My Paper: A Story

Okay, I'll admit it. What first blossomed as an idea about love quickly became a means of justifying a guilty pleasure of mine: The Bachelor. I was stuck in what I wanted to write about, feeling that most ideas surrounding Shakespearian plays had already been discussed. I already had traditional papers to write for other classes and I really didn't want to spit out another paper that I wasn't connected to. Professor Burton kept urging us to do just that: find a subject that we're really interested in that can relate to Shakespeare because if we develop a passion for our topic, we're more likely to write a better paper. 

What just happened....?

Oh my goodness. I did it. I submitted my paper to not only BYU ScholarArchives, but also to the Fifth Annual Crime, Media, and Popular Culture Studies Conference (Paul and Britton, I suggest you submit too!) at Indiana State University, as well as the Midwest PCA/ACA held in St. Louis this year. I was so nervous because I've never submitted anything ever in my life. I mean, the only abstract I've ever written was for a science fair project. I figured the worst that could happen is that I get rejected, move on, maybe improve my paper, and try again later. Then this happened:

Wait. What? They.. they accepted me? They want me to present my paper at their conference? I mean first of all, I don't even go to that University! BUT THEY ACCEPTED ME. I'm so excited I can't stop smiling. Now all I have to do is decide if I want to go.

I mean, it's no Germany, but still! I think it would be a great experience! I've never presented something I care so much about infront of people I don't know as... as an "academic scholar"before. I just have to scrap together $180 dollars before May 6th. I e-mailed my 295 Professor who I still keep in contact with and he suggested that the English Department might be able to help with that, but neither of us know who to talk to. Do any of you maybe know if they give financial help to presenters? If not, I'm sure I can figure something out.

Ahhh I'm so excited I can't take it right now. I really want to do this. I love my paper and my subject and I'm so grateful to Professor Burton for pushing me in this class to go out of my comfort zone and submit. I don't even care if they're short on applicants and that's why they accepted me. THEY STILL DID.

And it made my day :)

PS- I'm still waiting to hear back from the other conference, and I've found another one that I'd love to submit too. I'm going to have to watch myself. I'm on this weird submission high right now.

Bailey Gleason: "A New Reality: Appreciating Reality TV Through Shakespeare"

"A New Reality: Appreciating Reality TV Through Shakespeare"

Reality TV is a genre that slowly taking over the networks. The American audience has been enthralled with the new found ability to peering into the lives of seemingly normal, everyday people placed in fantastic and unusual circumstances. Today the genre has grown to include various subcategories of reality TV that bring in upwards of 20 million viewers a night. However, despite this undeniable attraction America seems to have with reality television, critics and viewers alike have managed to find great fault within the genre referring to it as "trash", arguing that it brings no "intellectualism" or "stimulating" material to our culture and creating environment in which those who actually enjoy the genre are seen as lacking "intellectualism" themselves. By focusing so greatly on these negative aspects, critics are missing the amount of effort that goes into producing and editing the story behind reality TV. If we change up the lens in which we examine the process behind reality TV, comparing it to the world’s greatest storyteller, Shakespeare, we are able to pull back the curtain and appreciate reality TV for what it really is: story telling. 

M.I.A

It's bad enough when you have one paper, but it's even worse when it turns out you actually have 4 papers due instead of just the one, and now you have to figure out all of those papers too. Lately I've been feeling like I'm drowning, and not just in papers, but in life. Nothing seems to be going right. I've managed to at least have some sort of direction with this paper, but I've put so much focus on it that my other papers almost ceased to exist. As I've been trying to catch up on those, this paper has taken a serious hit. Honestly, I'm starting to lose hope.

As far as feedback, I gave out a ridiculously incomplete draft that received a little bit of feedback from two people (I shouldn't be surprised that only two people had comments since it wasn't a complete draft). I liked what Paul said about making sure I don't say reality TV is as good as Shakespeare because I could how people could interpret my paper in that way. Nyssa also gave me some good feedback on my organization which really helped me out. I read Paul's draft and gave him some feed back on his organization as well and I actually found it helpful for myself. Paul and I have a few similar points in our paper, and reading his points helped me solidify my own.

One thing Nyssa pointed out was the need to ground my argument in the text. I haven't posted a single blog entry on this because frankly, I don't have any direction in relation to the text. I'm really struggling with this for whatever reason and I haven't been able to find help anywhere it seems. Just thinking about it makes me want to cry. I have stress dreams about this aspect of my paper and, as I mentioned earlier, I'm losing hope.

Any words of encouragement would be greatly appreciated because my sanity is hanging by a thread.

I'm shaking right now.

Reaching out to people I don't know is scary. I'm not really someone who likes to bother people more experienced and knowledgeable than I with questions they might think as trivial or stupid, frankly.

