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Shadow Seasons: An Epilogue, 2011

Dedicated to the few who messaged on New Year’s Eve.

2011 was a story I don’t know how to tell. It’s a year that had so many structural positives, countered by surface negatives. Perhaps it’s best defined by what others have said.

Shadows

In the early summer, I was ‘strange’, ‘sick’ and ‘damaged goods’. Thanks. In the mid-summer, I was an expletive abomination. Consequently, in the late summer, I was branded a defeatist.

Victimisation does arise sometimes. Not because it is wanted – if there’s a brand of people who don’t want to be happy, this author is not one of them – but because it’s a way of dealing with the various angles of attack and the after-effects that cannot be disguised.

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New Horizons

Published November 12, 2011 Geneva , Leicester , Literature 1 Comment
Tags: Aegis Quest, Andrew Marvell, Blogging, Geneva, Poetry, Psychology, Self-Discipline

Inspired by, and dedicated to, those who didn’t write me off. (And welcome to any students who are looking for information on Marvell and arriving here. Please do contact me if you want any help).

This could be a maelstrom: of sentiments; of changes; of minds and mysteries. Much has changed in recent weeks, with positive challenges and valued rewards. It has been difficult to document it all, and the positivity comes with understandable nervousness and a touch of trepidation.

“The only way is onwards…”

Ideally, we want our lives to lead upwards trajectories. When somebody hits particular heights for themselves, they struggle to contemplate living within or below that potential. That’s the intricate psychology of accomplishment.

My life took such a monumental leap four years ago that when the subsequent falls struck with intent, no amount of trying, support, or soul-searching could arrest the slide, nor console its gravity. And this beautiful little portal came to life, with its artistry, its cadence, and its candour, as sadness drove and inspired my best writing.

I’ve told stories through feelings, and feelings through stories. I’ve read poetry through loneliness, and loneliness through poetry. I’ve discovered Marvell through myself, and myself through Marvell.

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Private Education: Universities, Fees, and Futures

Published December 29, 2010 Culture , Geneva , Politics , research 1 Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Censorship, Cultural Revolution, Education, Geneva, Hypocrisy, Politics, Public Sphere, Switzerland, Teaching, Tuition Fees, Universities

This post has escaped me for some time, so fraught has the political sentiment been. Student protests, planned anarchy, university sit-ins, the attack on the Royal cavalcade, and we have attempted revolution on our streets once again.

Speaking of ‘revolution’, it seems ironic that my recent attention has been on the precarious ‘Horatian Ode’. Marvell’s first political statement on the regicide was written 18 months after the event. Even writing in private, sometimes there is inhibition and concern about finding your own voice, documenting your own thoughts, and realising your own future, not least when everyone around you is bubbling with opinion.

I’ve found this year less difficult in terms of my own personal views than in the way politics has become aggressively popularised in the new digital public sphere. I remember voicing concern during the election that friendship had adopted political colour in a way that had never happened before. I suspect the same to be true of this adversarial issue of tuition fees: you’re with us or against us.

There are legitimate arguments on both sides here. It is necessary to divide the issues from the vitriolic protests that were carried out in response. Charlie Brooker, as ever, does a neat line on those happenings (c. 54 mins onwards). But perhaps I can offer a snippet of my own.

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Marvell in Manuscript and Print

Published December 2, 2010 Culture , Geneva , Politics , research , Writing 4 Comments
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Blair Worden, Conferences, Edinburgh, English Revolution, Literature, Nigel Smith, Paul Seaward, Print Culture, Privacy, Public Sphere, research, training, Writing

Today I am presenting ‘Marvell in Manuscript and Print, 1649-1665’ at the English Postgraduate Forum in Leicester. Having braved the weather for the second time this week, I am inconveniently left with just enough time for procrastination before the event begins at 5pm. This will be a curious one.

Today marks my fourth ‘trial’ presentation (following two seminars in Geneva and the summer’s PhD upgrade procedure), and the eighth overall, following conference presentations in Fribourg (2008), Cambridge (2009), Geneva (2010) and Hull (2010). A nice balance is reached.

My experience to date is that presentation material can rarely be the same twice. Occasionally, at the highest level, there will be merit in repeating or recycling a paper across expert audiences with different personnel. Otherwise, there is a process to develop and tailor work for the specific requirements of the event.

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The Fifth Element: Leicester

Published October 9, 2010 Edinburgh , Geneva , research 1 Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, David Tennant, Doctor Who, Edinburgh, Geneva, Leicester, research

University of Leicester: David Wilson Library

University of Leicester: the impressive David Wilson Library

This week marked the start of university number five: Leicester.

Two years ago in Geneva, I was marketing the Erasmus scheme by conducting interviews with second-year students to inform them about the possibilities. In doing so, we attracted the attention of Leicester and negotiated what became a prestigious link. Producing a supplementary article for the department magazine, Noted, to aid the promotion effort [2008-2009 Spring, 12-15], only then did I understand the magnitude of Leicester’s ascent. One of my best students, Noémie, chose to spend a year in Leicester, and did magnificently. For all the upheaval, admin, and readjustment that comes with yet another switch, to practise what I promoted (if not preached) proves a most worthy cause.

