What Nobody Told Me

Consider this a standard-issue "what I learned" reflection on the process of writing a dissertation. Consider this wrapped in a bundle of disclaimers. Learn from it at your own peril.

What they told me: Writing a dissertation is a marathon, not a sprint!
What they didn't tell me: Marathons and dissertations are profoundly satisfying!

This is a personal annoyance: Academics make glib references to marathon running, probably because one big task is like another big task by virtue of mutual bigness. But few academics have actually run marathons while writing the dissertation. I did!

I ran marathons while I was dissertating, and incidentally I would recommend taking up running if you're post-candidacy. I might not have finished my dissertation if it weren't for the self-esteem I developed by running a marathon. By running a lot, I developed a lot of attention to the limits of my body: not only in mileage, but also in the umpteen small injuries that a normal marathoner accumulates. As I paid attention to your body, I found a lot of situations in which I became stronger and outpaced my old limits. Mind you, I didn't express this to myself in the form of pinterest-worthy crossfit slogans: it's something that I never really articulated to myself before now. So running confers a kind of lived, bodily resilience that abides deeply throughout the rest of the dissertating process. 

Marathon running is nearly the perfect antidote to the dissertator's lifestyle: there is no sitting; there are no screens; you will become too exhausted to worry about stuff. Most importantly, if you are training specifically for a marathon then you will have a specific, actionable goal, independent of your academic life, that requires you to set aside your working life for a few hours a week. In short, the marathon obliges you to step away from the computer.

But there is some truth underneath the glibness: a marathon is indeed like a dissertation, but not for the reasons you're thinking.

1. Both running and writing can deeply enrich your appreciation of your self and your abilities. Again, I can't really confer in words the profound satisfaction that came to me during some runs as I crested a hill at mile 10 and saw a beautiful dawn spread out before me: but the closest comparison I can give you would be the deep satisfaction I felt at the office in the early morning, after I had been writing for a few hours, then sat back to watch the sun rise. Both kinds of achievement are deeply satisfying.
2. Throughout both marathon writing and dissertating, I had to develop an informed sensibility about working through discomfort. I've already expressed the running side of this, so let me elaborate on the writing side. The first two miles of a run always felt like crap for me; the first two hours of writing often felt the same. Running taught me that initial discomfort was merely a characteristic of "warm-up" to be embraced and outpaced. There were very few days when I felt inspired to write an awesome new idea; and often, those over-caffeinated moments almost always resulted in a bizarre scaffolding of concepts that didn't work in the final edit.
3. There are no gimmicks, or at least the only way to cheat is to cheat yourself. I once read about a guy who "ran" a marathon without any training by (1) sloppily run-walking and (2) stopping every half mile eat banana pieces. I wouldn't recommend this method to anybody, most of all because that weekend warrior might have seriously injured himself. Every technical victory is one technicality away from a substantial failure. Likewise, I've met people who were able to write their entire dissertations in a single fellowship semester--except "dissertation" in this sense means "minimum viable product." Those same people told me that the dissertating process was traumatizing and shameful, and that they had developed counterproductive habits of work that were making further academic life impossible. Now mind you, there's a lot to be said in favor of embracing the difficult path while writing a dissertation. But if you exert yourself so that you ruin your future working ability, that's not good work ethic--that's downright destructive.
4. Both running and dissertating will did weird stuff to my body. Maybe it's age; maybe it's doing too much of one activity at a time: for whatever reason, the long period in which I was unhappy about my progress, I had a small rock physically embedded into the ball of my foot. It was very uncomfortable. Someone I know said that writing a dissertation was harder on the body than carrying a pregnancy to term, and I believe her.
5. Last but not least, both end when you cross a magic line and get celebrated with a fun ornament: one is a medal, the other is a fancy robe. Same same.

What they told me: Set a schedule.
What they didn't tell me: The only schedule that counts is the one you can sustain by force of will.

Dissertators are commonly advised to set a schedule. But how can you set a schedule on authentic discovery and insight? There is a simple, happy--and most of all deceitful--model of an academic's working life: first you do the reading, then you identify a gap in the field, then you organize your notes, then you write about your contribution to the field, and lastly you edit it and submit it to your committee. This tidy, linear process is commonly prescribed with a well-rehearsed naivete, the insincerity of which fills me with rage.

Here are some of the implicit deceptions in the linear work-model I described above:

