The Winter's Tale

Well, it should have been a summer's tale. A group of early modernists from the English Department went to watch the play outdoors in the middle of June at the Large Public Park here, the name of which is curiously appropriate, although not exactly right, for watching Shakespeare. The weather had been fine all day - not hot and sunny, but dry and not not too overcast. Colleague who Worries Too Much was convinced it would be a glorious evening, and we wouldn't need to go home for our raincoats. I was much more doubtful. I did go home for mine, and was very glad I did. It waited until the performance was about to start and then the rain came. The theatre company carried on regardless, and I passed my picnic-carrying plastic bag to colleague who Worries Too Much so that she could at least cover part of herself with something waterproof.

The acting company worked very hard. Each of them took more than one part - something I suppose is essential if a travelling company wants to keep costs down - and they acted well enough that it was easy to forget they were really the same person. For the most part, the doubling up of parts seemed purely practical, but I thought one of the choices of pairing was particularly interesting. The man who played the shepherd's son, adoptive brother of Perdita, also played Paulina, wife of Antigonus, who speaks plainly and abruptly to King Leontes, pointing out his faults to him. Again, this was probably in part due to practical considerations - none of the actresses could play her because they would have to be on stage playing two parts at once at the end of the play. Of course in Shakespeare's day all female parts would have been played by boys, but if only one in this production is not played by a woman, it is, I think, critically interesting that it should have been the outspoken Paulina. She does not behave like an early modern woman should - she is not quiet, she does not keep herself and her thoughts private, she is not obedient to her husband (or to her king). She is, in fact, a "manly" political character - indeed, she is more outspoken than the courtiers. So, does having a man play her serve to emphasise her difference from courtly ladies? Does it attempt to trouble ideas of what being a courtly lady actually is? Or does it serve to emphasise the lack of action, the lack of questioning of the king, by the male courtiers? And, can all of these questions be asked of the play anyway, if Paulina was originally played by a boy actor?

I don't want to answer these questions here. I merely want to pose them as questions interesting to me, and I hope to you, raised by this production. I am very fond of the The Winter's Tale as a play. It raises issues of power and authority, truth and fiction, religion, gender, genre and representation. As I think all good productions should, this one just added one further facet to a complex and fascinating play.

Magic Money Pots

I think Universities have these. Magic money pots.

I know that budgets are tight. I know that most universities are unable to take on more permanent academic staff. Some are not replacing staff who leave. This is, in part, the reason the job market is so bad. This is why I, and other newly conferred PhDs, find ourselves staring unemployment / redeployment squarely in the face. The money pots are empty.

But the empty money pots are only empty sometimes.

If, for example, a Big Named Academic wants to work at an Institution, only being on campus and holding only a few postgraduate seminar workshops for two weeks of the year with the occasional guest lecture, and being attached to them for the RAE / REF, thousands of pounds can be found in the money pots.

The money pots are magic.

I know there are a variety of reasons why they can find the money to employ Big Named Academic and not me. Big Named Academic will, they say, attract students. "Really?" I ask. Do potential Undergrads even know who this is? "No", they tell me, "but postgraduates will. And that will bring in money for the empty money pots".

Well, maybe. Maybe not. Maybe one day in the future I will attract postgraduate students. And until that time, I would be willing to teach your students - graduate and undergraduate - for every teaching week of term. I would mark essays / exams, do admin and generally be a part of the department, and I won't retire in the next five years. I might even produce and publish research which would be useful for your RAE / REF submission and ratings.

But this will never happen if I have to work a full time non academic job to pay my bills because universities aren't taking on early career staff, because the money pots are empty.

The magic money pots.

Qualifications

As I graduate in under a fortnight, I don't see a problem with giving my title as Dr rather than Ms. I have worked hard for, and been awarded, my PhD. Before that I worked hard for and was awarded a first class BA (Hons) and an M.Litt with distinction.

I'm not writing this in order to boast. I'm hoping someone can shed a little light on a question.

Why, given my undergraduate and graduate qualifications and my not unsubstantial teaching experience, does the university to which I am applying for a Teaching Fellowship need to know in full detail my GCSE results?

Breakfast talk

As I said in my last post, I've recently come back from my annual trip to Haworth for the Bronte Society AGM. In fact, it's exactly a year since I wrote my very first two blog posts, one of which talked about last year's AGM events. I'm afraid there weren't many more young people there this year - perhaps one or two - so I'll just keep hoping!

