader and allow them to determine it’s use.

It is here that I am developing my piece. I am currently at 30 pages but I have a lot more writing and editing to do so we’ll see where I end up.

But this was a nice post to bring me back. I’m currently reading Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel  (Nancy Armstrong) so it might be a while before I get around to posting a piece about that text. I just finished Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses and George Eliot’s Silas Marner, so expect posts about those texts in the near future. It’s great to be back!

Related articles

• We don’t already know the broad outlines of literary history. (tedunderwood.com)

Bleak House: General Overview

Image via Wikipedia

Over the past month, I’ve been working on reading Bleak House for my Romantic to Modern British Literature course. I finished the book last week and I have to say… I’m absolutely astounded. I’ll talk about it more in the coming weeks and will focus on a variety of specific topics (the use of touch, vision/sight, mud, the body) but today I want to give a general overview.

For those of you that haven’t read the book, I absolutely encourage you to pick it up. It’s a hefty read at just over 800 pages (which may vary slightly depending on what edition you buy) but the beauty of the text is worth it.

Dickens utilizes both the third person omniscient narrator AND a first person narrator to weave together the world of Bleak House. The third person omniscient narrator is harsh and bitter, writing with all the negativity he can muster when dealing with the less than desirable characters that populate the muddy sphere Bleak House resides in.

But Dickens also does something brilliant: in giving us a first person narrator, he gives us Esther Summerson. Because her mother has died, Esther spends her childhood with her aunt. Her aunt constantly tells her she was a mistake, was her mother’s shame, and is the essence of shame in and of herself. It’s a wonder that anyone could come out of such a situtation without any significant emotional damage. Even more astounding: that Esther would be the kind, caring, and selfless individual that she is.

Dickens brilliance lies right here: in giving us a narrator that is a huge contrast to the third person, we begin to see the glimmer of light peaking through the dirt and grim, reminding us that the potential for change lies just under the surface.

The narration develops the plot beautifully, creating a ‘pulsing’ effect (as Anne Thoma talks about) bringing the narrator closer to the world then pushing them back as the narration oscillates between the two types of narration. This type of narration brings the reader closer, emotionally, to some characters, and keeps them emotionally distant from others.

I don’t want to give away plot details (because I hate finding out how a book ends before I finish reading it) but let me assure you that this text has a plot that is very easy to get into. Towards the end of the novel, it becomes a kind of detective story, drawing the reader through London trying to figure it out alongside the characters.

Have you read Bleak House? What did you think? Are you going to read it soon? Let me know!

Related articles

• Charles Dickens’s storytelling: Different perspectives on Bleak House (guardian.co.uk)

The Future, Part Two

I didn’t intentionally intend for there to be a part two to my future post a few weeks ago, but I’ve done some more thinking and I feel like some things need to be said.

I met with a professor last week to discuss the possibility that I would be able to enroll in a graduate course during my last semester as an undergraduate. The professor and I got to talking about my plans for the future and I let him know that I would be entering graduate school the fall of next year. What did he respond? “You’re crazy.” (Yes, he actually said those words.)

I just laughed and told him I’d already heard that from all the other professors I talked to. And honestly, I had. The job market (as I mentioned in part one) is awful, the competition is fierce, and more often than not, you’re lucky to get into ONE acceptable school. But I don’t care.

He furthered his answer in saying that the ONLY reason to go to graduate school is if you’re just crazy enough to think you’ll want to study literature for the rest of your life… And if you’re too crazy to think about anything else. I’d say I fit that mold pretty well.

I know I’ve discussed other options in the past (law school most frequently) but when I sit down and really think about it, the prospect of forcing myself to do something else makes me feel unsettled, like I’m off balance. If you asked my father, he’d say I’m nuts for not chasing the money and success that law school would provide for me. But you know, there’s plenty of success to be had in teaching lit as long as you work for it. And I’m always willing to work for it. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my newly complicated life, it’s that you have to work your ass off to find the kind of success you feel you deserve. And if you happen to find something that doesn’t feel like work, you know you’re in the right place.

So, wish me luck. My grad school applications go out in December and I take the GRE General Exam and the GRE Literature Subject test in July. Until then, I’m going to continue to give my school work, my job, my son, and my loved ones every thing I have. And I’m going to love every moment of it.

The Future is Terrifying.

The title of this post says it all, honestly.

As my “About Me” states, I’m an English Language/Literature major at the University of Maryland… I have plans to go into graduate school next fall. The other day I was looking for jobs at big time universities across the country, just to get a sense of what the job market is current like.

I nearly fell into hysterics.

You see, the job market for someone coming out of graduate school with a PhD in English (with the intent to teach at a college level) isn’t the best. To be quite frank, it’s terrible. There are a ton of reasons that that’s the case. People are staying in their positions longer as opposed to retiring; people are flooding out of graduate schools every year, giving employers a larger pool to select from; schools just don’t have open positions. Whatever the reason, the lack of available jobs is something that all college graduates have to address, but especially those that plan to invest more money into their career preparation.

But it’s hard to tell myself that I need to come up with a new plan because this one could turn into an epic disaster. There’s a feeling that I get in my chest when I talk or think about going to graduate school: it’s one of absolute elation. I cannot WAIT to really dig into my field, to discover things that I never thought about, and to debate texts with people that are just as interested in literature as I am. I want to be able to write about something in an authoritative way and to know that what I’m saying makes sense or is breaking some sort of ground. I want to be able to feel like I’m making a difference and doing right by myself.

Because, you know, I could have gone to law school as I had originally intended. I could still go to law school if I was that worried about the job market after graduate school. But I wouldn’t be doing right by myself: I would be denying myself the one thing that excites me… the one thing I feel like I can really KNOW. And you only live once. Screw getting a job.

I can’t guarantee that the job market is going to fix itself overnight or that by the time I get out of graduate school, my dream school will be hiring someone to teach Victorian literature. But I can work towards becoming the best candidate for a job after I graduate from school. While this technique cannot guarantee that there is a position available, it makes it more likely that I am going to find something based on my performance.

So… I guess the moral of the story (if there is one) is that sacrificing what you love for the sake of money or a job just isn’t worth it. So I’m sticking to my guns, money be damned.