"By my penny of observation"-Review of "Love's Labour's Lost"

Well I realize this post is a tad late in being posted. I've been super busy this week with various projects and while I haven't shirked my duties with assignments, I just haven't posted anything yet! Forgive me dear blogites and Shakespeare friends.

I hope you enjoy reading the next few posts!

To start off this blog-fest I would like to discuss my views on the amazing play we finished this week. Didn't you guys just adore "Love's Labour's Lost"?! I did! It had me giggling constantly and I absolutely loved the word play and the sparring of 'wit' between the characters. Plus, the sheer amount of humor woven through the interactions was fabulous.

I still maintain my preference for Biron as my favorite character with Armado coming in a close second. Both of these men were humorous to read/watch. I really got a kick out of Biron's humor and wit and sharp minded remarks. It was amazing to read his comments and justifications for everything. One of my favorite parts was the following passage because I absolutely love the word play here. I love how each character adds to the rhyme of the other. It's wonderful! Enjoy.

BIRON

I'll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.

FERDINAND

No devil will fright thee then so much as she.

DUMAIN

I never knew man hold vile stuff so dear.

LONGAVILLE

Look, here's thy love: my foot and her face see.

BIRON

O, if the streets were paved with thine eyes,
Her feet were much too dainty for such tread!

DUMAIN

O, vile! then, as she goes, what upward lies
The street should see as she walk'd overhead

Video and short synopsis of my repurposed research

Alright. Let me just vent for a minute. I had an amazingly cool video to post for you filled with pictures and texts and all that wonderful stuff. I was rather proud of it actually. HOWEVER, like so many of my frustrations this last week, the stupid computer of mine didn't save things! Talk about frustratingly annoying.

Anyway,  I made a small video explaining, somewhat, my ideas about digital humanities. While the video isn't terrible I'm not too happy with the result and I feel as though I can be a lot more concise and tune my focus even further. That being said, this is a great jumping off point. Like I said though, my other video was much much better. Alas, 'tis not my lucky week. Oh well. Gotta roll with the punches, eh?

My main focus for the video, and I think for my research, is to focus on the benefits of digital studies. In particular I want to emphasize the ways digital humanities enhance traditional studies, as well as how the research community is more available. Because come on let's face it, it's always nice to know that there are people out there who actually CARE about what you're studying and talking about right? And I think that I'm going to take my focus away from strictly an academic community and focus more on the common, everyday people who are interested in employing digital studies into their learning. I want to show that digital studies (or studies in general) don't have to be limited to the upper crust of researchers. Everyone can study. Everyone can learn. And EVERYONE can share their ideas and become a part of the community.

Well that's what I think anyway.

Enjoy the video.

The Breadth and Depth of Digital Humanities & SHOUT OUT TO ASHLEY!

Okay!

As you may be aware from previous posts, I'm sort of addicted to the digital humanities. The whole concept to expand learning through the modern digital methods really intrigues me. And after working through my paper and listening to everyone's insight on reworking their own papers I've started to think about the different ways I can improve my own research.

One way that I thought about reworking my paper is to shift and expand my focus. I think my paper was very academically centered. My main focus was on talking to an audience of professors or researchers. I think that I need to expand this field a bit more and look at the broader scope of things.

I started by asked myself these basic questions:

Who has experience with the digital world?

-Just about everyone!

Who would be interested in digital studies?

-Students and teachers and people interested in learning.

HOW could digital humanities benefit?

-Digital Humanities can benefit people through the expansion of the knowledge base and the variety of information available. Further, studying through digital methods allow for different methods of study to present themselves providing unique opportunities for learners to understand the humanities in ways that appeal to individual learning habits and patterns as well a provide new insight into the basic foundation of studies in humanities.

So, in a nutshell, digital humanities provide a breadth and depth of knowledge and community connections that expand on traditional study methods.

Sound good?

Also, I thought that I could make my presentation more digital-friendly. How do you appeal to a digital savvy community about the importance of digital humanities unless you reach out to them through digital means? I'm not quite sure what avenue this will take just yet, but I'm starting to get things figured out slowly.

And ASHLEY,

I'd love to collaborate with you on our videos if you'd be willing. I know your ideas focus on Ophelia, but I think that there's a great many places where our ideas can overlap. Perhaps we can combine ideas in some way or present our videos as connectors to one another?

Let me know what you think!

"Frailty, thy name is woman,"-Ashley's Ophelia

Can I just say how awesome Ashley is? Seriously I loved your paper. I loved the insight you had the argument you presented. It really sparked my interest and I found myself contemplating several things.

Here's a link to her blog:

http://lewisashley382.blogspot.com/

Now I want to focus on a few thoughts I had while reader her blog.

The first:

As I was reading about how Ophelia was abused by all the men around her it got me to thinking about the stereotypes that society has of women today. I mentioned a similar idea as a comment to the post that Rachel O. made about how to broaden her paper to a larger sphere beyond merely Mormonism and Shakespeare.