• There is no established set of texts which you must read to write a dissertation. It does not exist. You can plunder the reading lists of your committee, or of other scholars, but at best this will only make you read what everyone else has already read before you. Your exam reading was modeled to make you think like others in your field; your dissertation reading must make you think unlike others, while also maintaining enough credibility within your field. It is impossible to prescribe a reading list that will make your scholarship respectably unique. The least-bad advice is to read "the top journals in your field" (whatever that means) but that still elides that:
• I knew what I considered to be the top journals, and what I considered to be my field, but there were some very real disagreements about both.
• In some ways, my project might took issue with a fundamental premise beneath existing scholarship, in which case there's not much merit to pursuing more and more sophisticated versions of an idea that you believe is flawed from the outset.
• You may end up chasing fads and trends that were--based on the lifecycle of academic publishing--only in vogue at a few conferences several years ago. And the last thing your committee will be is trend-obsessed. I wasted years trying to justify my work to the wrong people based on trendy, new, exciting ideas in the scholarship. I have since learned to bet that the average committee is more likely to be annoyed by trends than to embrace them.
  (NB: There is a fundamental imbalance between the way that exams teach scholarly trends, and the way that committees ignore them. Remember that any professor who can carry a central argument across multiple long-term projects must be very skilled at reacting against the zillion alternatives that materialize along the way. Any professor with a long-running research agenda has learned how to read umpteen journal articles that challenge the central project, and then creating a satisfying response that leaves their own agenda more or less uncompromised. Thus: The history of academic ideas is revolutionary at the macro-level, and reactionary at the micro-level. Based on exam reading, the growth of academic thought seems to be a triumphant march from one bold idea to an even more sophisticated evolution. This may lead you to think that most people in the field are desperately searching for evocative new ways of approaching the field: they are not, to say the least.)
• What counts as "a gap in the field" is neither obvious nor objective. Presumably by the time that you have advanced past candidacy, a decent committee will have agreed to the basic gap that you have identified: but not all committees are so decent. I've seen some candidates bristle against the inherent conservatism of their committees, but ultimately relent: lazy committees expect a "gap in the field" to be nothing but a re-application of old methods. (See the above note about reactionary committees.) I saw this arrangement weighing heavily on doctoral candidates who slowly had their own approaches drubbed out of them.
  I have nothing but contempt for such incuriosity. This eventually leads to the decay of fields, as conferences receive more and more rote, predictable, papers which are organized around a restrictive set of approaches. That's not discovery, it's performance of a ritual.
• I did not know which notes, or which kinds of notes, counted for much until I was late in my writing process. There are two kinds of deceptive insight that occur during preparatory reading:
• The exam stage prepared me for a very schematic kind of reading. You can learn about it in my notes on this blog. As you can tell, my exam reading was very much organized around coverage and completion. My need for coverage and completion ended at the same time as my candidacy exam.
  By contrast, dissertations are organized around novelty and insight. Nobody cared, at my doctoral defense, if I could name all the characters in "The Changeling." They only cared about the soundness of my insights relative to the most relevant supporting ideas. 
• Anything important I was reading at the candidacy stage was somewhat difficult, and so I felt the "a-ha!" experience as part of the normal course of coming to understand core concepts.
  This is deceptive insofar as the insight that other people provide will directly not lead to an insight that you will, then, provide. It merely happens, by cosmic coincidence, that you are at once the person responsible for understanding past work as well as the person responsible for producing new, original work. The varieties of insight you experience in those two roles are not interchangeable.
• This is all a non-linear process.
  I wrote as I read, I read as I wrote, I edited as I read and wrote, etc. You get the idea; reading, organizing, composing, and revising were looped together for me. But this isn't because I was a disorganized person--I'd say I'm pretty tidy, personally--but because writing is not a container for thought! Or at least, that's not relevant to the kind of thinking that's needed for a dissertation-worthy idea, not a grocery list. The act of writing is a variety of thinking; it is articulated thought, and as such it possesses all of the non-linear, non-additive characteristics of thought itself. Writing, as a variety of thinking, is recursive, associative, and complex in a thousand more ways.

Holy Moses, that's a lot of commentary about academic workflow. But what about the schedule?

Lots of creative writers, artists, designers, et al. have already expressed smart things about the struggle to do creative work on a schedule. I procrastinated many hours while reading them. Here are some of my takeaways:

• I kept a "schedule" only in the sense that I jealously guarded a regular time to sit silently in front of the computer. I have never seen a successful doctoral candidate who did not have some version of this.
  I barely ever had a good writing session shorter than two hours, or longer than five. The upper limit is because there are only so many good ideas during any given day, and burnout is the enemy of progress. The lower limit is because, as I briefly mentioned before, I had to spend about that much time re-familiarizing myself with old ideas and clearing out bad ideas. On rare occasions, I had good, well-fitting ideas earlier than two hours into a session. 
• Some of my most admired writers, however, did stick to exact word counts. Because I view dissertation writing as inherently creative, insightful, and disruptive, I could never convince myself that I would produce some number of good ideas on average each day. But I also understood that I would never write enough if I only ever waited to have good ideas.
  So I set a "word count" for each day only in the sense that I set ambitious, pathetic, and moderate expectations for each writing session. In my mind, I called these "gold, bronze, and silver" goals, respectively. 
• The purpose of the ambitious goal is to inspire you. But if you rely only on ambitious goals, you'll never live up to your own expectations and burn out.
• The purpose of the pathetic goal is to embrace the worst-case scenario. I would think, "Even if everything goes wrong, at least I'll be able to do this much." Of course you won't finish in time at that rate, but at least you won't be stalled. I once heard from a writer who managed to write one paragraph per day, even as his beloved wife was dying (in fact, at her insistence!). This is not an invitation to have some perverse work ethic: rather, it gave me great comfort to know that, on difficult days, I would not be adding to my troubles with a dysfunctional urge to work. I felt a whoosh of relief each time that I passed my pathetic goal for the day.
• Moderate writing expectations, naturally, are somewhere in between. Play it by ear.
  You may simply skip the steps of creating ambitious and pathetic goals so that you can simply use moderate goals. I congratulate you. I am by default a black-and-white thinker, and I needed to explicitly remind myself that there are a range of acceptable outcomes. 
  Before I started setting a range of goals, I was caught in an unhealthy dynamic with my goals. Either I would fall short of a singular goal, which was discouraging, or I would exceed a singular goal, which made me raise my own standards for myself, thereby leading to future failure and discouragement. Perverse, isn't it?

