Category: Archived (Page 5 of 8)

This piece was originally published on 1 June 2018 on the CRCLC blog.

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Michelle Anya Anjirbag is a first year PhD student at the Children’s Literature Research Centre at the University of Cambridge.

It took a better part of the first year of the PhD for me to work up the courage to start presenting my research, but I finally ripped off the Band-aid (TM) and gave my first full presentation at the Reading YA Fiction conference hosted by the Centre of Contemporary Literature and Culture at the University of Birmingham

(Full disclosure: I have presented academic work previously, once in an completely overwhelming massive US regional conference while floating about between academic programs as an independent scholar trying desperately to maintain my legitimacy, and once in a five minute presentation on the subject of intergenerational solidarity in the context of my own research here at the university, which I found terrifying anyways for many reasons).

The conference itself was fascinating, with lively panels that explored topics from violence and empathy in stories featuring child murderers, to a look at the carnivalesque and the paranormal in relation to queer identities in YA fiction. The discussions probed subjects such as the use of the term “diverse” and what we mean by it, and what it means when it is commercialized, and even, how do we classify “YA literature” — is it dependent on the age of the intended audience? The age of the protagonist? The plot structure, as keynote Professor Maria Nikolajeva suggests? — and is it something new? Personally, though I recognize that in Anglo-centric fiction YA has witnessed a bit of an explosion over the past decade or so, I also recognize that this kind of fiction has been written in other languages and in other parts of the world since about the 1960s, and would problematize the assertion that “YA fiction” is some brand-new phenomenon; such a stance requires an ethnocentric and linguistically-centralized view of literature to be true rather than a transcultural one, but that is a discussion that might need to wait for another blog post…

Even more important than the information garnered through being present, for me, was the opportunity to test what I thought I knew about myself and my ability to speak coherently in front of a group of my peers. Learning to present research is just as important for apprentice-academics as learning to write chapters, or, dare I mention it, the PhD itself. And while I theoretically knew this going into this conference, I didn’t realize how shaky and underqualified I would feel in that room. And granted, not everyone will feel that way; different people are just more comfortable at different kinds of public speaking — and some people hate it altogether, which is fine, too. But when it is something that will be part of one’s job, indefinitely, it cannot be avoided just because it is disliked, or discomfiting. With that in mind, here are three lessons I learned that I will keep in mind for the next conference:

Go Short

I had, of course, timed everything out and thought I had given myself a little extra wiggle room. However, I underestimated how much I tend to ad lib, filling in all of the extra information that I had originally taken out. Two alternatives; control the nervous babble (probably unlikely without practice), or maybe plan on shortening my actual paper in order to give myself time to adjust and respond to the papers I had heard prior to mine. Also, though I had read through the paper many times, I didn’t remember to actually practice it with the PowerPoint, which, combined with the ad-libbing affected my use of time and the smoothness of the presentation.

A Conference Paper is not A Dissertation

It should go without saying, but there we are. As much as we all have a lot of amazing thoughts about all the things that we are interested in, we cannot actually fit them into a 20-minute talk. A complete, single point with multiple examples is possibly stronger than a complex point. I need to remember that while the logic makes sense to me, not everyone has been immersed in my topic to the extent I am.

Body Fuel is Brain Fuel
I mentioned that academic public speaking makes me nervous. Well, so does travel. As a result, I was simultaneously wired and exhausted heading to Birmingham. What makes exhaustion and nerves even better? Not being hungry when you’re nervous. The result? Five cups of coffee and a small plate of potato salad before speaking. It’s really not a recipe for success. The jittering was out of control; academic brains can’t work without food any more than athletes‘ bodies can. Eat breakfast. And lunch. Or by the time the keynote comes around, you’re going to not be able to take the intelligent notes or ask the intelligent questions that you want to.

This is far from a comprehensive guide to surviving conferences; just a few thoughts about what I would do the next time around based on the this first experience.

This piece was originally published on 30 January 2018 at the FERSA University of Cambridge blog.

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As the intellectual cousin of the word selfie, a shelfie is a photograph of someone’s bookshelf. In July 2017, FERSA started a #PhDshelfie initiative on social media, encouraging PhD students to share photos of, and reflections about, important books on their bookshelf. In this blog post, Michelle Anya Anjirbag shares her “fend-off-the-burnout” PhD shelfie, reflecting upon a selection of books that she uses as a “balm for a too-often overtired mind.”

Hi, my name is Michelle and if I have any special talent it is approaching burnout and staying on the brink of it for far too long. For those who don’t know, “burnout” is a term coined in the 1970s by the American psychologist Herbert Freudenberger, to describe the effects of severe stress and high ideals in “helping” professions, such as doctors and nurses. Today it is used to refer to the phenomenon in professions across the board, with main signs and symptoms falling into three main categories: exhaustion, alienation from work-related activities, and reduced performance. These signs can be both physical and emotional and are starting to be more recognized as a problem within academia.

