Scott and I have had a busy Spring Break, especially since neither of us are actually taking a break. I'm still teaching at my other college that will have a later break, and we're both doing a ton of researching and writing for our semester projects and papers. Just once, I wish I could have a decent vacation. But, I am grateful for a week off of school and tutoring, and I just hope that I can get everything done in time to at least enjoy the weekend a tiny bit. I think I'm going to get a massage. :)
My research is really interesting right now. I'm working on reading a series of New England Puritan sermons from about 1650-1750. I'm tracing the metaphor of death as sleep through these sermons and trying to form some of my own conclusions about how the Puritan settlers' ideas of both death and sleep were changing as a result of these publications. There's a really fascinating dichotomy that I've found in the way they talk about the death of believers as a kind of sleep, while the death of the unholy was a restless prison. I am hoping that--eventually, and after much more research--I'll be able to make some connections between Puritan beliefs of death and sleep and my former Gothic lit arguments of sleep as a fragment of death. I would love to write my dissertation on sleep in British literature, and I'm glad I was able to find something in this American History seminar that at least tangentially relates to my interests. I only wish I didn't have to read my sleep sermons in Special Collections! They have so few hours, and it's impossible to get comfortable and settle in with a book.
On the other side of things, I'm working on a text edit of Shakespeare's Henry V, reading many books all at the same time, grading rather large stacks of essays, and trying to keep my many employers happy.
In my meager spare time (or as the Puritans would write, my meagere sparre Tyme), I'm thinking about how crazy this summer will be since we have two weddings in Texas to go to (be in?) and we are also taking a trip with my sister, her hubby, and their toddler to Tennessee and Georgia. I am soooo psyched for this trip! But, I can't think about it toooo much right now or else I won't want to do any work at all.
Love to the fam. <3 KB
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Classics Challenge 2009!
click here to sign up!!
1.
2. Hard Times by Charles Dickens (in progress! 4-1-09)
3. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
4. The Purloined Letter by Edgar Allan Poe
5. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
6. Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
7. Someday Classic Bonus: ???? by E. L. Doctorow
update 4-3-09
I've replaced one of the above with Bram Stoker's Dracula. Yummy scary books. Rarrr.
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