What they told me: Find a writing habit that works for you.
What they didn't tell me: Try a zillion methods, and don't stick to any one for too long.


One of the worst things you can tell yourself during the dissertation process is this: I need to figure out what I'm saying before I start this section. That is counterproductive. You need to write down incomplete ideas in order to develop sophisticated ideas. This is true for three reasons.

1. First of all, if you have an impeccable, or tricky, or challenging line of thinking about something, that needs to be in the writing! That is the substance of your project, not the pre-writing! 
2. Second, as a matter of sheer practicality, you must write down complicated ideas because your brain is not big enough. The "compositor" function in your brain is good for sentence-level articulations, and paragraphs, with some training. Nobody's brain is big enough to hold a dissertation-length idea in all its crystalline complexity. Short-term linguistic memory just doesn't work like that.
3. Third, even if you can hold your entire dissertation "concept" in your mind at once, that is not really a dissertation concept. That thing that you're holding in your mind is either a sketch of the broad argument, or it is too parenthetical to really meet the needs of an academic field. 

Being persistently creative over a long span of time is not something that can be reduced to a formula: by definition, it would cease to be creative and would become familiar, even rote.

You may take exception to the characterization of dissertation writing as creative, but I would counter that people who already know the total contents of their dissertation before they write it are, as a rule, about to be deeply unhappy with the work of writing. If I could express an idea in full with fewer than 200 pages, why would I go through the chore of padding it out to 200 pages? Doctorates are not awarded based on mass and volume.

Likewise, I think that at a meta-level the work of writing a dissertation can become deeply dissatisfying if each sentence, each paragraph forces different ideas through the same cookie-cutter organization, composition, and revision process.

So, instead, write down the good ideas as they develop, and keep surprising yourself!

What they told me: Stay focused on the big picture; but also, everything works out in the end.
What they didn't tell me: 
(A) Long-term planning is important 
but (B) draining, and so try not to think in totalizing terms.

(A)
This section could also be called, "Apologia for Millennials," because it is a metonym of the drama between Millennials and older generations.

Every time I talk to a young person with careerist concerns, the concerns take this shape:

I have multiple viable options. There are pros and cons to each side, and I don't have a clear-cut way of deciding how I weight them. Furthermore, each side has a lot of uncertainty within itself, and I don't know if I feel safe jumping to one side or another without knowing which one will ultimately work out.

And every time I hear a person discussing this, their counsel pulls out this old chestnut:

It will all work out.

And if you have consulted with a person with extraordinary self-awareness, you might even get an answer that fits into this shape:

I had some times when I was very uncertain, and I didn't know how it would work out. I chose one side for reasons that everybody finds trivial because there was no way to make a satisfying choice with the information I had at the time. But now I'm confident that I made the right choice, for equally mystifying reasons.

I have seen this kind of counsel take place many, many times. It is a waste of time primarily because the counselor invalidates the frustration that comes from indecision, and is generally incurious about the decision-making rules that are being applied. A dentist's sticker can tell you "it will all work out," but that doesn't mean that the sticker has an informed opinion on your situation. To hear this advice from many sources is a bit like getting this sticker instead of a counselling appointment: it can be quite flippant and insincere!

If you are reading this, and you are in the situation of the young person with careerist concerns, this is my affirmation to you: Your career decision will matter greatly, and so you should be sensible and perspicacious. I can't speak to the specifics of anyone's situation, because the details are extremely important information when making weighty decisions. The details of any decision give it flavor and texture. Anyone who can give you hard-and-fast rules for making important decisions is like a wine critic who operates only on first principles. Just as a wine critic can only, by first principle, eliminate certain toxicities; likewise, there are some logical fallacies that you might learn, and those can instantly eliminate certain lines of thought, but there are no intrinsically self-validating reasons to choose between two career options.

There is no one else who can make your decision for you. You have to "own" a career decision for good or ill. Therefore I urge you to do the work of learning about each option extensively, conduct informational interviews, and take warning signs with the appropriate weight.

But more optimistically, whenever you have multiple viable options, you should remind yourself that you are in a win-win situation. Every option is in some respects acceptable.

(B)
But don't put every "egg" into the decision "basket."

