Hi, my name is Sarah Beth, and I dream about France under the occupation

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Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night to the terrible feeling that if you don't get to your laptop right now and write about France under the Occupation, you are going to lose the brilliant thesis to your first grad school paper before it ever had a shot to become a paper in the first place?

Well, I have, and I decided to go to sleep...so I am not entirely sure what the brilliant thesis is. I do know that I spend the better part of my waking hours thinking about the Second World War, and now it has apparently crept into my sleep.

Which leads me to today's list: 8 Symptoms to Diagnose History Overdose:

1.) You roll over to your significant other in the middle of the night muttering something about how Simone de Beauvoir is NOT a good representation of the middle class mindset in 1940. You turn back over and continuing debating the point with yourself, noting that de Beauvoir was an elitist and a member of the resistance, so how could her opinion of the Germans when they Occupied Paris possibly be considered a citable and reliable source? You eventually fall asleep to your own ramblings.

2.) You find that words like "demonstrably" and phrases like "methodologically speaking" creep strangely into your vocabulary.

3.) When you meet your classmates for social gatherings, you still talk about class.

4.) When you go down to the computer lab check your email, you get diverted from this task by the alluring prospect of making up bibliographies for future research projects.

5.) You start asking people "What's your source for that information?" even if they are just quoting grocery prices.

6.) You seriously concider petitioning for the installation of a cot room at the library.

7.) You think its cool that you can get a reader's card at the National Library of Scotland.

8.) (And this one is my favourite): You actually bring episodes of the Simpson's into your seminar debates, citing the amazing historiographical insight the authors actually have.

#8 happened to me yesterday during a discussion of myth and memory in relation to Heritage sights around Great Britain. I attended a seminar where a professor was presenting a paper on commerical commemorations of Captain cook. The author noted that the commercial, PC, whitewashed image of Captain Cook was what tourists were after when they visited these sights, and that got me thinking of that episode of the Simpson's where Lisa finds out the Jebidiah Simpson was really a crook who tried to kill George Washington. She decides though, that she shouldnt expose the secret because the myth of Jebidiah as a hero and brave town founder was too important to the town's self image. Which is SO insightful -- really, I wonder if people see that kind of stuff when they are watching the Simpson's.

On a totally different note, I saw something very intersting the other day. This kid, maybe a freshman, was walking out of one of the professor's offices wearing a shirt that said FUCT. Now, think about it -- you are going in to have a meeting with a widely published author, leader in their field, PhD, well respected historian. Perhaps a shirt that says FUCT might not be the most respectful choice. I don't know, just an observation.

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Comments

[Alicia]

mmmm....sleep
I'm all for the cots! really, it's not that unreasonable to expect a soft little pace to curl up--near the radiators is the best. And good for you for sleeping! it's highly underrated

[J-Berr]

#5
Haha, I totally understand about the citations. I am going crazy reading a book right now which has no citations for speficic statistical info. How can you quote something as fact without supporting it? Don't overload on the studying and you can always take a sleeping bag to the library...