That being said, I managed to gather enough courage and write Andy Dehnart, creator and writer of Reality Blurred, an e-mail and ask him a few questions. I'm absolutely terrified of his response. What if he thinks I'm completely ridiculous for even thinking up this thesis? What if he tears it to shreds? WHAT IF HE DOESN'T RESPOND!?

But really, this was a huge step for me... I hope it pays off.

This doesn't qualify as "doing my homework"... right?

UPDATE: I also sent out an e-mail to Dr. Beverly Thompson, a professor who taught (is teaching?) a course on reality TV. We'll see how that goes too!

The Bib.

Stepp, Edwin, and Bill Welch."Reality Bites." Vision. 2002 (scholarly article; 10-50 years) Article written in 2002 when reality TV was first emerging. Interesting because the creator of Survivor, Mark Burnett, is quoted in the article as admitting everything on Survivor to be “completely contrived”. At the end of the article, they start to argue towards the negative side of reality TV, and pose the question of how reality TV might become really horrid (possibly even resembling the “gruesome events that occurred in ancient Rome”) in the next 10 years. Being 10 years in the future, I can assure them it’s gotten graphic, but not that graphic.

Case of the Mondays

The top commenter would not agree with my thesis.
I find this response from a lot of commenters on reality TV articles.
Luckily the guy blow has my back.
(I took this screen schot)

Monday I managed to sit down and spend the class time figuring out which moves I wanted to make in paper. My main question is if the order in which I will discuss my topic makes logical sense. Should I rearrange anything, add in explanations, take out unnecessary ones, etc.? I have a hard time telling whether or not my logic makes sense to others, so it's really helpful when I have a few people read over a short outline of my paper before I begin (and English majors/Shakespearian scholars (that's you!) usually give better feedback than my mother).  

Stop, it's paper time!

That was really cheesy, but that's how I've felt lately. I've had to stop everything and focus on this paper, and while it's a little taxing on me mentally and emotionally, I'm so incredibly happy with my thesis and I'm so excited to write about it. It's not much, but it's where I'm at right now:

My Soulmate Thesis

I'm doing it, even though you all will hate me for it.

I'm going to make you squirm in your seats and rethink everything you ever thought you knew about Shakespeare. I'm going to turn your world upside down and blow your mind.

I'm going to claim reality TV as a modern-day Shakespeare derivative.

I argue that reality TV is a derivative of Shakespearean theater (with maybe a little less class), even finding its roots in early theatrical aspects such as commedia dell’Arte, or the use of stock characters. By focusing on the artistic, albeit ridiculous, aspects of reality TV such as editing to form a plot and the creation and dramatization of stock characters, we can shed reality TV in a new light, taking away from some of the superficiality that we can't seem to shake in reality TV.

Lovely Leah's Learning Links

Hey Leah!
I've been reading through some of your posts, and I may have found a few things.
First, I noticed that you haven't found places to submit your article, so I googled some teaching journals that you could check out!

The Journal of Effective Teaching

Teaching and Teacher Education

Journal of Teacher Education

There are a ton on there, so I'm sure you can find a few that you feel would be interested in publishing your idea. They would especially work if your audience is those studying to become teachers, since most of the journals are about teacher education. 

I also found a few more articles/book of the scholarly sort that you might want to check out:

Teaching Shakespeare through Performance: It was written to be seen, so I'm sure a viable part of the learning process is actually watching the play. Maybe you could tie that in to you paper and talk about the way you could learn from the performances in tandem with analyzing and reading the play. 

Shakespeare and Youth Culture: This is an interesting book! It talks about way Shakespeare realtes to teenagers! Actually I think this book would be perfect for your paper because it could give you a dive board on what aspects of Shakespeare teenagers relate to and such.

Just look at that cover!

Teaching Shakespeare in America: This is 'Murica after all. 

We can talk more and do some more research in class today, or maybe we can meet up some time outside of class and help one another :)

My list of things I've done

THESIS-IN-PROGRESS: 

The suspension of disbelief in both Shakespeare and Reality TV.  For Shakespeare he tends to break the fourth wall, frame plays in outside stories, etc. to remind the audience that they're watching the play. Reality TV likes to remind its viewers that they're watching "real" events and emotions. Shakespeare's process makes the plays seem more real, while Reality TV saying "this is real" makes it seem fake. How would Reality TV maybe showing sets/camera people/behind the scenes maybe change the way we view it?

SOCIAL GRAPH: 

Natalie McChesney, also known as my roommate, is a fellow English major and great at pillow talk. She's incredibly intelligent and hates the Bachelor, so I think it will be interesting to pit my research topic against her when developing my argument. It will keep me level headed.

