Random work-y thoughts

From CartoonChurch.com by Dave Walker. (I particularly love how the choir only has one tenor and two altos.)

I was remarkably productive this morning, and managed to finish the book review that was coming quite close to making me lose the plot entirely. That was before 11.30am. I have not done quite so much this afternoon, although I have tidied up my study - I'm working on ways to persuade myself that I really do want to get work done at home. Now I'm planning to follow up some links I want to have a think about, like @lizgloyn's thoughts on one of Vitae's resources, which looks very helpful indeed for planning. I also need a title for a conference presentation I'm making in the summer. This probably necessitates an abstract. Hmm.

(The not-quite-daily blogging experiment continues. Or TNQDBEC for short.)

Richard III And All That

(Daily Blogging Challenge Month, Day 2)

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lilwatchergirl/5674086284/in/photostream

We went to Bosworth today, where Henry VII became king and the Tudor dynasty began, thanks to a couple of random moments in a battle that he nearly lost. Fun place. Very accessible!

Richard III is an interesting one. His reputation as a "hunchback" is likely to be Tudor propaganda, part of an effort to represent him as evil - as literally twisted. The 'evil cripple' stereotype survives in popular culture today, particularly in fiction, but a stronger link between body and character of that kind would have been perceived in medieval and early modern times. I'm a bit behind on my PhD reading (due to an irritating combination of illness, wedding planning and potential university transfer fun), but I've been starting to think about the links between normalcy, stigma and the concept of mind and body in Christianity. The Judeo-Christian religious framework has had a lot of influence over our cultural belief in a link between the content of mind/character and the shape or form of the body. I need to read more on this one. (Book/journal recommendations always welcome!)

Writing, and why it is so difficult

Writing is hard. At the moment, I'm loving my reading, but writing NSM. Part of the problem is that I'm thinking about this piece of writing as a "chapter" (i.e. of my thesis). It feels like far too early to be starting my thesis. I'm trying to get myself to think of it as "notes on the subject of gospel narratives and their social contexts" instead, but my concern is that 'notes' won't end up tight enough. So I'm back to thinking of it as a chapter. Any readers have any tips on getting started with writing?

Digital Researcher, and vaguely related thoughts

The Digital Researcher conference was particularly good in terms of the philosophy and sociology of networks, research communities and digital tools (although less so in terms of using the tools themselves - a bit basic for me - I've been using Mendeley etc for a while now). Got to explore the implications, difficulties and significant positive aspects of being a digital researcher.

Key thoughts

- I need to think about the ways I keep track of information, and whether I can make those better using digital tools. Currently I use Excel spreadsheets to make lists of reading and key points. Are there digital tools that would work better for this? Mendeley and CiteULike don't organise the info in the specific way I want. Look around for other tools.

- My Kindle is fantastic, but I need to use it more effectively. Is it worth scanning more documents in and creating PDFs for use there?

- I've set up another PhD notebook, only to be shared with supervisor(s) & a few other relevant people. How to get these to be used by all parties? I also need to consider how best to use each of these, and what info is more appropriate where.

- I need to improve on my personal research plan and include planned sessions in the British Library and at Leeds.

Vaguely thinky stuff

- Is it worth proposing a digital researcher session to the university, as part of postgrad research training sessions? Might do some basic research on which universities offer this. I've heard of one that does.

- Going to London and back for one day: utterly exhausting and probably shouldn't be repeated. Although it inevitably will be. Lots of fun all round, though.

TO DO THIS WEEK

Look into the above.
Archive all reading/notes done so far.
Start working on draft chapter (gospels/social world of first Christians).
Reading: methods; philosophy/sociology PDFs; last bits on gospels; begin theology reading (if time).
If time: plan next two teaching sessions - if not, next week.