That’s right, my SURP is over. I am now out of Claremont to hang out with my family (and then come back to do my junior year of college – oy).
This week’s post will be a little lighter on the critical analysis of specific works of and relating to Shakespeare, and a little heavier on me talking about my time this summer.
Although please, enjoy this picture of Yorick smoking a pipe…I know I do.
As to my work this summer, it has done a lot for me for my future in research, especially considering I didn’t really know what research was when I first got here. This summer has been one of embracing ambiguity and going on random tangents that may or may not be helpful to answer research questions that are not actually fully formed. But it is possible to do important intellectual work whether for myself or for the research, even when you don’t know what the research is.
An important part of research, and something that I’m still working on, is taking my expectations or assumptions and flipping them. I came into this summer viewing Shakespeare’s words as the ultimate versions of his works, which meant that all kooky adaptations were a bit of an affront to the original Shakespeare. Although I still think there is a lot to be gained from reading the original plays, with all their possibilities, the idea of an “ultimate” Shakespeare is not the best way to go about enjoying or trying to understand the work. I needed to rethink my expectations for “ultimate,” by trying not to have an idea in my head about what ultimate means.
I’m still not sure exactly what I expect from Shakespeare, nor what that means about the orignal plays or the experience of viewing/reading Shakespeare. But I have learned a lot about research and my own thoughts this summer, and I’m glad to be able to hopefully share some of those thoughts in the exhibit this spring.
Thanks for reading these blog posts, and good luck with your lives! Enjoy the exhibit in Special Collections and Denison in the spring.
Signing off
-Emma