Interview meme
This lack of e-mailed comments is really starting to get annoying. lj_maintenance claims it's fixed, but as yet I have nothing in my inbox. Did the snowflake cookies break LJ permanently?
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1. Nineties sci-fi and dramedy! What do you like, and what don't you like?
I perhaps spoke too quickly when I claimed dramedy; really, my only entrants in that one are Northern Exposure, which is still my most favorite television series ever, and due South. NX I love for a long, long list of reasons, but the fact that the episodes are endlessly rewatchable because I always get something new out of them, in the manner of good literature, is high up on the list. The small town and quirky-yet-true-and-charming characters are up there as well, as is the assumption that the audience is smart, and will understand references to Hegel and Jung, be willing to follow the characters on spiritual journeys, etc. dS I enjoy for the offbeat humor, mostly.
As for sci-fi...God, what SF show didn't I watch in the nineties? I was a fan of all the Star Treks, the X-Files, Earth 2, Space: Above and Beyond, a little-known show called Mission Genesis, Farscape (which premiered in July 1999, so it squeaks in)... The glaring omission there is Babylon 5, which as I'm sure you remember, I inhaled this past spring, thus filling a hole in my life I didn't even know existed. SO GOOD, OMG.
I think the only ones I never got into at some point were the other shows Chris Carter did, as well as Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict. For dramedy, the only other one I could name off the top of my head is Ally McBeal, and I definitely gave that one a miss.
2. I confess: I don't know what your thesis is about, beyond "something to do with Eavan Boland". Englighten me?
Oh, man. I have nightmares about attempting to break this down into something that takes less than ten pages to explain, but I'll give it a shot. Basically, my argument is that Boland imaginatively reclaims Irish space, history, and language in order to poetically "map" her own subjective Ireland. She does this in order to integrate marginalized historical voices, women's voices, the domestic, etc. into the national narrative, but more importantly to understand and convey her own continuity with them--and, by extension, ours as well. A key phrase I've written that I keep coming back to is "an imaginative, pastiche-like framework through which to understand oneself"; this is pretty much what I'm arguing her poetry consists of.
On some level, I guess you could say it's another attempt to place her in a postcolonial, feminist critical context, but mine's a little different from the prevailing criticism because they tend to focus on her representations of women, and I'm leaning more towards representations of self in context with these women.
3. Relatedly: why did you decide to study literature?
Because I wanted to write. I'd always liked reading, and writing essays in English class and whatnot was fun, but I became an English major in order to do the creative writing thing. Over the years, I realized that I don't have the drive to be anything like a professional fiction writer, so I had to make other plans. Then, when I graduated, I realized that I actually missed writing essays and doing research, so here I am in grad school doing just that. I think actually the key is the love of research, of finding out more about a topic of interest; for me, that topic is usually a work of literature. (Or, as my library records for the past month would show, Astaire/Rogers films. *facepalm*)
4. Where are you from?
Nashville, Tennessee.
5. What's your favourite cocktail?
I can't stand the taste of alcohol, so I don't have one. Unless you count Shirley Temples (Sprite and grenadine), which I've had once or twice. They're pretty good.
I know I'm supposed to keep the meme going by telling you all I'll give you questions, but I'm still deep in the thesis cave right now. You can ask, and I'll get back to you eventually, but it may take a while.
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1. Nineties sci-fi and dramedy! What do you like, and what don't you like?
I perhaps spoke too quickly when I claimed dramedy; really, my only entrants in that one are Northern Exposure, which is still my most favorite television series ever, and due South. NX I love for a long, long list of reasons, but the fact that the episodes are endlessly rewatchable because I always get something new out of them, in the manner of good literature, is high up on the list. The small town and quirky-yet-true-and-charming characters are up there as well, as is the assumption that the audience is smart, and will understand references to Hegel and Jung, be willing to follow the characters on spiritual journeys, etc. dS I enjoy for the offbeat humor, mostly.
As for sci-fi...God, what SF show didn't I watch in the nineties? I was a fan of all the Star Treks, the X-Files, Earth 2, Space: Above and Beyond, a little-known show called Mission Genesis, Farscape (which premiered in July 1999, so it squeaks in)... The glaring omission there is Babylon 5, which as I'm sure you remember, I inhaled this past spring, thus filling a hole in my life I didn't even know existed. SO GOOD, OMG.
I think the only ones I never got into at some point were the other shows Chris Carter did, as well as Andromeda and Earth: Final Conflict. For dramedy, the only other one I could name off the top of my head is Ally McBeal, and I definitely gave that one a miss.
2. I confess: I don't know what your thesis is about, beyond "something to do with Eavan Boland". Englighten me?
Oh, man. I have nightmares about attempting to break this down into something that takes less than ten pages to explain, but I'll give it a shot. Basically, my argument is that Boland imaginatively reclaims Irish space, history, and language in order to poetically "map" her own subjective Ireland. She does this in order to integrate marginalized historical voices, women's voices, the domestic, etc. into the national narrative, but more importantly to understand and convey her own continuity with them--and, by extension, ours as well. A key phrase I've written that I keep coming back to is "an imaginative, pastiche-like framework through which to understand oneself"; this is pretty much what I'm arguing her poetry consists of.
On some level, I guess you could say it's another attempt to place her in a postcolonial, feminist critical context, but mine's a little different from the prevailing criticism because they tend to focus on her representations of women, and I'm leaning more towards representations of self in context with these women.
3. Relatedly: why did you decide to study literature?
Because I wanted to write. I'd always liked reading, and writing essays in English class and whatnot was fun, but I became an English major in order to do the creative writing thing. Over the years, I realized that I don't have the drive to be anything like a professional fiction writer, so I had to make other plans. Then, when I graduated, I realized that I actually missed writing essays and doing research, so here I am in grad school doing just that. I think actually the key is the love of research, of finding out more about a topic of interest; for me, that topic is usually a work of literature. (Or, as my library records for the past month would show, Astaire/Rogers films. *facepalm*)
4. Where are you from?
Nashville, Tennessee.
5. What's your favourite cocktail?
I can't stand the taste of alcohol, so I don't have one. Unless you count Shirley Temples (Sprite and grenadine), which I've had once or twice. They're pretty good.
I know I'm supposed to keep the meme going by telling you all I'll give you questions, but I'm still deep in the thesis cave right now. You can ask, and I'll get back to you eventually, but it may take a while.