This is another kind of thinking I've seen a young, career-minded person follow:

How can I focus on writing my dissertation if I don't know whether or not I'm going to be moving to Tennessee at the end of this year. If I move to Tennessee, then I won't have the resources to write my chapter on XYZ so I should start changing my project now; but if I don't move to Tennessee, I really want to write my XYZ chapter because it is the heart of my project. And stalling is not an option, because I'm running out of time to finish my degree. 

I call this backwards-inference: you start with one of a few outcomes, and from that you infer the kinds of steps you need to take to get there. This is a totally valid kind of thinking in some situations, like a chess game. But unlike a chess game, dissertating is filled with infinite choices. There's always trap doors lurking under your next step, for good or ill. I can't tell you how many times I've watched a PhD candidate think themselves into a metaphorical corner, only to discover that one of the earlier options they presumed to be impossible was, in fact, very possible.

The core condition I'm describing is one rife with uncertainty, and that uncertainty can produce extreme outcomes. Feast or famine. Reality follows non-linear, non-additive processes. Trying to think it through in advance, like trying to create a schedule for the rest of your dissertation, is an exercise in futility.

In a phrase: Don't let this choice get in the way of your plan, and don't let your plan get in the way of this choice.

TL;DR

• You have entered into a situation defined by uncertainty.
• If anyone already knew what you were about to discover, then there wouldn't be any point for you to do this.
• The kind of uncertainty expected from outside your project will often be different than the uncertainty inside your project.
• The process of discovery is the art of leveraging uncertainty.
• You can try follow a plan to discover something, and that can help brush off distractions.
• But you can also use things that disrupt your plan as the occasion for deeper discovery.
• You must also self-care.

Early Modernity Today: 6 January

On today's date:

1504: Henry VII appoints Richard Pynson king's printer.

Pynson's experience in legal printing, as well as his connections at court, made him well qualified to be king's printer, a post which he held from as early as 6 January 1506, when he first styles himself regius impressor. He had already received several government commissions, including Ordenaunces of Warre in 1492 and, in 1500, Traduction & Mariage of the Princesse, issued in preparation for Prince Arthur's marriage to Katherine of Aragon. Henry VII had created the post of king's printer in 1504 apparently to coincide with the last parliament of his reign. The crown's first appointee, William Faques, printed the statutes for that parliament as well as the first extant printed proclamation, regarding coinage. The earliest opportunity Pynson had, in his official capacity, to print the original edition of the sessional statutes came with the opening parliament of Henry VIII's reign, in 1510. However, it was not until 1512, when Pynson—always the shrewd businessman—secured the exclusive right to print all statutes and proclamations, that the king's printer became the true precursor of HMSO.     (Neville-Singleton)

1552: Thomas Chaloner's dialogue performed at Epiphany.

After a play or interlude performed at Epiphany (6 January) there was a dialogue, Youth and Riches, which may have been by Ferrers's friend Thomas Chaloner, with whom he collaborated on A Mirror for Magistrates; the dialogue was followed by barriers, masques for men and women, and a banquet.     (Wouldhuysen)

1579: Henry Denham fails to attend on the Lord Mayor.

On 6 January 1579 he failed to attend before the lord mayor and incurred a fine of 12d., and in August he was fined for arresting a freeman of the company without a licence. However, a 20s. fine in April 1584 for using indecent speech to the upper warden was remitted.     (Brewerton)

1585: Walter Raleigh knighted.

Although now at the heart of the court, Ralegh remained very much the Devon man. Apart from Aubrey's interesting assertion that Ralegh spoke ‘broad Devonshire’ to his dying day (Brief Lives, 2.182), it is known that the newly established courtier tried in July 1584 to purchase his birthplace, ‘Hayes, a farme sumtyme in my fathers possession’ (Devon RO, MS 2850Z/Z3). This attempt failed, but many of the honours bestowed upon him by the queen had a deliberate regional slant. Knighted on 6 January 1585, he was appointed vice-admiral of the west, lord lieutenant of Cornwall, and, with the death of Francis Russell, second earl of Bedford, lord warden of the stannaries in the same year. He also served as a knight of the shire for Devon in the parliaments of 1584 and 1586.     (Nicholls and Williams)

1591: Anthony Copley writes for pardon from Elizabeth.

As he admitted on his return to England in 1590, ‘since that time till now … I have served the king of Spaine in his warres in Flanders’ (ibid.). Copley was arrested shortly after his arrival in England, and it was from prison, on 6 January 1591, that he wrote this to William Waad, clerk of the privy council. In the same letter he sought the queen's pardon and employment, swearing loyalty ‘to my prince and country’ (ibid.). He proved his loyalty in a series of letters detailing the whereabouts and activities of English Catholic fugitives and the unscrupulous, harsh conduct of his former patron, Parma.     (Graves)

1592: Thomas Dempsey disinherited.