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Exposure and Control

Published July 29, 2010 Edinburgh , Geneva , Knightmare , research , Writing 2 Comments
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Dissertation, Edinburgh, Facebook, Gareth Malone, Geneva, James Loxley, Knightmare, Print Culture, Privacy, Public Sphere, research, Self-Discipline, Writing

As the Wheel of Fortune spins again, I am attempting to shake off private blues to regain control. Privacy proves baffling in that respect: control. Privacy appears to offer control, but in today’s climate it takes plenty away too. After a grilling yesterday in the use of ‘motive’ and ‘intention’, here lies a drop in the ocean on ‘exposure’ and ‘control’.

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Presenting Privacy: Marvell and London

Published July 11, 2010 Geneva , Literature , research 3 Comments
Tags: Andrew Marvell, English Revolution, Geneva, Nigel Smith, Poetry, Privacy, Revisionism, Secrecy, Steven Zwicker

Thank you for visiting, and for reading. It is nice to receive a few glances every so often. I hope you will come back again.

Presenting Privacy

Both professionally and personally, privacy has been a daunting and fascinating topic over the past two weeks. A paper entitled ‘Denying Authorship: Marvell, Maniban and the Quest for Privacy’ was given in Geneva, which was followed by ‘Marvell in Manuscript and Print: Public and Private Experiences, 1649-1660′ at the Andrew Marvell Centre, University of Hull. The Geneva presentation was by far the stronger of the two. The latter was, coincidentally, almost a private affair. Finally, I ended up in Oxford for a ‘Marvell and London’ conference this weekend.

A universal positive in my favour is that people remember the subject. Unlike topographies and typographies, episcopacies and liturgies, privacy is something that everyone can, and in a way, wants to, identify with. We are instantly drawn to exchange and adapt our own sense of privacy with the picture we have of the early-modern world in which our protagonists lived.

And our protagonists are real people. Tapping into somebody else’s psyche and trying to understand the creation of the puzzles rather than the answers is surely to create and define a more colourful literary history. We want to know what there was to hide. We probably won’t find out, but we can be as inquisitive as we like under the guise of ‘history’.

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Promethean Privacy

Published July 11, 2010 Geneva , research , Uncategorized 3 Comments
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Privacy, Self-Discipline

Wills Hall, 2005

This past fortnight, mixing with the best early-modernists and Marvellians in the world, exciting and exhilirating as it has been, has shown an alarming sense of insecurity. Alongside your scholarly idols, it is easy to see yourself as lacking. I am a confidence player, and my private mood plays a strong part in my efficiency and productiveness. I have sought crumbs of support, and been thrown crusts, only for other birds to steal in as I approach. I have been offered some great things, potentially, but have grown too sceptical to believe they can happen.

There are different types of insecurity. Sometimes I want to hide and slip away. Sometimes I look to talk more. I seek to gain respect, to find a moment of brilliance to match everyone else. It never comes. There are people out there who benefit unknowingly at my expense or effort. I suddenly become stirred if I hear these people mentioned, and yearn for some credit and respect back.

I am average and unremarkable, physically and mentally, and can do nothing to turn heads, academically or personably. Yet, to divulge these private acts of sacrifice that I have made, which may bring warmth or sympathy my way, is only to destroy what made the acts special, and also to destroy my dignity in the revelations. The only dignity I can build is in silence. There’s no winning; just a passage of time until I try to bring 2005 round again.

The Quest for Privacy

Published June 29, 2010 Geneva Leave a Comment
Tags: Andrew Marvell, Geneva, Literature, Privacy

[Written in a 7 min limit]

I have arrived in Geneva to present ‘Marvell, Maniban, and the Quest for Privacy’ at the Authorship Conference [listed under Sites]. This experience continues to be a mixture of anticipation and dread, for a number of private reasons.

One thing that has arisen, though, is how to present yourself to people you haven’t seen in a long time. Old primary school friends, almost all of whom I have not seen since the age of 11 [and definitely all of whom will remember me as a facetious little shit], have suggested a social event in July, which I would love to attend. But I’ve no idea how to fashion myself at all; the thought itself might just persuade me out of it.

And then there is the academic crowd I encounter again tomorrow: the fair and wonderful professionals who stand strong where I was weak, and who represent everything I want to represent and yet cannot. How do I reply to the old question ‘how’s it going’? To tell the truth, I fear, would just humiliate me beyond any further measure of respectability. And yet, where’s the hiding place? Help me, Mr Marvell.

Something Hard: Struggles in Self-Marketing

Published April 6, 2010 Geneva , Knightmare , research , Television 1 Comment
Tags: careers, communities, copywriting, CV, dilemma, Knightmare, research, Self-Confidence, Self-Discipline, Self-Marketing, Self-Promotion, training

Image lifted from Rob Cubbon's excellent guide to self-marketing.

PhD students typically do not market themselves very well.

PhD students are typically modest about their abilities.

PhD students do not always believe in their achievements.

Training programmes for research postgraduates now include a number of courses and events related to career development. These include CV workshops, presentation skills, interview skills, and so on. These messages, imparted from the courses, are their raison d’être, and they strike a strong chord.

It is a relief that these deficiencies affect a much broader cross-section than just me. But a concern of much greater weight is that scepticism about the value of this long-haul degree and where it will lead means a struggle to climb out of this bracket. How can one believe in their strengths, abilities, and the weight of your achievements if the growing concern is how weak their current course of life will leave them?

To an extent, this is going to revolve around occupation and personality. Some people recognize their aptitude for sales. Some recognize their aptitude for caring professions. The difficulty is in traversing boundaries, which is where the most-accosted ‘transferable skills’ come in.

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