This is it folks, only one more week of classes left. This upcoming week will mark the end of Michaelmas term, but not the end of suffering quite yet since it’s a week until our final papers are due. I also have a presentation on, you guessed it, early modern pornography. I mean, who doesn’t want to take an exciting topic and find the most boring way to discuss it? So to my classmates: sit back, relax, and enjoy…a survey of academic literature on the anatomical inaccuracies and their feminist implications of John Cleland’s Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure. And you don’t want to miss my thrilling paper “Statements or Sales?: The French Revolution in James Gillray’s Prints” on English made political caricature during the 1790s and their reflections upon the progression of the Anti-Jacobin movement in British popular opinion. As you can see, we’re out here partying in the History department.
But, let me tell you some tea about the department and their M.Phil programs…Medieval Studies only has to write 7,500 words instead of 10,000 this semester and their shit isn’t due until mid-December and January. The incredulity we all felt at learning this information was next-level, especially now that I found out the Theology department’s M.Phil papers aren’t due until January. The question plaguing us now is whether Medieval Studies is slacking or Early Modern just pure insanity? And you can bet I called my mother the second I got this riveting information and to put it lightly, she was underwhelmed. I’m over here with my peers gossiping about wordcount and due dates while she was expecting actual riveting revelations. But believe me, when your life revolves around essays and endless reading, hearing another program has an extra 2+ weeks is a riveting revelation worth hours of conversation.
This may be in part due to the Early Modern History program’s impressive ability to crush our souls and remind us we are the stupidest people on the planet. Which brings me to the title of this dispatch as while we all knew going in this was going to be hard, I’m not sure any of us were aware that introducing ourselves was going to the height of our intellectual abilities. Never have I seen one group of people so effectively crush the dreams of another in such little time. To emphasize this, I will point out that a third of our program has dropped out already and we’re down to six survivors. Since one student is on the two year track, Trinity will produce only five scholars with an M.Phil in Early Modern History in 2026 if we all make it.
Turns out having your sense of self-worth collectively crushed serves as a very effective bonding experience and we’re a tight knit group. But at the same time, we thrive on each other’s failures. When you ask “How are you doing on your historiography paper?,” we all know we don’t want the answer to be “Oh, I’m doing fabulous. It’s done and was the easiest paper I’ve ever written. You?” So when one of my classmates hesitantly asked the group before class yesterday about how our papers are coming along, he grinned and sighed in relief when we all let out groans of pain. There’s a sense that if we’re all struggling, then we’re not the stupidest person on the planet, just in a group of them.
My mother noted that they have to “break us” in the beginning and I’m praying the “build them back up” stage eventually materializes. So to conclude, did I go back to my room and cry when the presenter at the art history lecture I went to for fun said “that’s a very good question” to me? Yes, absolutely. Am I having the time of my life? Yes, absolutely.
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