While Dempster was receiving this early education, his family became embroiled in an internal feud. This was caused by James, his eldest brother, marrying his father's mistress, Isabella Gordon, for which his father disinherited him. James sought revenge by gathering some Gordon associates and attacking his father as he rode about his business one morning. In the resultant battle several men on both sides were killed, and James Dempster fled Scotland. That he was disinherited is confirmed by a charter of 6 January 1592, which gives the barony of Muiresk to the elder Dempster's second son, Robert.     (Toit)

1604: James I appoints Henry Howard constable and lord warden.

On 6 January 1604 Howard was made constable of Dover Castle and lord warden of the Cinque Ports—positions which he held to his death.     (Croft)

1618: Ben Jonson's Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue performed before James.

Crane's earliest surviving dramatic transcript, the unique copy of Ben Jonson's Pleasure Reconciled to Virtue (Chatsworth House, Chatsworth MSS), performed before King James on 6 January 1618, need not indicate a formal connection with the King's Company rather than the playwright.     (Howard-Hill)

1631: Sir John Oldcastle performed at court.

Consequently, Sir John Oldcastle has for some time attracted great attention, not only because it is the sole extant play in which Hathway had a hand, but because it has become part of the Shakespeare apocrypha. Theatre historians commonly agree that Oldcastle influenced Shakespeare's Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, and Henry V (Corbin and Sedge, 9–12). Moreover, there are two recorded court performances of Oldcastle by the King's Men, the playing company in which Shakespeare was earlier an actor and shareholder. These were preserved in the office book kept by the master of the revels, Sir Henry Herbert, in entries for 6 January 1631 and 29 May 1638 (Bentley, 1.96, 99).     (Cerasano)

1647: Stationers' Company raids Richard Overton's house for Leveller pamphlet.

Overton may have collaborated with Henry Marten on Vox plebis (1646), and later that month he published An Unhappy Game of Scotch and English, a savage attack on the Scottish presbyterians which the Commons condemned to be burned on 30 November. He was also the probable author of Regall Tyrannie Discovered, published in January 1647 (often attributed to Lilburne, despite his own disclaimer), the first Leveller pamphlet to call for the execution of the king. The Lords condemned this pamphlet as treasonous, ordering the arrest of anyone involved in its publication. On 6 January officers of the Stationers' Company raided Overton's house where they discovered his wife and his brother Thomas stitching copies of the offending pamphlet.     (Gibbons)

1649: John Aubrey sparks interest in Avebury.

It was on 6 January 1649, while on a return trip from Oxford to Wiltshire, that Aubrey ‘discovered’ the megalithic monument at Avebury. The posthumous publication of Inigo Jones's book on Stonehenge in 1655 stimulated his further investigations of ancient megaliths, and when Walter Charleton published a rebuttal of Jones's theory in 1663 he recommended Aubrey to Charles II. Aubrey waited on the king during his trip to the west country that year and at his request surveyed Avebury in September ‘with a plaine-table and afterwards tooke a review of Stoneheng’ where he discovered the ring of holes just inside the surrounding ditch which now bears his name. The resulting papers, ‘Templa druidum’ and ‘Review of Stonehenge’, were completed in 1665 and by 1693 had developed into the ‘Monumenta Britannica, or, A miscellanie of British antiquities’ (Bodl. Oxf., MSS top. gen. c.24 and 25).     (Fox)

 1670: Samuel Pepys defends the Navy Board to Charles II.

Meanwhile the Brooke House commissioners had submitted eighteen ‘Observations’ on the conduct of the Navy Board during the war. By 27 November Pepys had completed a weighty response to each observation, which he followed on 6 January 1670 with a ‘particular defence’ of his own role. The issues were debated in a series of special meetings of the privy council chaired by the king, who had smartly manoeuvred the inquiry into a forum he could control (3 January–21 February).      (Knighton)

1683: Charles II knights Edward Sherburne.

On 6 January 1683 Charles II knighted Sherburne:

in consideration of his great sufferings, and the long and faithful services by him performed … having also suffered several indignities from the faction at the time of the Popish Plot, who endeavoured to out him of his Place, for being, as they supposed, a Rom. Cath. (Wood, Ath. Oxon.: Fasti, 2.19)     (Quehen)

Works Cited

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Croft, Pauline. “Howard, Henry, earl of Northampton (1540–1614).” Pauline CroftOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 7 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/13906>.

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Nicholls, Mark and Penry Williams. “Ralegh, Sir Walter (1554–1618).” Mark NichollsOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 7 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/23039>.

Quehen, Hugh de. “Sherburne, Sir Edward (bap. 1616, d. 1702).” Hugh de QuehenOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 7 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/25359>.

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Early Modernity Today: 5 January

On today's date:

1579: The Duke of Anjou's agent arrives in England to discuss marriage with Elizabeth.