Burnout is something I have a close, complex, and personal relationship with. The background on my phone reads, “Don’t stop when you are tired, stop when you’re done.” I treat my work like an endurance sport; it’s a long-term race that doesn’t end. I am bad at moderation; I am really good at finding the absolute edge of my limits, and then crashing. This is not a good thing to be good at generally speaking, but especially not as a first year PhD student. Pursuing a PhD is supposed to set oneself up for a longer career, not consume the burgeoning academic before they have a chance to really start their life-long work. Because of this, when I was planning my transatlantic move and really being forced to think about what kinds of books might come with me, and later how I would build my library here, I largely ignored academic texts. When packing, I chose books — and films — that would be a reminder of home, but also things that that would remind me why I chose to pursue this career. My hope was that I would become better at stepping back from the work and into a literary space that remained enjoyable and could act as a balm for a too-often overtired mind.

While my bookshelf is clearly filled with many texts related to my topics, which include children’s literature, fantasy, fairy tales, and adaptations, it is the left two quadrants that are the most important to me. Books from the Cambridge Central Library — currently limited to the two most recent Cassandra Clare novels — sit in the top, and my personal copies take up the bottom. Public libraries are a big part of how I keep the burnout at bay. I grew up in a New England state that has more public libraries than it has towns, and we tend to fight to keep them. They aren’t places that just hold books; they are community centers where retirees come to read the newspaper and chat, new parents bring their little ones to learn how to start being part of the town, and teens find their own space to hang out that isn’t school or under the eyes of their parents. They host public readings, invite authors to chat, and generally provide the space for community life to happen. In comparison, PhDs are a lonely business; it is easy to forget that reading and the sharing of literature and knowledge is not only an erudite pursuit, but a way we build our communities. Browsing the shelves of a public library versus those of university or college libraries, simply being around other people and participating in that part of community life helps me feel connected to something more than just my work in what is still a new place for me.

My shelfie picks are united by that idea of connection as well, to either places or people who have meant a lot to me in my life. Three of the books I brought with me are by one of my former professors. Mr. Pickering was one of the few professors who could convince 30 to 40 undergraduates that the one place they wanted to be at 8 a.m. on a winter morning was in his classroom. In his classroom, we never knew that we were being taught how to write; rather, we were being taught how to see, more, how to listen. Turning to his essays, whether in Dreamtime, A Happy Vagrancy, or Edinburgh Days, I have a moment where I can go back to that classroom. I go back to a place where I can take a breath and wander through sentences remembering why I love the written word.

My Penguin Little Black Classics edition of excerpts from the essays of Michel de Montaigne also helps me with this; in many ways, Montaigne can be considered the first essayist, one of the first to weave together the observations from his daily life with larger meditations on more esoteric topics. When I need a little break, How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing provides a wonderful step away from my work.

I read the Cambridge Companion to The Arthurian Legend for fun because at one point, I thought I was going to be a medievalist. I fell in love with reading because of the Arthurian legend and Robin Hood, and I still like reading criticism about the topic. When I was picking up research texts at the Cambridge University Press bookstore, I couldn’t resist getting this too.

I brought East by Edith Pattou from home because it is my favorite retelling of East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and one of the reasons I fell into wanting to work on adaptations, fairy tales, and folklore, and not stay firmly a medievalist. A paper I wrote in college compared this to other retellings of disambiguations of Cupid and Psyche, and whether we call it that, or East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Beauty and the Beast, or Aarne-Thompson-Uther Tale Type 425C, it remains my favorite series of tales in folklore.

The Little Prince is always a cathartic read; I remember the first time I read the line, “You are responsible forever for what you have tamed,” and it remains full of lessons for how we love and treat others, too. Sometimes things that make me cry are good — which is also why I brought Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium with me. It’s a beautiful story about a magical toy store and growing through loss, and I definitely watch it when I’m feeling down or exhausted.

I hadn’t read, or even heard of, The Little White Horse until recently. I borrowed this when I went to my boyfriend’s parents’ house for the first time, because his mom was shocked I hadn’t come across it. Literature is better shared, and sharing it is a way of showing care for someone — which is certainly what I felt in that moment.

Last but not least, the Slytherin (hey, no judgement, Merlin was a Slytherin, too) cover version of the 20-year anniversary edition of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. I haven’t actually read this; being American, I know this properly as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, but I was not able to bring all my own copies with me. When I moved to Cambridge, my family visited the Warner Brothers Harry Potter Studio Tour, and my sister bought me a copy so here could feel like home, too.

That’s my fend-off-the-burnout shelfie. It shows me the people I love and the people who made me, and who I am outside of a PhD student. What about yours?