Here's a link to her post:

http://ontiverosrachel382.blogspot.com/2012/03/after-meeting.html

What I can't help but wonder is if perhaps both papers are a call for shifting from stereotypes in society to more accepting. Ashley's paper made me think about how society objectifies women in many respects. According the popular social standards, you aren't important if you can't fit a specific form of standards. To me this correlates to Ophelia who, as Ashley argues, was objectified by everyone around her. Her father saw her as a possession. Many men today see the same thing. And sometimes women overcompesate.

Perhaps we could take this to a larger sphere and create a community where women attempt to change the societal norms and push for a new definition of beauty and a new standard of what a great woman is? I think about women who struggle with eating disorders and mental issues because of the abuse they've received from family, peers, and the media. It's interesting to note that connection.

It reminds me of this movement:

 

Beauty Redefined

Isn't it interesting, too, which flower Ophelia gives herself? As Ashley mentioned it is called a Common Rue. I decided to do a little research on this particular flower. And you know what I found? The alternate name for the flower is called:

Herb-of-grace


Pretty interesting in connecting that to Ophelia's apparent call for change. She isn't giving herself a flower that denotes her impurity or her subservience to men. Rather, she gave herself a flower that noted her grace, her inward beauty, her inward value (something that is overlooked by all others). This seems to be her declaration of independence and realization of her true worth. She seems to advocate the importance and worth of ALL women (think of the name again: COMMON rue).

Second:

When reading about the connection Ashley made to flowers and water I started thinking in the context of the mythological and historical references to each of these. This could connect well to Bri's research on her blog:

http://zabriskiebri382.blogspot.com/

In her paper and her reflections she discusses her connections between Shakespeare and the mythical (plus she does a great job of analyzing Ashley's paper).

Seeing these two blogs, I started making connections between the two concepts. For instance, in all religions (from what I can tell) there are allusions made to water as a significant idea (baptism, life, rebirth, etc.) Also, historically, water is referenced in many ancient stories. Think of Beowulf and King Arthur texts. How many times can you count where water is referenced? This idea even extends to later after Shakespeare. I keep thinking of Tennyson's "The Lady of Shallot" and how intricately connected this concept is to Shakespeare:



The Lady of Shallot

This lady seems to represent the mythical world, full of magic and wonder. Her death occurs as she floats down the river singing her own death song. Who does this sound like?

Ophelia perhaps?




Anyway, those are my thoughts so far. I'm having a great time looking at everyone's blogs and I hope to create some posts about my thoughts as I continue to read! :)

Smile. It's Friday

Here's my plan for this weekend:

Do homework

Look at my paper again (I want to take Dr. Burton's suggestions and start to revise things to make them clearer)

Spend time with children

Take a nap

And I will be sure to laugh at some point.

I saw this the other day on facebook and thought I'd share:

Reflections: Ode To a Research Paper

Well guys we did it! :)



I think we all should feel some sense of pride in all of our hard work. Each of us have researched, contacted others, blogged, and diligently attempted to create exceptional research papers. I say, everyone has done amazing!

Professor Burton asked that we all write a reflection on our process, our paper, and how we feel about things right now.

So, let's get started eh?

First of all here's a copy of my paper:

Digital Humanities

Honestly when I was working on this paper I sort of felt a little like a small fish in a big pond. The digital humanities is such a large and popular subject. I wanted speak intelligently about the grammar and linguistic aspect of the digital movement. So it was a little intimidating for me to sit down and write my paper. I worried that I wouldn't make sense in my writing and that I would sound foolish trying to talk about something so complex.

But I guess without any bravery we never know what we can accomplish eh?

So I continued on.

As for the completely product that you read? Well, I feel like maybe it is disjointed and that a lot needs to be reorganized. Professor Burton made some suggestions about how I can make my argument clearer and stronger and I can see that if I reworked the structure then my paper would sound stronger and be much more cohesive than it is now. Also, perhaps narrowing my focus even further than it currently is would help make my argument stronger.

I know that I can make my paper better than it is now. And I think that's a great aspect of writing, every time you complete a paper or a chapter in a novel, you are only finishing another DRAFT. You can edit and polish your paper later on and make things clearer, stronger, and better.

That thought cheers me up. I'm not saying that my paper is completely horrible. I don't think anyone in this class can write a horrible paper either. What I'm saying is that I know that I can always improve things. I know my strengths and I know the weaknesses of my paper (and I appreciate the critiques from Professor Burton and anyone else that cares to give me advice!). And I think this experience will make each of us stronger as writers, readers, and critics.

So what's in the future?

Well, I know that I'll be working to strengthen my argument and make things clearer to the reader. And I really want to research things further. Professor Burton noted that not all programs in the digital sphere are made readily available to everyday people (especially teachers). This intrigued me and I wonder if there is a way that we can attempt to work to make such programs available to a larger audience. I think discussing the benefits the digital humanities (particularily in the area of grammar/linguistics) can have in teaching pre-college students.

I also want to do some research on my own to see just how many researcher tools I can locate and use in my own studies of grammar in Shakespeare. It should be interesting to see what I come up with!

Now I have some things to consider! :)