Wednesday, March 31, 2010

If the Blog Fits, Wear It...wait, what?

So, I'm six months into grad school, and I have found that I am specifically good at one thing: coming up with titles. Bear in mind that I am only adequate at writing papers and formulating analyses and wearing corduroy, leather-elbowed suit jackets while pontificating on Marxist theory in My Fair Lady and all other things that one would assume that a grad student in drama would be good at, but I'm loving imagining titles.

As an explanation, from time to time one of my professors will give us an exercise where we'll, in class, come up with titles for papers that we'd like to write. I think that this is a lot of fun, and my classmates are amused at what I come up with (though I remain concerned about the laughing at/laughing with dynamic). However, I feel that the papers that come out of these ideas are a little cumbersome.

But, still, I am pretty good at titles, and I even enjoy daydreaming about titles of papers I will someday write. To break the silence of AC*, here are a few titles that have been rolling around in my head the last couple of days.

"A Reevaluation of Prominent 20th Century Female Playwrights: Is that what she said?"

"She's So Heavy: Fat Folk in Theatre"

"Analyzing Improvised Theatre: Is the Play the Thing?"

For one of the exercises from the professor, he asked us to come up with a title for the paper we were working on as if it were on the front page of a tabloid. My paper concerned similarities between the time periods of Sophocles and Shakespeare as evidenced through their work. My tabloid title was "Shakespeare Steals Sophocles Stories? Survey Says: Sorta."

There was a playwright/critic named Brecht who emphasized, among other things, that plays needed to "alienate" so that the audience wouldn't get as caught up in empathizing with the characters and the audience would spend time intellectually evaluating what was being presented. This sounded like something that I saw in popular culture, so my idea for a paper was "Brecht's Alienation: Is Family Guy What He Intended?"

Trust me, people think this stuff is great in grad school.

*Doesn't this sound like a Spike Lee movie? Also, it seemed like you all were having fun writing on your own blogs, so I decided to get in on that fun.

4 comments:

Thany said...

You writing this: YES.
Film at Eleven.


I add that on to things to make them sound more interesting. you're welcome for that nugget of comedic goodness.

PS: My validation word was brysma....not that you KNOW anyone with the first letters of his name to be "bry" or that this alleged person may or may not HAVE a "ma" but there you go.

Emma Anne said...

Yea! That makes my day so much better!! I needed a good AC laugh. Also: Yes, it sounds like a Spike Lee movie, and I definitely think that one should be made. And also, I'm really much excited that you haven't run out of grad school screaming, "There is no sanity left!!" I hope it's going well. :)

Jen said...

HOORAY!!!!!!! You're back! Hilarious post, AC:) I can only imagine how entertained your classmates are.

Mama V said...

So glad to be reading an AC blog again! Welcome back! And in case you were unsure of the loyalty of your followers - I have, in fact, managed to become your follower -- twice. Actually, so has Wurgy - not sure how this happened... unless there is another person out there posing as "Mama V" with an equally as handsome little baby boy... hmmm...