As always, I met up with old friends, and I made some new ones. One morning I got up for breakfast and met a man I hadn't seen before in the B&B breakfast room. He said "Are you a Bronte person?" (This is not a strange question to a society member in Haworth in the first full weekend in June). "Yes, I am.", I replied, "Are you a Bronte person?". He said he wasn't, but was doing some work on the gravestones at the Church - photographing, making notes, cross referencing in a database. It seemed like a good idea to me. I asked where he was sitting, so that I didn't steal his table, and he invited me to join him. I said I couldn't, because I was expecting a friend (she was staying in the same B&B) and I sat elsewhere. We continued to talk, but it was awkward with the table arrangements, so I went to sit with him until my friend arrived. When she did, she joined the conversation, and we talked about the merits of the Society (friends all over the world, coming to Haworth, shared interests, among other things), and he commented that everyone had been kind and helpful to him. I agreed, "Yes, most people in Haworth are very friendly". "I know", he said, "just today, a lady came to sit with me at breakfast".

Buzzing

Yesterday I came back from a lovely weekend away in Haworth at the Bronte Society AGM weekend (more on this another day). I spent most of yesterday and all of this morning frantically trying to catch up with marking to meet an exam board deadline this afternoon. I had too little sleep last night and I have drunk far too much caffeinated coffee today as a consequence of the two previous problems. I also had to finish all of the associated exam admininstration with my colleague who Worries Too Much and get back into town to go food shopping (both for me and the Little Dog) before the shops closed and then get home before the Little Dog needed to go for a walk.

I managed to do all of these things. I'm not telling you this to elicit congratulations. I'm telling you this because it turns out that this particular combination of events and activites (along with a strawberry tart for lunch) makes me just a little crazy. Luckily a walk in the sunshine by the canal with the Little Dog and a quiet evening of detectives on TV seems to have stopped the buzzing.

I'm back on decaf tomorrow...

Friends and Colleagues

I've just been to see the Sex and the City Movie. I wasn't sure what to expect - I had mixed feelings about the ending of the TV series because of my doubts about overly tidy happy endings and I wondered where they could possibly go with the relationships in the film that wouldn't have me tearing my realistic hair out. It turns out that I really enjoyed the film. I wasn't annoyed and I laughed and cried in all the appropriate places. I'm not going to say any more so I don't need to give a spoiler warning. All I will say is that I'd recommend it to those of you who enjoyed the TV series. I don't think you'll be disappointed.

I went to see it with two of my colleagues from work. They've worked together for at least 18months, have offices next door to each other and seem to be good friends. After the film they talked to each other about it. I threw the odd comment in to the discussion, but I didn't play any significant part in the conversation. We'd got out of the cinema screen, out of the cinema and half way across the street before either of them asked me what I thought. I'm sure they didn't deliberately exclude me. It's just hard to 'break in' to established friendship groups, and I'm sure I haven't been here long enough to be one of 'the girls'. And having come out of a film about a close network of 'girl-friends' and just returned from a trip to the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss where I met and spent time at the cinema, having coffee, dancing and giggling til the early hours with old friends, it's tough to adjust to a place where you aren't one of the insiders. And I think I'll probably have to move elsewhere before I've had time to 'fit in' here.

It's not that Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda have something I don't (apart from boyfriends!) - I do have a group of very close friends. And actually several of them are men, so I have something that the Sex and the City girls don't seem to have. And I feel very lucky to have that. But I'd like to be close enough to those friends to go out for a drink in the evening, or a coffee in the afternoon, or a trip to the cinema where the immediate conversation after the film would include me.

It was lovely to be back in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss last weekend, with the friends that I miss even more. And seeing a film essentially, although not explicitly, about friendship with a group of people that I'm not yet quite a part of makes it harder to be away, but I know my friends are there for me, if not here, and I hope they know that I'm here, if not there, for them.

Anyone fancy a coffee...?

Even with lots of coffee...

Today I'm off to take the hard bound copy of my thesis to the University in the Beautiful Scottish City that I Miss. I arranged the trip to coincide with a conference in the department, so I'm staying for the weekend, and going to a ceilidh. (I've missed ceilidhs too!).

The trip won't be all fun though; I have to take some marking with me. Due to an unfortunate combination of when I am away and when my second marker is away, she needs to have the essays on Monday morning at the latest, and I won't be back until late on Sunday night. I'm sure I can get them marked around panels and in free time - definitely not during panels because that would be very bad conference behaviour - it just means I shall be a nervous wreck about misplacing them on my travels. I'll be counting them at regular intervals, just to be sure I've got them all!

I did try to get the theory essays marked before I left, but didn't manage it. I planned to stay up late last night to get through more of them but I discovered that even with the best of intentions, and more caffeine than I've drunk in quite a while, it's impossible to make sense of a theory essay in the early hours of the morning. I tried. I really did. I have marked essays through the night before without struggle. But some of these are hard to make sense of when I'm wide awake. I had no chance at 1am...