As I continue to look at the professionalization of disciplines in the later 19th century I believe I am beginning to see the historic thread that connects these things starting to match the thread of my personal interests in their modern incarnations. The greatest thing about these readings (and the few before in the last post) is that I have been part of their modern machinations. Aside from working in the Vertebrate Paleo lab (such as it is) at Lamar for most of my undergrad, I spend a summer field season in Belize with the University of Texas following the Maya. Not only did it help me see I was more interested in the history of archaeology as a direction of inquiry (I still follow the latest Central–and some southern-American discoveries) than actually making a career working with those personalities, it has provided me with an already primed canvas to start smearing my own theories onto.
It is amazing what you can do with an extra half-day off. This is half of the emergent specializations set, the other being Anthropology and Paleoanthropology. In this case it covers the development of paleontology from natural philosophy, through the interested gentleman scholar/statesman/parson through to its full professionalization in the beginning of the 20th century. There is no delineation of what comes from which book this week as they mostly say the same things, they only structure the order somewhat differently or go into farther in one life or another.
No wonder that I have spent the last two years with the art history folks
Midweek post, but I think I have a schedule and routine that will facilitate more efficient information acquisition and postings. This is a subset under the 19th century natural history block, the next few are particular to that as well. It will be a big deal when I get to the next “question” area of study.
In the pop culture multiverse, Darwin had another Bulldog. If you make it to the end you can watch the entire episode of X-men The Animated Series.
That is the subheading for this seemingly insurmountable portion of the foothills of the mountain that is comps prep. Nothing about this is going to happen in even a remotely timely manner. In fact, you never know just how many things can happen to get in the way of actually finishing a book. This can range from the mundane–neighbor’s son’s dogs jumping the fence and wanting to hang out in our yard–to the earth shaking–literally a 5.6 earthquake at 7 a.m. so you can spend the morning looking for cracks in your drywall and mortar.
If you somehow stumble onto this series while working on your own projects, or, more likely, procrastinating on you own project, remember one important thing: Things will get in the way.
Most people will tell you their exams were more nerve-wracking and stressful than their actual dissertation. At least that is what more than a few have told me. Comps, or generals, or just exams (all depending on your field, discipline, proclivities) are the final hurdle to being granted your ABD title. That is All But Done issertation.
The next to last step in finishing my PhD work is underway. I take comprehensive exams over every book written in the Spring. I have an approved and finalized reading list and have started gathering the ones I don’t already own. So, naturally, I am trying to take stock exactly how it came to be that I live in Oklahoma and am reading in American Cultural History of Science.
Because the world needs another recorded opinion on a movie that has people threatening the lives of strangers online.
I will apologize for not putting any images in this post which is 100% against what I stand for when I post, but everything I could find online just reinforces how terrible they were with the press releasing and advertising for this film.
TL;DR: The movie is far better than what we’ve seen leaked/been given with trailers. It isn’t your standard Feig/McCarthy potty humor either. Oh, it’s there don’t misinterpret this, it’s just less. All of the worst parts we’ve seen in the trailers and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
I still haven’t put together all my thoughts on an action figure post yet (nor have I finished enough of my comps readings to make a useful post) so in the interim you get this, which, admittedly, is just an excuse to put all the Bebop and Rocksteady images I have in one place.
Last week some time a friend of mine sent me a youtube video from a guy called Captain Disillusion (whom I have never heard of until receiving the link) who had a very special guest on his myth debunking channel: it was Beakman!