Sidney and his father went to meet Casimir on the Kent coast and accompanied him to London, where he arrived at the Tower on 22 January. The visit was a social success with extravagant gifts and entertainment, but the queen would not accede to any of the prince's requests, and the party left on 14 February, in such a hurry—‘as if they were taking leave of enemies, not of friends’ (Duncan-Jones, Sidney: Courtier Poet, 158)—that Languet did not have the chance to say farewell properly to Sidney and Dyer. The disappointment of this visit was compounded by the arrival in England on 5 January of Jean de Simier, Anjou's agent, whose task it was to open negotiations for his marriage to the queen. The debates at court and within the privy council over the marriage continued throughout the year: Sidney was bound, not least by family ties, to be part of the anti-marriage faction that gathered around Leicester, Walsingham, Pembroke, and Hatton, and which was opposed by a smaller group, led by Burghley and Sussex, which, if it did not fully support the marriage, did not wish to rule it out immediately. In July Simier revealed Leicester's secret marriage to Elizabeth (who was furious), and the earl's faction received another blow when Anjou himself arrived in England on 17 August.     (Woudhuysen)  

1606: Ben Jonson's Hymenaei presented at court to celebrate Frances Howard's marriage to the Earl of Essex.

Hymenaei was presented at court on 5 January 1606 in celebration of the marriage of the young earl of Essex and Frances Howard—and, through Jonson's deft contrivance, James's parallel ‘marriage’ of the two kingdoms. The printed version of the masque, published later that year, contained Jonson's provocative comparison of the outward ‘show’ of the court masque—Jones's scenes and machines—to the transitory human body, and the poetic text of the masque—his own contribution—to the enduring soul.     (Donaldson)

1641: Henry Walker throws a pamphlet into the king's carriage.

During 1641 Walker was repeatedly in trouble for writings and publications. In March he was briefly committed to the Fleet prison for two libellous pamphlets provocatively conflating episcopacy with popery, The Prelates Pride and Verses on the Wren and Finch. In December 1641 the Commons sent for him as a delinquent. Sudden notoriety came on 5 January 1642 when he threw into the king's carriage a pamphlet (now lost) entitled To Your Tents, O Israel. He was arrested, escaped, and was recaptured before coming to trial. He denied authorship but was convicted on the testimony of the printer. After begging the king's pardon he was sentenced to the pillory.     (Raymond)

1642: George Wither paid by Parliament for his services.

From 1642 onwards Wither struggled to secure adequate compensation for his efforts in support of the parliamentarian cause. According to The Protector (1655) he had attended the house every day for twelve years. At the outbreak of the first civil war, he had borrowed £700 to pay his troops, which was never adequately reimbursed and compounded by the burden of interest repayments. On 5 January 1643 the committee for safety finally paid Wither £128, and on 9 February the House of Commons authorized him to recoup his losses out of delinquents' estates.     (Callaghan)

Works Cited

Donaldson, Ian. “Jonson, Benjamin (1572–1637).” Ian DonaldsonOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Sept. 2013. 6 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/15116>.

O'Callaghan, Michelle. “Wither, George (1588–1667).” Michelle O'CallaghanOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. May 2014. 6 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/29804>.

Raymond, Joad. “Walker, Henry (fl. 1638–1660).” Joad RaymondOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 6 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/40242>.

Woudhuysen, H. R.. “Sidney, Sir Philip (1554–1586).” H. R. WoudhuysenOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Sept. 2014. 6 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/25522>.

The Party Planning Committee

Vancouver, here we come!

The "eat your own dogfood" school of research instruction

Professors research and they instruct, and they are evaluated on both. But the evidence for evaluating research is different than the evidence for evaluating teaching.

• The evidence of research (a peer-reviewed publication of some sort) is concrete, authoritative (in the humanities, sole authorship is the norm), modular (one publication is understood to be distinct from another), and peer-evaluated by other researchers. 
• The evidence of teaching (some student evaluations of some kind) is immaterial, dialogical (insofar as the students also participate), interstitial (teaching activities overlap from one activity to another), and evaluated by students in the aggregate.

I believe that the evidence of research enables professors to have clearer and better-defined goals for research than teaching. This is why I believe that professors understand teaching as a rival to research.

Ideally, research can strengthen teaching, and teaching can strengthen research. In my experience, some professors approach teaching as a byproduct of expert research. That is, a professor develops expertise in some niche, and can thereby share this expertise with students. In the "byproduct" approach, the professor is the center of the classroom, and the students are a peripheral contingency. In other words: the research comes first, the students come last.

Alternately, the "eat your own dogfood" approach emphasizes the reciprocal relationship between professors and students, teaching and research. The term comes from investors' jargon, but it can also apply to cases auto-critique: such as when where Apple Computers replaced their typewriters with computerized word processors.

In my case, I've got a clear opportunity to "eat my own dogfood." I'm researching a dissertation; I teach research & composition. I think the things  I do and the things I teach are relatively analogous, and I think my students and I can learn from the same things. For example, whenever I run into a research or composition problem in my own dissertation, I write worksheets. These worksheets are typically:

• generalized from my immediate problem to the standard methods of humanities research
• informed by research published in College English, Pedagogy, etc.
• consistent with Writing Center and Writing Across the Curriculum practices (available through blogs, instructional sites, etc.)
• coherent with past classes, lessons, and worksheets

 Now I find that there are three big advantages to writing these worksheets that allow me to revise my earlier description of teaching output.

