Graduate Students, Stand Down.
I was planning on ignoring the upcoming "Craft Corner Death Match," not only on the T.V., but in the blog, because it is just too tacky, even for me, but recently I have received an email from one of the co-presidents of the English Graduate Organization (yep, they're aware of the implications of the initials; I think they planned it), requesting that I, as Director of Graduate Studies, blog the Death Match, complete with link, and that I consider making it into a relevant part of the Ph.D. exams.
Yes to the first, see above; no to the second.
The Ph.D. exams are un-nerving enough, without our requiring the candidates to fight to the death with glue guns. Also, I'm a bit confused here, as to exactly how we'd work this out. In each Ph.D. exam, there is only one candidate, and then some professors. Surely y'all don't want us to pit one upcoming Victorianist up against another, as if we'd only agree to support one Victorian scholar per year? (What, the other'd have to go into the Renaissance?) Are you visualizing the Death Match, on the other hand, as being in between the candidate and the exam committee? Are we thinking here that the professors go into the chicken wire cage with the candidate, toting the glue guns? I will never get that past the Graduate Committee, hon, I'm telling you, even if I could figure out a good argument for it, which I can't, so you're just going to have to advance one yourself, perhaps in the comment function.
Also, and let me be brutally frank here, I love my colleagues, I really do, and I bless the day I met them, each and every one, but I do NOT want to watch them make brooches out of candy. Or gift baskets out of plastic bags. Or wall plaques out of toothpaste. Whatever the Craft Death Match people think up, you KNOW it's going to be bad, and I don't want any part of it. Nope. I don't watch celebrities eat worms, I don't watch desperate guys try to get models to marry them, and I'm not going to watch crafters make appalling items out of unsuitable materials. Especially if I have to work with them the next day.
So I'm not going to propose that we inflict this on the English Department.
All that being said -- hope I was clear there -- I will admit that I see the attraction of the idea.
We'd just have to skew it a bit, into the literary.
That is, we could require the contestants to create brooches out of candy such as could have been worn by Emma, in the Austen novel of that name. Or, gift baskets out of plastic bags such as could have been delivered to Laura, in The Glass Menagerie. Or wall plaques out of toothpaste that would be appropriately decorative in the inn where the pilgrims stop, in The Canterbury Tales. And we could invite the rest of the department, instead of keeping the affair private and small, the way we conduct the exams now. And we could all knit raw chicken Viking hats.
Now, THAT I could get behind.
And it would add a lot of levity to the faculty meetings, when we figured out appropriate projects.
And stories forever.
Yes to the first, see above; no to the second.
The Ph.D. exams are un-nerving enough, without our requiring the candidates to fight to the death with glue guns. Also, I'm a bit confused here, as to exactly how we'd work this out. In each Ph.D. exam, there is only one candidate, and then some professors. Surely y'all don't want us to pit one upcoming Victorianist up against another, as if we'd only agree to support one Victorian scholar per year? (What, the other'd have to go into the Renaissance?) Are you visualizing the Death Match, on the other hand, as being in between the candidate and the exam committee? Are we thinking here that the professors go into the chicken wire cage with the candidate, toting the glue guns? I will never get that past the Graduate Committee, hon, I'm telling you, even if I could figure out a good argument for it, which I can't, so you're just going to have to advance one yourself, perhaps in the comment function.
Also, and let me be brutally frank here, I love my colleagues, I really do, and I bless the day I met them, each and every one, but I do NOT want to watch them make brooches out of candy. Or gift baskets out of plastic bags. Or wall plaques out of toothpaste. Whatever the Craft Death Match people think up, you KNOW it's going to be bad, and I don't want any part of it. Nope. I don't watch celebrities eat worms, I don't watch desperate guys try to get models to marry them, and I'm not going to watch crafters make appalling items out of unsuitable materials. Especially if I have to work with them the next day.
So I'm not going to propose that we inflict this on the English Department.
All that being said -- hope I was clear there -- I will admit that I see the attraction of the idea.
We'd just have to skew it a bit, into the literary.
That is, we could require the contestants to create brooches out of candy such as could have been worn by Emma, in the Austen novel of that name. Or, gift baskets out of plastic bags such as could have been delivered to Laura, in The Glass Menagerie. Or wall plaques out of toothpaste that would be appropriately decorative in the inn where the pilgrims stop, in The Canterbury Tales. And we could invite the rest of the department, instead of keeping the affair private and small, the way we conduct the exams now. And we could all knit raw chicken Viking hats.
Now, THAT I could get behind.
And it would add a lot of levity to the faculty meetings, when we figured out appropriate projects.
And stories forever.
<< Home