The Great Conference Debate

 I will be spending the next few months writing up my first conference paper with a view to trotting it out left, right and centre over the course of the coming year - although I suppose technically I have the potential to trot out 3 or 4 papers from my first chapter since I cover a few smaller issues within it. 

As I sat down to start my alterations I was made to consider the fact that far ahead of my submission I was laying all of my cards on the table.  My final viva is about 2 years away and yet I am hesitant to divulge all of the nuances of my argument to a public who have not my best interests at heart.  I highly doubt that my ideas are so wholly marketable as to warrant 'theft.'  If such things are even capable of being stolen in a real sense.  After all at this moment there could be someone examining the Victorian novel through the medium of the law in some other college and their expression and mine might be so different as the render our works polar opposites but  still the nagging little fear has remained.

In reality there are positives and negatives to creating and delivering conference papers.  On the positive there is the capacity to test one's theories, to dip a toe into the receptive waters and see how the academic public at large find your theories and the weight of your argument -on the whole a worthwhile endeavour.  After al, you might as well be told by a room full of strangers a year ahead of your viva that your argument lacks clout as to wait until the viva itself and be told that you need to beef up your content.  On the other hand, it does come down to jumping the gun! To go to a conference and tell the world about the theory or academic model that you are pinning a career on seems risky!

I suppose it is the paranoia and nerves of a first timers and is born mostly out of my nerves about answering to a panel of strangers! Answering to my faculty and fellow PhD's is one thing but strangers who don't understand me or my work and trusting my expression to carry me through is rather another!

THERE! That's my weekly existential crisis committed to paper!

The Search For A Title

I mentioned in the last post the problems I was having with my title well, I felt I should elucidate a little on this.  When I created my chapter structure I had a very clear idea of what it was I was intending to write about –the writer and the legislative process! It was all nicely planned in my head; I had trial transcripts of various authors’ entanglements with the law and I was intent upon drawing connections between these transcripts and the contents of their novels but then I started writing and a much more interesting idea came to the fore and rather quickly stole the show, an examination of the expression of authorial attitudes towards legal Realism and legal Formalism.  I was rather smitten (and yes I know it’s sad to be smitten by a chapter idea but there it is) and I proceeded with an examination of how authors expressed their disdain or support for these ideologies in their work, specifically in their characterisation. 

I was chugging along swimmingly, the chapter is complete and I’m looking at my finished piece, very different to what I had started writing, but still operating under the same working title that I had given it 3 months ago and which now no longer fits.  I was struggling to come up with an idea and moaned my displeasure to facebook, looking for some indulgent sympathy rather than an answer.  I didn’t get my answer, although one person did offer genuine assistance, but my bad mood was considerably lightened by some of the mock answers I received:

• "Law and The Victorian Novel A Time Traveler's Approach: Timey Wimeyness in the Judicial Process”
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• “Pride, Prejudice, and Cocaine: Regency drug law in operation” ‎
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• "Mr. Popular Sentience: The Borg and Dickens"
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• “People I know who would've been hanged by now and why”
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• "Formalist Legal Acquisitions and Brains: Propriety Rights and Legality in Pride Prejudice and Zombies"
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• “To kill a mocking bastard: Provocation law in the Deep South”
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• “War and my "piece”: Sex Crimes and Tolstoy”
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• “The Law's a Posterior - Legality and Victorian Gentility”
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• “Law Love A Duck - Cockneys and Illegal Animal Husbandry”
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• “Tyburn Tree - A history of deforestation in the greater Bangkok area”
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• “I shot the sheriff, but I swear it was in self defence - Pleas of diminished responsibility in the works of Bob Marley”
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• “I shot the sheriff, and they say it is a capital offence - Problems of ambiguity in the legal application of the death penalty in the works of Bob Marley”

I am not ashamed to say that I am tempted to actually attempt a conference paper on more than one of these!  Sex crimes and Tolstoy! There might be a nice little paper in there somewhere!  Anyway! I still have no thoughts as to my new title but I’m sure it will come!

It's Almost Time...

I appreciate that it has been some time since last I made a post and to be honest it's entirely my own fault.  I've been working my butt off trying to get my first chapter...or rather technically second chapter completed and I guess this is more an update than a proper post.  I do promise a proper full length post on my dear A.C.D at some point in the near future.  

 I decided against writing my first chapter for a myriad of reasons but really it's because I felt that it would be easiest to write at the end of this process since it sort of chronicles the entirety of the Victorian period rather than a distinct idea as the rest of the chapters.  So the second chapter it was! It is an examination of the expression legal procedural ideologies in 3 Victorian novels.  I was a little iffy on it at the start but it really gathered pace and I think is a long over looked reading of the Victorian novel. 

The Chapter's title is an adaptive process, since the thrust of the argument has developed as I wrote it the original title of 'A Trying Situation: The Writer and the Legislative Process' no longer applies and I am searching for a new one -although it is proving more elusive than originally anticipated. 

 

To say that I was nervous about feedback was something of an understatement, I've been climbing the walls for three days over it, waiting for someone to tell me it's terrible that I really need to reconsider my life choices and that KFC is still hiring.  In the end however, it was no where near as bad as anticipated, in fact, it was really rather affirming, with my supervisor, who is a George Eliot specialist telling me that he found my argument excellent and my topic 'brilliantly unique.' *cue excited blush*  From him, at least, it's high praise, a bit like Andrea Bochelli telling you that you can sing.   

My chapter in the end is 18,000 words in length, which seems over long as I intended to make each chapter between 10-12,000.  It seems overlong but I have assurances from my supervisor that there is nothing he would remove and that the length issue will sort itself out as I write other chapters, since there is room for cross over which will facilitate trimming the fat later. 

So my confirmation of registration Viva is in a few weeks, the 25th of be precise and while my feedback has calmed me somewhat I am still as nervous as heck about it.  I anticipate spending the next fortnight like a rabid dog, killing dead things and with rapidly diminishing sanity and patience.  In final news I got my studentship, 18k a year to help my research, including a fee waiver and a £1,000 budget for conferences and academic facilities I might need.  Very excited by that!