Jeremiah Quinn, also known as that-one-guy-I'm-dating, is going on here since everyone seems to have a husband or wife that supports them in their thesis. We spend much of our time together, so we've talked about the paper quite a few times and he's really interested in seeing where it goes.

Corey Wozniak, also known as my intelligent friend, helped encourage me to chase the idea of Shakespeare and Reality TV. Being that he is partly responsible for when I am now, I feel that I will continue to discuss the topic with him and see how it develops. He was really excite about it when we first started talking about it!

Britton Parish, also known as fellow classmate, is also doing something a little pop culture related, and he passed the idea of video games being art by me about two months ago, so I've been following him with his thesis, and in return, he's agreed to help me with mine. It's nice to have someone in the class to discuss this with :)

Claire Shumway, also known as my best homie, graduated in philosophy and is incredibly intelligent. I think that her background will help contribute to maybe the more theological/philosophical aspects of the suspension of disbelief or what reality really "is".

NEW MEDIA:

I haven't had a chance to explore this topic, but I feel like not many people sit around comparing Shakespeare to "trash TV". I don't know if the actual show The Bachelor would count as this, or if it would count as a... primary text?  I DON'T KNOW! Overall, this category makes me feel a little overwhelmed.

SOCIAL NETWORKING:

Twitter: Holy cow did I hit a gold mine here! I figured I could maybe try and contact some past Bachelor/ette contestants to get their take on the "realness" of the show, and I even attempted to chase down Arie from Emily Maynard's season since he was in Provo, but Branbury required that I renew my nonexistent contract with them in order to even be in the same room as him (and while I am so excited about this paper, I don't have that kind of $$$ to drop right now). Thus far no responses from the few contestants I've tried to reach, but I'll keep at it. I also found some Shakespeare related Twitter pages I'll contact as well.

Probably because I'm a whiney nobody brat.

Goodreads: Like Nyssa, I've considered joining that one group everybody's joining, but I figure they'll most likely kick me out for the blasphemy that is my research paper (or I'll just get a lot of mean responses since that's mostly what I get from hoity-toity English lovers ;)

I'm still looking around for places to contribute, but there really isn't a lot of great stuff going on concerning the reality of reality TV. I WON'T GIVE UP THOUGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

SCHOLARLY THINGS:

Bertolt Brecht: He use to write plays where in the middle of them, someone would trapse arose the stage carrying a sign reading "YOU ARE WATCHING A PLAY" (he was the original Captain Obvious). I've found some of his old publications and I'm starting to read through them to maybe get an idea of why he does this during his plays.

Reality TV: remaking television culture: AWESOME book I found in the HBLL. It has a bunch of critical articles regarding reality TV. I'm SO excited about readin through more, as I've already read a few of them. 

I'm going to look for some more articles on the suspension of disbelief in Shakespeare's plays, but I haven't had the chance to yet because I've been trying to actually figure out my thesis. 

Fangirl Update.

Can I just say how excited I am to do this paper? Never in a million years did I think I'd be writing about reality TV and Shakespeare, but here I am, browsing through twitter pages, trying to find something that will work. Maybe it would help if I picked a legitimate thesis rather than just an idea. 

Do you think I can get him to come to my house to interview him?

I've been bouncing two different ideas around in my head all week, and I've still yet to finalize which will be the focus of my paper. The couple people I've shared the ideas with haven't been much help, but Professor Burton was able to help me at least cut it down to two:

1. The suspension of disbelief in both Shakespeare and Reality TV.  For Shakespeare he tends to break the fourth wall, frame plays in outside stories, etc. to remind the audience that they're watching the play. Reality TV likes to remind its viewers that they're watching "real" events and emotions. Shakespeare's process makes the plays seem more real, while Reality TV saying "this is real" makes it seem fake. How would Reality TV maybe showing sets/camera people/behind the scenes maybe change the way we view it?

2. Reality TV relies a lot on the use of Stock characters. Maybe something to prove that Reality TV has it's roots in comedia dell'arte, but I'd need to find significance in making this claim.

What do you guys think? Personally, I'm leaning more towards the suspension of disbelief on because this idea is intriguing.

After the Final Rose (My happily ever after?)

I did it. I found my connection, my Shakespeare research paper soul mate, and we're in love. Hopefully this love lasts longer than any Bachelor contestant's love, because I'm not here to play games. I'm here to find my thesis.

Ok, enough with the lame Bachelor jokes (they relate, I promise). This past week or so I've been struggling to find a topic for my paper that really resonated within me. My play I chose to read was Twelfth Night, and while I absolutely loved the play, I felt as though it didn't give me something to latch on to. It did, however, give me a dive board from which I feel into the genre of researching love and romance. I took to Facebook immediately, figuring the masses would definitely have something to say on the subject. That was my first mistake. I received no response. I figured it was because I either

a. was too general in my questions, or

b. asked way too many in one status update

(probably both)

So I switched tactics. After reading Amelia's comment here, I had an idea: 

I can't believe I'm admitting this, but I love the Bachelor/ette reality TV show. I'm addicted to it, like millions of other men and women (8.6 million, to be exact), so why not explore it's connection to Shakespeare? I thought I'd see what Facebook had to say about this. 

