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Today I finished my second draft of Chapter 2.
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
This one's a big one. It's out to the committee; it may well decide whether I can be (really) on the job market this year. But right now? I'm so happy it's done!
Quick review - three weeks ago, this chapter was about shipwreck narratives of the 18-19C. Now it's about literary reform of the British maritime empire, as campaigned for by William Falconer and Frederick Marryat. If you don't know who they are, I don't blame you. Let's just say that in the course of writing this chapter I have had to learn the following things:
1) the history of the Spithead and Nore mutinies of 1797
2) what really went down on the Mutiny of the Bounty
3) how imperialism accidentally killed people with breadfruit
4) the economics of the African slave trade and Middle Passage
5) how the word "scientist" was coined and why Babbage invented the Difference Engine
6) that I really, really wouldn't have wanted to be a human computer (6313 hrs of work! Less than 50 pounds a year! No way!)
7) what a purser was and why it mattered
8) the development of the lifejacket, the lighthouse and the lifeboat
9) that women and children usually died first
10) that Nelson did not kill any polar bears, but he did have a good sex scandal or two
11) that the Bentham brothers were the go-to guys for 19C surveillance
12) more than I ever thought I'd know about the development of dictionaries
13) that there really were real-life Robinson Crusoes besides Selkirk, and you wouldn't have wanted to be one
14) that back then, people knew how to survive a shipwreck. And cook people.
15) that pirates died young, and that you may not have a choice about becoming one
16) that "the beach" was an invented concept
19) that "sea bathing" in the 18C meant waterboarding teenage girls to "cure" their menstrual cramps
20) that there was a big debate in 1812 or so as to whether sea monsters existed
There was more, but I forgot to type it. The end.
WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!
This one's a big one. It's out to the committee; it may well decide whether I can be (really) on the job market this year. But right now? I'm so happy it's done!
Quick review - three weeks ago, this chapter was about shipwreck narratives of the 18-19C. Now it's about literary reform of the British maritime empire, as campaigned for by William Falconer and Frederick Marryat. If you don't know who they are, I don't blame you. Let's just say that in the course of writing this chapter I have had to learn the following things:
1) the history of the Spithead and Nore mutinies of 1797
2) what really went down on the Mutiny of the Bounty
3) how imperialism accidentally killed people with breadfruit
4) the economics of the African slave trade and Middle Passage
5) how the word "scientist" was coined and why Babbage invented the Difference Engine
6) that I really, really wouldn't have wanted to be a human computer (6313 hrs of work! Less than 50 pounds a year! No way!)
7) what a purser was and why it mattered
8) the development of the lifejacket, the lighthouse and the lifeboat
9) that women and children usually died first
10) that Nelson did not kill any polar bears, but he did have a good sex scandal or two
11) that the Bentham brothers were the go-to guys for 19C surveillance
12) more than I ever thought I'd know about the development of dictionaries
13) that there really were real-life Robinson Crusoes besides Selkirk, and you wouldn't have wanted to be one
14) that back then, people knew how to survive a shipwreck. And cook people.
15) that pirates died young, and that you may not have a choice about becoming one
16) that "the beach" was an invented concept
19) that "sea bathing" in the 18C meant waterboarding teenage girls to "cure" their menstrual cramps
20) that there was a big debate in 1812 or so as to whether sea monsters existed
There was more, but I forgot to type it. The end.