Recommended reads from Michelle’s Shelf:

• Sam Pickering, Edinburgh Days, or Doing What I Want to Do
• Michel de Montaigne, How We Weep and Laugh at the Same Thing
• Bonus text if you like falling into beautifully used language: Padgett Powell’s The Interrogative Mood, unfortunately un-pictured as it was hiding next to my teacup
• J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
• Sam Pickering, Dreamtime: A Happy Book
• The Cambridge Companion to The Arthurian Legend
• Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince
• Elizabeth Goudge, The Little White Horse
• Edith Pattou, East (sold in the UK as North Child)
• Magorium’s Wonder Emporium
• Sam Pickering, Happy Vagrancy

Michelle Anya Anjirbag is in her first year of a PhD in Children’s Literature through the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge. She is a member of Clare Hall, and her dissertation will be on depictions of diversity in fairy tale adaptations in children’s and young adult media. Her interests include adaptations of folklore and fairy tales, fantasy literature and film, censorship and propaganda, global corporate consumer media constructs, and the ties between multiplicities of identity, agency and expression, culture, and storytelling, and social media and the construction of metanarratives. Follow her on Twitter: @anjirbaguette, Instagram: @michelle_anya, Medium: @michelle.anjirbag, and WordPress: manjirbag.wordpress.com.

This post was originally published at cambridgechildrenslit.wordpress.com on January 16, 2018.

Michelle Anya Anjirbag is a first year PhD student at the Children’s Literature Centre at Cambridge University.

I don’t remember why it happened, but about a week ago, I ended up sitting on the carpet in my living room while my roommate read to me sections as she browsed the last chapter of a critical text on touch. Now, this has nothing to do with what I think I’m researching, and beyond a mild fascination in everything, I have no basis for wanting to learn about this. However, it did not change the fact that I was on the carpet with a blanket, hugging my knees, and listening, enraptured. There is something that remains absolutely pleasurable — no matter how old we get — in being read to.

I was very lucky; I had a patient mom who filled my early world with books (though I think half the urge to have me reading early was so I would stop pestering her with requests for her to read to me). I remember reading Dr. Seuss books to friends, or to my younger sister who couldn’t get away from me, and Disney picture books to captive audiences of stuffed toys (but we skipped the scary parts of The Fox and the Hound and Bambi, the bears didn’t like those). There was such joy in being able to share the books that I was learning to love with other people, to read them with the voices I thought characters should have, to point out favorite bits of illustration. Reading to other people when young lends one a sense of power, confidence, and pride.

It wasn’t until that I was in fifth grade — so about ten years old — that I learned to appreciate being read to again. My teacher, Mr. Muzer, emphasized using his classroom to build a community where students felt nurtured and cared for. As part of this, he made a point of reading his favorite books to us, chapter by chapter, right before the end of the school day a few days a week. We were in general a rowdy class, but every time the well-worn chapter books came out ­– usually so faded and with bindings so cracked we couldn’t see the covers — we sat at our desks, curled up on backpacks or coats, the spellbound into silence. He read us The Green Book by Jill Patton Walsh, The Enchanted Mountain by Eliza Orne White, and, every once in a while, a short story by O. Henry. He was our teacher, not our parent, but it was an act that communicated to us just how cared for we were. In an education community that pushed us to grow constantly, ever more quickly and independently, at the end of the school day he cherished our childhoods.

The experience stuck with me. Years later, I found myself the one in charge of educating children, and bringing favorite picture books with me to camp in case of a rainy day. Even on a sunny day, sitting with campers in the shade of a big tree where they can feel the grass and the wind, smell the bark, hear the birds and bugs, and reading The Lorax. This wasn’t just with the five year olds, but also with the high schoolers who participated in the counselor-in-training program, and all ages in between; I’d watch good kids with big dreams and heady futures facing them melt away and relax for half an hour. When I lived with extended family for a couple months, I read all of the Roald Dahl books to my younger cousins, and passages from The Wind in the Willows. Every character had his or her own voice — down to each giant and every witch. I have no idea how much they will remember this when they get older, but it was an amazing way to bond with family much younger than I, who I had not been able to spend much time with previously.

Sharing books, the experience of reading to someone else or being read to, sticks with us. We know there is a community building and service aspect; there are plenty of programs that have volunteers read with the chronically ill or with the elderly. But it makes me wonder what we could change about the way we work, the way we communicate, the way we live, if we shared books a little more — not just discussing them, but taking the time to read to each other. I for one, plan to spend a little more time stealing soft chairs in cozy places and reading with others to see me through this degree.

What are your favorite memories of being read to, or reading to others? What made it memorable? Was it the book? The person? The experience? If I gave you a room to read to, what would you choose?