Somebody actually posted this in response to my questions.

The initial response wasn't great. I got a pretty strong negative reaction at first, but it's always darkest before the dawn. I finally got a positive response from (gasp) another English major! We began discussing the similarities between reality TV today and Shakespeare in the past. We came down to this basic idea:

People throughout the ages seem to have this obsession with unrequited love, finding love, crazy passionate love, puppy love, mismatched love... the list really goes on. From the mismatched love of Midsummer Night's Dream, to the gender confused triangle in Twelfth Night, people love love, and that love has carried over into the modern world (Don't believe me, check it out here. People have DEFINITELY taken from Shakespeare's love plots to create the reality TV we watch today). But, it's not just love that we love, it's love that's seemingly out of our control, love manipulated by someone with greater power than those experiencing the infatuation. And we don't just like it when love is manipulated be someone, but when everything is out of the hands of the hero/ine. Take The Tempest, where really everything lies in the hands of Prospero, or The Bachelor/ette, where everything lies in the hands of the producers (let's be real here, people. we all know this is true). 

So this is where I'm a little stuck. Maybe this whole connection to Shakespeare seems contrived to you, but I really do think there's something there. I mean I just see a lot of connections between reality TV today and the way Shakespeare's characters manipulate and handle love in the plays. What do you think? Hopefully you're in agreement, because I really really don't want to find another topic.  

Puberty, Pain, and Pranking

So I've been looking over my primary text A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and am falling more and more in love with it. Discussions in the classroom with Amelia, Bailey and Mikaela have helped me realize that this play IS successfully taught in high schools, so why not find out the best and worst ways and write an essay on it? Some of the topics that might interest high school youth are reflected in these quotes: becoming a man, unrequited love (hey hey, Bailey!), mischievousness.

(I.ii.40) Flute says: Nay, faith, let not me play a woman: I have a beard coming. 

(III.ii.233-235) Helena says: What though I be not so in grace as you, / But miserable most, to love unloved? / This you should pity rather than despise. 

(II.i.33-35) Fairy says: Either I mistake your shape and making quite, / Or else you are that shrewd and knavish sprite / Called Robin Goodfellow. 

Reading through Janelle's process of writing her paper has been helpful because hers also had an educational emphasis, and it's encouraging to find a person who is like minded. Through her comments I am seeing that I am going to need to focus my broad theme down to a couple specific ideas so my paper doesn't end up being twenty pages long. We'll see how that goes.

"Gamble everything for love" -Rumi

Talk to me about love. Specifically, define love for me. 

1. If love is unreturned, does that justify spiteful actions of revenge towards the unfeeling? 
2. Can unrequited love change the definition of love? 
3. How can love be a major driving factor in decision making and character building? 
4. Does the way a person love define who they are? 
5. If two people are suffering from unrequited love, yet they handle the situation in different ways (say threatening to kill/ volunteering to die), does that mean they both are really in love, or does one (or both) just think they're in love?

These are some questions I've been mulling over in my head in regards to the play Twelfth Night. My attention was draw to this idea of unrequited love during this little exchange between Viola and Orsinio in Act V:

ORSINIO: Come, boy, with me.

My thoughts are ripe in mischief:

I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love

To spite a raven’s heart within a dove.

VIOLA: And I, most jocund, apt, and willingly,

To do you rest, a thousand deaths would die.

Wait, what? Orsinio is willing to 'sacrifice'* his servant Cesario (that's Viola's disguise), and Viola is willing to let him? 

In the play, both of these characters suffer from unrequited love. Orsinio is in love with Olivia, and can't seem to take a hint, and Viola is dressed as a man, so of course Orsinio doesn't love her back. But that's not what's interesting. 

Both are dealing with watching their love love another, yet they handle it in starkly different ways:

• Orsinio takes the vengeful "I'll teach you" path, deciding to 'sacrifice' his most trusted and faithful servent Cesario (spoiler, it's Viola!) because he knows Olivia loves Cesario (awk). 
• Viola (as Cesario) takes the "anything for you my love" path, and agrees to be sacrificed!

*It's never directly stated what Orsinio means when he says he's going to sacrifice Cesario (banish him, fire him, imprison him), so I've taken my creative license to interpret it as he will be killing Cesario. 

This raised the questions you read above. Why do they take such vastly different cathartic measures in dealing with their problems? What does this reveal about the characters, and in turn, they play? How does it change our idea of love in the modern world?

Your thoughts, my homies?