I’m happy to say I’m making progress but it may not sound like it to you. Sure, you would expect that by “progress” I mean I have written scores of pages of my insightful research project, but you would be mistaken, forgive me for saying.
No, I have been re-skimming an important book in my literature references as I prepare the introductory chapters that will explain why my topic, Literary Grief: The Changing Communication Technologies in Grief Memoir, is a subject that has fascinated, intrigued and poked at humankind at least since the Middle Ages.
Well, that is as far back as I am willing to go, so let’s just leave it at that.
The 614-word book I have been scanning to refresh my memory and highlight the important points is Philippe Aries, The Hour of Our Death (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1981.) Historian Aries spent almost 20 years studying his topic (so I suppose I am ahead of the game, as my Journey to Dissertation so far has only taken about 5.5 years): the changes in Western attitudes toward death and dying from the earliest Christian times to the current day (OK, so until about 1981 when the book was first published).
In any case, it is considered a landmark study that demonstrates a pattern of gradually developing evolutionary stages in our perception of life in relation to death. Each stage suggests a redefining of human nature.
I’ll leave it there for now. I am using Aries to help me set the stage for my exploration of how authors of books, documentaries, and even Internet blogs and web sites are publicly offering memoirs and memoir-like writings and whether these three distinct forms of writing all constitute memoir. I am a writer, after all. I am fascinated by compelling writing, and to me, telling the stories of people we love whom we have lost is possibly one of the most important works of writing anyone can produce.
I plan to do some of this myself, of course; another reason I need to understand this unique genre; another reason I want to share in a meaningful way the stories of my loved ones. I am doing some of it here, so you, too, perhaps find it helpful or perhaps even comforting in some way. I hope so.
I have three days before this book and two others that I borrowed via the state of Connecticut’s InterLibrary Loan system (which I highly recommend; you can find most anything you need with this valuable tool and it has saved me virtually hundreds of dollars in buying books that I may not need to keep forever -- contrary to the hundreds of books I already own which I will never give up).
This week, along with ripping through a few books (This is what PhD candidates do, by the way. We read. We “rip” through books, we skim, we glance, we speed-read. There are only so many hours in the day, you know.) to refresh my memory on the key points that are helping me to flesh out my Introduction and first chapter parts, I also did something that I require to be successful in this journey. If you are a list-maker like I am, you will appreciate this.
Of course, on the same piece of paper, I also drafted a list of Christmas gift ideas for my loved ones, a list far too long for my current budget, but nonetheless, a list to get my shopping mojo fired up). I can't just focus on one task, you know. Writers are all over the map. It is best you learn this now.
I drafted a “schedule” for the next month. Yes, a day-by-day estimate of the hours I will spend working on this massive writing project. Some days, maybe three hours is all I will achieve. Other days will be marathons including late nights. I can tell you this: I have a long stretch of “off” time coming up, unused vacation and personal days coupled with a lovely weeklong holiday vacation from work that my company generously provides (thank you, Teamsters Local 1150, for my father, a proud longtime former employee of my company, tells me that is why we have the holiday week off), and I intend to spend nearly every one of those days devoting a stretch of time to this project.
Mind you, it is an aggressive schedule and I am not foolish enough to believe I will hold to it scrupulously every day. My intentions are good and strong, and I know I can do it if I choose. The thing is, I also value time with my friends and family, and I know that I will give myself a pass to indulge in some visiting and relaxation because it is too important, too precious, not to.
This brings me to one of the next blog posts I need to share. It is weighing on me something fierce, and it is too important to keep to myself. A special family member is ill and I want to speak about this awesome man in the present, so I hope you’ll stop back to meet my dear Uncle Frank. I want to share him, because I know you’re gonna love him. Perhaps I will find the words tomorrow. Please stop back.
Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan
Are you a PhD student? My name is Nicole and I came across this blog by searching for some things about Aries. I am a PhD candidate in Cincinnati (European History) and teaching a course this winter that I created on the history of death. One of the projects my students are doing is a primary source write-up on digital technology, death and grief in the twenty-first century. Their "primary sources" will include analyzing everything from facebook memorials to "i-tombs" and you tube clips.
ReplyDeleteThat's not my dissertation project, though, just an interest. I do the history of time perception.
What is your project?