Explaining your project

Sometimes you meet someone new and they ask you what you are working on, or you see an old friend or colleague, or a relative, or a colleague outside your field. You have to explain concisely what the quintessence of your project is, in terms your interlocutor will understand. You may have some follow-up questions to answer, depending on the level of sincere curiosity in the question.

I find answering this questions helpful in clarifying what it is I actually am doing--in relation to various audiences. Sometimes I come up with a new perspective on my project by having to come up with a new explanation on the spot.

Simplifying your project for your uncle or your kid's friend's parents can be clarifying. Having to explain it in all its complexity to an intimidating colleague, or in a job interview, represents another challenge. You can draw on these oral explanations when you are explaining your project in grant applications, in prefaces, forewords, prologues, and introductions, conclusions and postscripts, jacket copy for the published book--or anywhere in your project itself where you have to signpost your intentions. You shouldn't underestimate the importance of this skill. It's not for nothing that this is the standard MLA interview question upon which jobs are won and lost: "Tell me about your research."

Later, since I have nothing else to do this week (yeah right), I will be giving some examples or models. I think I am a little better at this than the average academic, so maybe this might be useful.

Coming soon...

I've invited another collaborator, Thomas B. of Denmark, to offer some Stupid Motivational Tricks here, probably later in February. Stay tuned for that.

Clustered deadlines

Deadlines that are close to each other create a lot of stress. I have a February 5, a March 5, and a March 2. For the March 5, I have had to get a preliminary draft done four to six weeks before. Some people might deal with this by just working to meet the deadlines in sequence, and not worry about the later ones. My approach, however, is to make sure that once I meet the Feb. deadlines, I will be in a position to do the March ones very quickly. That entailed making a list of the elements of the March 5 one and seeing if I could take care of some components earlier. My attitude is that I'll be as busy in the future as now, so that there no point in postponing something to a time when hypothetically I won't be quite as occupied. I avoided distracting multitasking by finishing discrete portions of the grants during particular times and days.

So for the three grants,

I have the NEH Seminar proposal 1st draft of the narrative description, which I've sent to the NEH for a first review. I've also filled out some other forms relating to this and made some calls and emails to people.

The internal grant for summer salary: I've written a version of the narrative and filled out the form except for the abstract. I can finish it easily when I get back from Spain, and revise any glitches in the prose.

Another travel grant from the university: I've made a list of components and warned the chair that she'll have to write a letter. I did the two-page cv.

When I get back from Spain I can then meet the deadlines in order, having done a lot of preparation for each one.

From Rough Notes to Prose

Here are some rough notes



This project.... aims to answer a central question.... the relation between literary modernism and the phenomenon of modernity... in Spain. While literary modernism as such could not have come into existence without modernity, it should be seen as as much a reaction against modernity as a celebration of it (Octavio Paz).

Modern Spanish poetry offers some peculiarties that make it both distinctively Spanish (rooted in debates surrounding national identity) and representative of other “peripheral” modernisms. I argue that these peripheral modernism are as central, in some respects, as those of France or the English-speaking world. Especially Latin America (relevant to my project) but also modernisms that take place Cavafy’s Alexandria or Pessoa’s Lisbon.

You'll notice that the first sentence of the second paragraph is pretty much a good sentence. My aim today is to turn these notes into something that's actually prose.

Here's version II:

The General Research Fund would aid in the completion of a book manuscript that I began in the summer of 2009. This project, Fragments of a Late Modernity: Spanish Poetry and the Paradoxes of Literary History, addresses a key problem in Spanish literary and intellectual history: the relation between modernism as a literary movement and the much-debated problem of Spain’s “struggle for modernity.” Although literary modernism is unimaginable without modernity in the historical sense of the term, it is a movement characterized by a deep ambivalence (if not outright hostility) toward the forces of modernization themselves. The tension between modernity and modernism creates a unique opportunity for exploring problems in literary and intellectual history.

Modern Spanish poetry offers some peculiarities that make it both distinctively Spanish (in other words, rooted in debates surrounding national identity) and representative of other “peripheral” modernisms. Latin America is especially relevant to my project, given the close literary ties between Spain and the rest of the Spanish-speaking world. Other examples of peripheral modernisms can be located in Pessoa’s Lisbon or Cavafy’s Alexandria. My premise is that such peripheral modernisms—the modernisms of less developed nations—evince their ambivalence toward modernity in especially distinctive and fascinating ways.

Descriptive

Descriptive work doesn't have an argument. It merely points out obvious things. It surveys and describes but doesn't explain or explore. Of a weaker graduate student, we might say, "he'll be fine doing something descriptive." Encyclopedia articles won't get you tenure. In fact, they might even be held against you.

You know more than you think you do

Take any subject that you don't think you know a lot about. In my case, these subjects might include film, classical music, or sociology, Portuguese poetry...

Now do an actual inventory of what you do know. I am not a real film person, but there are directors that I know a bit about, Kurosawa, Buñuel, Scorcese, Almodóvar. I know some actors' work. I have had tangential exposure to some film theory and criticism and know some basic concepts. All of a sudden film is part of my scholarly base. Voilà. If I had to talk about a film tangentially in a book devoted to something else, I could do it. If I had a year's sabbatical, I could learn enough to be a competent person by filling in some identifiable gaps.

Entrepreneur

A really strong researcher should also be an entrepreneur to some extent, organizing conferences, editing journals, and otherwise creating opportunities for other people to interact with one another. I've done a little of this kind of thing, but it's not my strength. I ran the poetics seminar at the Hall Center for the Humanities and invited guest speakers like Marjorie Perloff, Jordan Davis, Ron Silliman, and David Shapiro. I've organized sessions at the MLA. But it's not where I'm strongest. I don't like to depend on other people.

If I had one fewer book and a lot more entrepreneurship, I'm sure I would have a better job. People don't value the stay in your office and write books professor as much as the person who organizes stuff. If you are in a small field like Portuguese or Italian where you might be the only one (or one of two) people teaching that language, you almost have to be an entrepreneur.

I probably should have done an edited collection in place of one of my four single-authored books. Although a book you write yourself counts more on the purely research side of the equation, the edited collection has other benefits in terms of networking and visibility.