1. Old:  The output of teaching is immaterial.
   New: My worksheets provide me with a template for solutions in present and future composition & research problems.
2. Old: The output of teaching is dialogical
   New:My worksheets are open to collaboration with students. That is, unlike the "byproduct" approach, my students don't simply internalize the procedures that I've laid out for them. Rather, I can use my students as peer evaluators for my own principles of research and composition.
3. Old: The output of teaching is interstitial
   New: My worksheets emphasize meta-reflection, which is one of the eight habits of mind endorsed by the CPWA framework for success in postsecondary writing
   

Early Modernity Today: 4 January

On this date, 4 January:

1553-4: George Ferrers and courtiers perform at city and court.

Ferrers presented himself at court by coming ‘oute of the mone’ (Anglo, 306), and his entourage was extensive. There was a play on Christmas day; on 2 January 1552 the lord of misrule was involved in a ‘dronken Maske’ (ibid.), and on the next evening took part in a mock midsummer-night revel, which probably included jousting on horseback. The visit to the city took place on 4 January, when Ferrers was accompanied by a great number of young knights, many on horses, and all wearing yellow and green baldricks around their necks: among his attendants were ‘Counseilloures’ (ibid., 305), among them Sir Robert Stafford and Thomas Wyndham. They landed at Tower wharf and proceeded by way of Tower Hill to a large scaffold by the cross at Cheapside. The lord was accompanied by music and morris dancers, as well as a guard of a hundred men in red and white. At the scaffold the lord of misrule's office and progeny were proclaimed, wine was distributed, and Ferrers rode to the lord mayor, with whom he had dinner: later they visited the lord treasurer at the Austin Friars, went to Bishopsgate, and returned to Greenwich from Tower wharf. The revels accounts reveal that the entertainment involved gaolers, manacles, locks, stocks, a pillory, a gibbet, an executioner's axe and block, and other items for imprisonment and punishment.

Ferrers's role as lord of misrule in the entertainments and in the visit to the city appears to be without precedent, and was sufficiently successful for him to be appointed to the position again the following year. This time he intended to come ‘oute of a place caulled vastum vacuum’ (Anglo, 309), where he was supposed to have been since last year, in a blue costume. On Christmas day an ambassador and interpreter would prepare the king for his arrival with his even more exotic entourage on the next day by ship at Greenwich. Again there was jousting and a mock midsummer show on new year's day and a visit to the city on 4 January: it reprised the theme of imprisonment and execution.      (Woudhuysen)

1616: James I gives a large New Year's gift to William Herbert.

Pembroke must have organized the Christmas revels of 1615 well pleased by the events of the year, but the threat to his position represented by his erstwhile client Villiers grew far more quickly than the new lord chamberlain could have expected. James gave the young man a handsome new year's gift on 4 January 1616, making Villiers master of the horse. When, that summer, James visited Wilton, it was with Villiers in tow. Pembroke's appointment as a commissioner to execute the office of earl marshal in September was hardly adequate compensation for the prominence of the newly ennobled Viscount Villiers.     (Stater)

1618: James Shirley registers first poem with Stationers.

Soon afterwards, on 4 January 1618, his first known poem ‘Ecco and Narcissus the 2 Unfortunate Lovers’ was entered in the Stationers' register. No copy of this remains, although editors agree that it is probably the poem about Narcissus in the 1646 edition of Shirley's poems.    (Clark)

1659: Thomas Gumble gets out of bed.

He, however, was quick to secure comfortable lodgings for himself and, on the morning of 4 January, was observed to have ‘stragled out of his Quarters [on the road between Wooler and Morpeth], and found Christmasse-Pie and strong Beer at a Gentleman's House’ (Price, 77).    (Callow)

1690: Richard Stafford presents a tract arguing for the Jacobite cause.

After the revolution of 1688 Stafford devoted his attention to promoting the Jacobite cause. On 4 January 1690, ‘out of burning zeal’, he presented to parliament his A Supplemental Tract of Government (Wood, Ath. Oxon., 2.1124). In this he laid out Christ's laws of government and argued that the revolutionaries had departed ‘from the established and fixed order of things he hath set up’ (Stafford, Supplemental Tract, 1). England, therefore, stood under divine judgment. This action led to his imprisonment at Newgate for four weeks.    (Cornwall)

1698: Fleetwood Sheppherd corrects reports of his demise.

Sheppard's last and best joke may have been his death, unmarried and without children, in 1698. In September 1694 Godolphin was informed that Sheppard was dead. Sir Fleetwood was able to deny this report himself, while ‘confessing that he was afflicted with the stone for the last 12 or 14 years’ (Redington, 385). In December 1697 he was again reported to be ‘dead or dying’ (CSP dom., 1697, 538), but on 4 January 1698 the report was denied: ‘Sir Fletw. Shepherd has deceived us, and still lives’ (CSP dom., 1698, 12).     (Ellis)

Works Cited

Callow, John. “Gumble, Thomas (bap. 1626, d. 1676).” John CallowOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/11735>.

Clark, Ira. “Shirley, James (bap. 1596, d. 1666).” Ira ClarkOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/25427>.

