one thing is clear to me. in order to know, I have to know from a variety of sources and those sources can be trusted to greater or lesser degrees. I trust the accuracy of the encyclopedia britannica 11th edition in one way: that things like dates and names will be accurate and that they will include a certain range of people or events as important. but for example I might find "mrs. bernard shaw" mentioned in there as part of George Bernard Shaw's encyclopedia entry. andmaybe something about "Mrs. Bernard shaw's letters to so and so". Great, that way I know she exists. I can infer that she is a writer too - it is usually safe to infer or hypothesize it. But I have to look elsewher to find that information that she too was a writer and that she published translations of radical feminist plays. I can also infer that if I looked deeper - if I went to the library and found books by her or on her or on GBS I would find much more interesting information and probably all about her political essays and fabian feminists and in fact I'd probably find her fabian feminist friends as well. But it would take some digging. From the Britannica I'm usually not going to find out her first name (Charlotte) or the list of books she has written. And I'm not going to find it is important to the britannica who her friends were if they were female writers.

As another example take The Matchless Orinda, katharine philips. She is/was famous for her poems to other women: Celimina, Lucasia, etc. and who those women are is known and their other "real" names and I think they also were poets and writers. But you can rely on the britannica not to mention any of their names: It mentions only that Orinda was friends with the Earl of Whateverdon and the sixth baronet of Someplaceshire and Poliarchus (Sir Charles Cotterell). It does say "she was known as the apostle of female friendship" but you can absolutely rely on the Britannica not to actually give any information about those female friendships but instead to mention all her men friends.

So it is important to know "the canon" or the canonical truths (as I think the britannica is) but also to know the non-canonical truths (such as "Katharine Philips was bisexual or a lesbian and had important long term relationships with other women who also wrote and she wrote about that" which is distinctly important to know. That that information is supressed from the canon or left out of it is also important to know. The more examples like this I come across, the safer I feel in inferring or hypothesizing the existence and the lifestyle of the writing women mentioned in passing in the canonical sources that elide across all the interesting bits.)

This is not quite getting across... I lost the thread or the importance here... as I was interrupted about 10 times getting juice and finding swords and kissing scrapes and reading 'the lively little duckling' out loud for the hundredth time.... but I had some sort of deep insight, the punchline of whicih was, "It is important to know both the canonical and the non-canonical truths."

I remember a little of it. It was that it is not only important to my knowing. It is that I have the strong impulse when I find this sort of thing to include in the "name definition" in the database of the feminary, I want to include both piece of information and their sources. to put "charlotte bernard, wife of george bernard shaw" with the source being britannica. then to put all the other interesting information with that source which is probably some feminist something or other or book of letters or diaries (the "noncanonical sources" I was talking about) Simply because the differences between the canonical and the non-canonical information often exposes patriarchy and what it is and how it works.

this idea is also important to my bilingual poetry project as I notice the enormous disjunction between "poetry that is canonized" and once you get into the non canonical world of chicano/a poetry, nuyoricans, etc, finding that poetry's goodness or what is of value about it or what is interesting. I am less interested in revising the canon (though I do think revising it is necessary and good) than i am at looking at the differences in order to expose That Thing which is, maybe, power? I say patriarchy but could equally say racism or classism - the general term for "the workings or misuse of power and privilege" escapes me.

- posted by Liz @ 10:23 AM

 
Meeting with Professor Peel thurs. a.m. Next meeting to be determined as I can send her updates thru email. Pseudo-assignment for me to find out for sure what I am doing for the OTHER class that isn't this one - by next tuesday evening - and email her.

Her comments on my essay outline draft were helpful. I feel like I know what I am doing and I am confident and have plenty of things to say. However she pointed out that the way I outlined it, it was like small mini-essays stuck to gether like an essay with subheadings. So true. she asked that I try to write it as a unified essay (almost merely because that is hard for me and so it will be good for me to try.) So I'll try to do that. I think that means I will write the essay about 3 different ways before I figure out how to do it. And why not? I would write a poem or a translation 6 different ways. With essays I am lazy.


