Reviewing extant paradigms of textual interpretation can open some pretty interesting doors to theories that might otherwise have passed me by.

Discovering Jerome J. McGann has certainly helped me formulate a more cohesive argument regarding the interconnectivity of certain modernist Little Magazines.Image

 

This is because his work is not based on the hermeneutics of reading and interpretation but rather on writing and production. His ideas on how every text enters into a socio-historical context allows anyone working in literature to take a fresh look at old interpretation in a more materialist way. 

 

For McGann textuality is a matter of inscription and articulation, which is one of the basic arguments of my thesis and now I have a theorist which I can turn to for the kind of academic support that my argument was lacking. It is a wee bit of a breakthrough. I knew my ideas were sound, however it’s good to know that there is a respected academic out there who has given a label to the ideas circulating in my head, and a vocabulary with which to explain it. 

 

This will make writing the introduction a little easier in the long term and will help fill out the section I have in draft form on the importance of periodic coding! Hurrah for small break throughs!

 

 

This deserves a trip to Aberfeldy and the Watermill book shop … 😀 

 

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Published by Lily Bart

I used to be a racalcitrant scholar who was valiantly fighting the battle to win my doctorate. Mature in years, but not in attitude, I struggled with routine and the daily trials of academic solitude ... but I was encouraged to go on by all the wonderful things I discovered along the way: not only about the world around me, but about myself. I have accepted with good grace that the more I learn, the less I know! Women like Marilyn French and Mary Wesley, both of whom were 'older' when they were first published, are examples of the kind of woman I am and also aspire to be. I am now one year into my first lecturing post and learning things the hard way. Enjoying sharing my love of the written word with students from all walks of life, hoping to inspire them to live their dreams, the way I try to live mine.

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