Cornwall, Robert D.. “Stafford, Richard (bap. 1663, d. 1703).” Robert D. CornwallOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/26213>.

Ellis, Frank H.. “Sheppard, Sir Fleetwood (1634–1698).” Frank H. EllisOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/25342>.

Stater, Victor. “Herbert, William, third earl of Pembroke (1580–1630).” Victor StaterOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Jan. 2008. 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/13058>.

Woudhuysen, H. R.. “Ferrers, George (c.1510–1579).” H. R. WoudhuysenOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 4 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/9360>.

Early Modernity Today: 3 January

On this date, 3 January:


1540: Henry VIII meets Anne of Cleves.

On 3 January, after Henry had greeted her publicly on Blackheath Common, he instructed Cromwell to question her ambassadors about the validity of her Lorraine union. Having requested a day's delay (not two days', as some scholars maintain) to consider their response, they swore on 4 January that she was not the wife of Lorraine and promised to have a copy of the contract forwarded to England.    (Warnicke)

1563: William Rastell flees to Louvain from the Elizabethan regime.

Rastell's appointment as a justice of the queen's bench on 27 October 1558, three weeks before the queen's death, was renewed the following month by Elizabeth I, but he was unable to reconcile himself to the new religious settlement and on 3 January 1563 he again fled to Louvain. An inventory of the books seized from his study in Serjeants' Inn included a selection of classical authors. Rastell lived in Louvain until his death on 27 August 1565, when he was buried in the church of St Pierre beside his wife, Winifred. During this second exile Rastell is said to have written a life of More. Only a fragment of it, mostly concerning John Fisher, has survived for certain; though a Latin account of More's condemnation (‘Ordo condemnationis Mori’) has also been attributed to him.     (Baker)

1600: William Smith registers "Sonets by W.S." with the Stationer's Company.

Smith, William (fl. 1596), poet, dedicated to Edmund Spenser a sequence of sonnets, entitled Chloris, or, The Complaint of the Passionate Despised Shepheard (1596)... There is no evidence that ‘Sonnets by W. S.’, entered in the Stationers' register on 3 January 1600, was related either to the author of Chloris or to Shakespeare.     (Brink)

1614: Ben Jonson's The Irish Masque performed after Frances Howard's marriage to Robert Carr.

On 26 December 1613 Frances Howard was married to Robert Carr, newly created earl of Somerset, and was led to the altar by Jonson's old enemy, her great-uncle Henry Howard, the earl of Northampton. Jonson, who had written Hymenaei in celebration of Frances Howard's first marriage in 1606, was now required to help celebrate her dubious second match. A Challenge at Tilt (performed on 27 December 1613 and 1 January 1614) and The Irish Masque (performed on 29 December 1613 and 3 January 1614) were the result. Whether Jonson was aware of the already circulating rumours that the couple had conspired to poison Overbury, it is impossible to say. The precise facts of the situation would at this stage have been far from clear, but the extreme awkwardness of Jonson's position must have been very evident.     (Donaldson)

1641: George Coke sent to London.

In December 1641 Coke was one of the twelve bishops who petitioned parliament, for which he was impeached and imprisoned for seventeen weeks. Retiring to his see, he was in Hereford in April 1643 when it fell to the parliament but, under the articles of surrender of the town, escaped molestation. However, when Hereford fell for the second time, in December 1645, he was captured and taken to Gloucester, and on 3 January 1646 the Commons ordered that he and the other prisoners be sent to London.     (Atherton)

1661: Samuel Pepys sees women on stage.

Pepys had first seen women on the stage at Killigrew's theatre, on 3 January 1661, as he noted without comment. Davenant's articles of agreement with his players show that he too had decided to use actresses: but he wisely did not deploy them until he opened at the Duke's Playhouse, where he would have rehearsed them with special care. He had recruited eight, and boarded the four principals, mistresses Davenport, Saunderson, Gibbs, and Norris, in his own part of the building. With them too he was fortunate: Mary Saunderson was the first leading English professional actress.     (Edmond)

Works Cited

Atherton, Ian. “Coke, George (1570–1646).” Ian AthertonOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 3 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/5827>.

Baker, J. H.. “Rastell, William (1508–1565).” J. H. BakerOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. May 2008. 3 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/23151>.

Brink, Jean R.. “Smith, William (fl. 1596).” Jean R. BrinkOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 3 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/25921>.

Donaldson, Ian. “Jonson, Benjamin (1572–1637).” Ian DonaldsonOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Sept. 2013. 3 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/15116>.

Edmond, Mary. “Davenant , Sir William (1606–1668).” Mary EdmondOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oct. 2009. 3 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/7197>.

Warnicke, Retha M.. “Anne [Anne of Cleves] (1515–1557).” Retha M. WarnickeOxford Dictionary of National Biography. Online ed. Ed. Lawrence Goldman. Oxford: OUP, . 3 Jan. 2015 <http://www.oxforddnb.com.proxy.lib.ohio-state.edu/view/article/558>.