Deadlines:

April 20th Tues. tell prof. P. my projects and deadlines for bilingual project.
(April 22) thurs. tenative deadline, go to prof. m.'s office hours and check in with him. have something to show, even a draft.
(may 7) tenative deadline to turn in something smallish on bilingual proj. to prof. m.
May 13th Thurs. Final wittig paper deadline. Turn it in to prof. p. at her house or office.
(may 19th) thurs. tenative deadline to turn in something or other to murguia (but what?) (or should/could this date be later?)
May 19th Wed. official end of classes
may 25th Tues. Turn in final project of the whole database. I will do this by printing it all out neatly but it is also available online for browsing.
May 28th Fri. end of exams
- posted by Liz @ 10:06 AM

 
Did I mention that I've now gone through Z-R, backwards? Most everything has a little information. I figure as long as there is a pointer that might be useful to someone, that is enough. At least it's clear that there ARE pointers out there if you look hard enough. I'm halfway through P, still going backwards.
- posted by Liz @ 10:19 PM

 
Progress: Cleaned up a few more source entries. Finished "B". Started going through Salmonson's Encylopedia of Amazons, backwards. I'd like to get the works cited list into decent shape by Thursday's meeting with Prof. Peel.
- posted by Liz @ 5:02 PM

 
procedure lately has been:

(look in specific source if it's obvious, like a biblical name)

Look up name in columbia encyclopedia
then Britannica
then Wikipedia

Then google it with "french" "feminist" or if I have a good guess for the ethnicity I try it: name + feminist + chinese

Then a googling with other possibilities: +woman +goddess +amazon +female

I also have many reference books like "chinese mythology" or "Women Poets of Japan" or "Goddeses, Amazons and Sluts", things like that, so if I think it's likely from online clues, I'll look in a book in preference to an online source.

If I can't find much, or I suspect the spelling might be off because it's a name translated from some language other than french/english, I will poke around with likely other spellings, or skim general lists.

For a fairly common name - say "Anne" I'll pick french feminist ones, and i mean directly "declared feminist", and I'll also take anyone who I would describe as a strong woman character, anyone who's a philosopher, associated with war, a political leader like a Dowager Empress or a famous mistress or concubine, artist, etc. or a writer before 1900-ish. These aren't strict criteria at all.
- posted by Liz @ 6:05 PM

 
Meeting notes (will type them later).

I worked all day putting in names from the chapter on feminists associated with Saint Simonianism from around 1830 (from the 19th Century French Feminists book). That book is great. I recommend it to everyone.

One note from the meeting I don't have to look up. Ellen asked me these very good question. "How will you know when you are done? When do you know when to stop on any one name? Do you have standards? How much do you think you have to do before the end of May?"

Uh. That would be "I'll do way too much and get stressed and hate myself for not doing more. It will never be enough. "

It is hard not to just keep looking for one more confirmation or fact. I can try to look up each name in: Wikipedia. 1911 Britannica. Columbia Encyclopedia. Then Google it. Then I kind of get lost in reading the whole Encyclopedia of Amazons, and taking notes from that on OTHER names, or reading all of Fatima (p.b.u.h.) the prophet mohammed's (peace be upon him) daughter's speeches, then looking for better translations of those speeches, then trying to find a source for it that won't be a total pain in the ass so i can cite it. You can imagine this goes on forever. I worked 7:30-9:30 this morning. Then met with Ellen. Then drove off to a cafe near the beach and had lunch and worked till 2:30. Got Milo and read to him at the allergist's office. Came home and worked from 5 until just now. I think I ate some crackers and cheese but forgot dinner.

If you can call endless browsing about Fatima or Fatmeh or whatever "working"... then I've been working all day. I got some kind of information and citation for MOST of the names under "A" done. PLUS most of 19th Cent. French Feminism book's women at least mentioned. That is awesome progress. However. I should get up and move. My whole body hurts.


- posted by Liz @ 10:20 PM

 
"false" or madeup definitions will be in red, the traditional color of the correction of errors.
- posted by Liz @ 7:49 AM

 
thinking too of Deep Rivers - a wonderful book - and the way the main char. uses different names for people depending on how their relationship is. When he begins calling his friend by his quechua nickname but still calls him the spanish name to everyone else and then when he stops the quechua nickname out of anger with him but instead calls him the spanish version of the nickname.

Aliases and pseudonyms. How they spring to life a different identity. The name creates an identity: more than a persona or a mask. That identity over time develops a whole history.

- posted by Liz @ 7:31 AM