Pride and Prejudice public reading

This year is the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death, and to mark the occasion the UoA English department is holding a public reading of scenes from Pride and Prejudice. Tuesday 29th August 2pm – 5pm in 207-501 (Arts 2 building, Pat Hanan Room).

The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid. ~ Northanger Abbey

The Once and Future Humanities (public lecture)

Professor John McGowan, of the University of North Carolina, is presenting this year's Hood Lecture in English, titled The Once and Future Humanities, this Wednesday 12th October, 6:30pm in the Engineering building (room 401).

Further information here: http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/events/2016/10/the-once-and-future-humanities.html

UoA Graduation Media Release

See the University of Auckland homepage (scroll down), or https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news-events-and-notices/news/news-2016/10/liggins-institute-daughters-graduate.html

Officially M.A.

A few photos from graduation yesterday, courtesy of Daddy, Harry, Sebastian and the University of Auckland...

On the march

Where's Wally?

On the terrace of Old Government House

photo by University of Auckland

Could you survive a Master's degree?

 Could you cope with writing an MA thesis? Take this quiz and find out!

1. To begin a Master's degree you must be

A. mad
B. crazy
C. wahnsinn
D. all of the above

2. To finish a Master's degree you will need

A. a healthy dose of stubbornness and a thick skin
B. a sense of humour
C. long-suffering family and friends who will provide cups of tea as required
D. all of the above

3. Lovely friend asks "And how is the thesis going?" on a day when it is going terribly. You

A. Fling yourself onto their shoulder and weep bitterly.
B. Smile a smile of rigor mortis and lie through gritted teeth, "Fine, thanks!"
C. Curl up into a little ball of misery.

4. Someone with whom you are distantly acquainted asks, "But what will you actually do with an MA degree?" You

A. Fix them with a death glare.
B. Rub your chin reflectively and say, "Do you know, I really haven't thought!"
C. Recite the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales in the original Middle English (backwards).
D. Tell them you are thinking of becoming an anchoress.

5. Helpful person asks, "And when is your thesis due?" You

A. Pretend not to have heard.
B. Scream.
C. Say, "I really have no idea."
D. Laugh maniacally. 

6. You are at a party and a stranger asks you what your thesis is about. You

A. Gulp and wonder where to start.
B. Give a glib little precis and hold out your glass for a refill.
C. Panic. "Ummm... actually... what is my thesis about?"
D. Explain your topic with energy, enthusiasm and passion... to a listener whose eyes have glassed over long before you finish.

7. Your chapter draft comes back covered in red ink and your supervisor's indecipherable scrawl. You

A. Cry.
B. Sulk.
C. Think, "Well, at least he read it."
D. Cry for three hours, sulk for three days, then sit down and make drastic and sweeping changes with a martyred and wounded expression.

8. You are suffering from writer's block. You

A. Try free-writing! Try mind-mapping! Try diagrams! Try bullet points! Try eating chocolate!
B. Go for a walk.
C. Google "how to cure writer's block."
D. Start a blog.

9. You are proofreading your 'final' draft for the third time, looking to hoover up those elusive last remaining typos. You feel like

A. Screaming!
B. Screaming!!
C. Screaming!!!
D. Screaming!!!!

10. You have handed in your thesis, opened the champagne and life is looking rosy. What do you do next?

A. Look for a job.
B. Look for a social life.
C. Look for a PhD supervisor.

Answers:
1. A, B, C = 1 point, D = 3 points
2. A, B, C = 1 point, D = 3 points
3. A, B =  2 points, C = 1 point
4. A = 2 points, B = 1 point, C = 3 points, D = 4 points
5. A = 1 point, B = 3 points, C = 2 points, D = 4 points
6. A = 3 points, B = 1 point, C = 4 points, D = 2 points
7. A = 1 point, B = 2 points, C = 3 points, D = 4 points
8. A = 1 point, B = 3 points, C = 2 points, D = 4 points
9. A = 1 point, B = 2 points, C = 3 points, D = 4 points
10. A = 2 points, B = 1 points, C = 3 points

Results:
30 - 35 points: Welcome to the club! Start looking for a supervisor! Oh... you already have.
20 - 29 points: You are well on your way to Masterhood, but maybe finish your Bachelor's first.
under 20 points: Congratulations... you are a normal human being!

"How do I love thee, thesis?"

Found this hilarious website depicting the life of a PhD student in comics: http://phdcomics.com/

Here are some of my favourites (they apply to Master's theses too!):

via

via

via

via

Diary of a Summer Scholar

via

Harry was asked to write a profile for the university website about his summer research scholarship. Here is the link:

http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/news/2016/02/harry-bloomfield.html

Thesis update

This card was sitting on a shelf in the university bookshop just begging to be bought for my supervisor, so I duly obliged :) It is a Mike Williams cartoon.

I'm dreaming of... not a white Christmas, but of getting my thesis finished sometime before Doomsday :D

I have the required number of words - 40,000 (well actually a few more than that by now...) Whether they make sense or not is another matter. Currently I am trying to determine the sense or otherwise of my many words, a process also known as editing (colloquially termed tearing one's hair out). This delightful little procedure shall be finished by the end of February, because it has to be, otherwise this is what the university will do to me:

via

Working title number... well, I can't remember, but it's very many, is currently Faith and the City: Piety, Place and the Passion in Fifteenth-Century York. The thesis is in two parts, the first looking at the nature and character of the York Mass and the York mystery plays, the second re-imagining or re-creating the medieval experience of Mass and and plays. This gives me opportunity liberally to illustrate Part II with lots of my lovely photographs of the lovely York churches.

This is what my future examiner will ask when confronted with my thesis. Via

MA students discuss their work in the University of Auckland Arts Computer Lab, which is so dark, dingy and grey as to pass for a very fair imitation of a medieval dungeon. (This is why I work mostly from home.) via

Public lecture: Why the Arts matter

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Jonothon Neelands (a professor at Warwick Business School) is giving a public lecture at the University of Auckland on "Culture, Creativity and Growth: Why the Arts matter."

Where: Owen G. Glenn Building lecture theatre 092, Grafton Road, University of Auckland.
When: Monday 7th December, 6pm.

See more: http://www.creativethinkingproject.org/jonothan-neelands-fellow/

via

This is why...

... blog posts have been rather sadly scarce of late:

my poor thesis

Below is Auckland University's guide to writing a Master's thesis. So far it has been pretty reliable (except that my thesis is due in February, not December) and the little descriptions of emotions along the bottom is proving uncannily accurate. A rather droopy Plantagenet Rose is currently battling the 'despair' stage, grimly hoping that the 'relief' moment will follow in due course :D

UoA postgraduate student profile

http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/our-students-and-graduates/postgraduate/eleanor-bloomfield.html

Writer's block

via

via

In keeping with the medieval theme...

via

via

But it always comes back to

UoA Arts Impact Poster Competition

You can see all the posters in the competition here.

And read about the trials and tribulations of making an academic poster here!

Thankyou to everybody who helped me with the poster, all those who came to see it, and everyone who has said nice things about it!