How to Defeat Writer's Block in the PhD process. Some pointers

The PhD dissertation is  a crucial genre in scholarship, in public life and—crucially—in the life of the individual dissertation writer. Moreover, it is in the clear majority of cases cases the most daunting writing task the writer in question has ever faced; and by a broad margin. Thus, writer's block is a both a common phenomenon and an ever present ghost looming in the background.

So, after well-nigh seven years as the Head of PhD School for the Faculty of Humanities at the University of Copenhagen, do I have any useful insights into how to overcome writer's block? Some. Here's my nickel's worth of advise.

Writing is hard, don't be ashamed

The first thing worth noticing—in particular in this perspective—is that academic writing is hard. Not just sometimes, but almost always and for almost everyone. This includes people with decades' worth of academic writing behind them. Why is this worth noticing? Because writer's block like many other things that ail us mentally speaks to us in our own voice and personalize the experience. Everybody else seem to be writing just fine, but me I can't because I am not good enough—or whatever the voice says. So Writer's Block pile up shame and feelings of worthlessness on top of our actual problems with finding the right words. Hardly constructive feelings if we actually want to get words written.  However, since everybody struggles, there is noting to be ashamed of, and nothing to feel worthless about, just because we struggle to write. Everybody else struggle too. We only see their finished work—or at worst detailed drafts—we don't see their struggle. In other words, the problem is not that the PhD student is stupid, but that the task is hard, and the PhD student is only just learning it.

Write before you read

There's an age old counter-intuitive piece of advise that I always try to impress on the minds of new PhD students, but which also has its uses in case of a writer's block. It is "write before you read". The point is that reading as such is endless. There is forever 20 more references to run down, and if nothing else there's always someone in Brazil who might have done this relevant thing and so we need to learn Portuguese.

And I'm all for learning Portuguese, of course, but it's not writing.

So, if you want to read "enough" before you write, "enough" never comes. And since new references appear incessantly, you move further and further away from having reached this semi-mythical "enough".

 In contrast, if you are writing already, you will only read what you need to read in order to keep writing. It'll get extensive fast anyway, but the reading is always targeted at some part of your writing, and so you don't get lost in it. On a personal note: I made this rookie mistake when learning genre research, and I wrote next to nothing about if for the first approximately 4 years. But I did read a lot.

However, what if you've already read "too much"? Put the whole thing down and write something on your own topic ignoring everything that you've read. It will get back to you, when you revise, but it will re-appear in the targeted form described above. Of course, this approach has the in-built danger of you reproducing something you've read as if it was your own, so you have to be quite careful to get the references in afterwards. But if you are a person who over-reads you are not very likely to be a person who steals peoples' thought without giving credit. I trust your due diligence.

Writing techniques

Both of these thought are on a more overall level. If you are in the process and you are stuck—possibly stuck for days—what do you do?  Well, the obvious answer is to go to your supervisor. If your own shame blocks you from going, it's either a psychological challenge you have (see above), or it's a problem with your supervisor - and that's a whole different kettle of fish. But beyond that there are at least two basic techniques worth trying. One is the "writing burst" (for lack of a better name) and the other is "writing something else". I'll go through them in turn.

Writing burst. You set aside a concentrated amount of time, I'd suggest 20 minutes, but anything up to an hour is feasible depending on how your mind works. Mine can´t take more than 20, but (in this and this alone) I have a weak mind. Within this short period of time you can only write forward. You cannot re-read, you cannot revise, you cannot proof-read, and you most definitely cannot criticize. You can only write on. Finish one sentence, move on to the next, finish that one—etc ad lib.  If a sentence gets stuck—leave it hanging and move on. Always forward. The point is that since you are actually worth something as a writer—that's why more experienced researchers chose you in the first place—what you write will invariably be of a fair quality. So, when the time is done you have a draft—even if a very basic one—of a passage, and then, when you run out of time, you can return to it and revise what needs revising (it will be a lot) and do the proofs (there will be many). But you will have text to work on. And text is the abhorrence of writer's block.

Write something else. "But I write all the time, I just can't write this. Look I'm a brilliant tweeter, for instance!" I hear you cry. Ah, but I did not specify what "something else" was. By "something else" I mean something else that will eventually go into your dissertation. If you are stuck you are usually just stuck on one point in your text. So, instead you move sideways within the dissertation.

• Stuck in the data-analysis? Well do a part of it from a different angle.
• Stuck there too? Well, there was that literature review (remember all that reading?).
• Stuck there too? Well, there's a chapter on methods to be written.
• Are you even stuck there? Well, there must be someone who has written something about this topic which hugely annoys you. Write a three page polemic about it. It may end up relegated to a footnote and subdued to a whisper, but it's text. And—yes—writer's block abhors text.
• Etc ad lib.

 The point is that it's very hard to be stuck, if you have 15 different parts of your dissertation you are actually writing on. One of them will always be a little on the move. And that's where you go. When that one gets stuck; well, there are 14 other places to go. That's the advantage of the PhD being a sizable project; there's much to write and thus lots of opportunities to not be stuck. There are other reasons why technique is beneficial for many PhD students in their dissertation writing - and to anyone writing a major project, but they have little to do with writer's block, so I may return to them later.

Oh, and writer's block has given rise to one of the finest pieces of non-writing, I've ever seen. Reproduced below. Enjoy.

The "daily reminder" as genre

Over on Twitter, I've assumed the identity of a cheerleader as a function of my participation in the debate over Brexit. Placed squarely on the sideline, I try to cheer those on the fields by doing remarkable poses, yells and dance moves to that effect. In the cheerleader-role, I've been running what I call my "daily reminder". Each day I post

"This is your daily reminder that you have millions of friends and allies in the EU."

And then I add some new remark which I feel—for whatever reason—is fitting for the day. Usually these are fairly upbeat; as fits the point of the reminder (see below), but they don´t have to be wholly without teeth.

A ”reminder”, Merriam-Webster usefully reminds us, is “something that calls a memory or thought to the mind”. Our spouse can remind us to remember the car keys, or we can remind ourselves to call the mayor before sunset. The reminder, thus has a clear social and cognitive function, it returns information to us that we might need for one reason or another. The reminder also has a negative side of course, it can bring back memories we’d rather keep away. “The sight of Marie in the crowd was an unwelcome reminder to Lucy of love lost”. However, there is a recurrent element between the two: the reminder aligns the mind with reality; brings back something that for whatever reason, had been pushed in the background. That is the function of the genre.

How about the daily reminder? Well, going by what has already been written it must be something important that tends to get lost or steps into the background every day, and which should be brought to the foreground again. (BTW: I DuckDuckGo’ed “daily reminder”; there’s a lot of motivational claptrap coming up; stay on this channel – don´t google it either; it’s probably even worse.) So, the “daily” reminder has to be there, because something gets lost and lost and lost and lost.

In the case at hand, there are many things that tend to get lost in the brouhaha of the Brexit debate, and many things one might want to use as a daily reminder. For me, one of those most close at hand is the fact that Brexit is an utterly pointless exercise. There is no necessity in it. It is voluntary; an unforced choice of something immensely damaging. And when you look at the consequences of Brexit, the question arises: why do this? This very important banality tends to get lost in the daily exchanges and thus could need a reminder. It’s a little harsh, but many people who have spent time in therapy know, that a hash fact stubbornly held on to can be quite healing. 

However, I chose another daily reminder, “that you have millions of friends and allies in the EU”. Why? First of all, because in a crisis like this with tempers flaring and fates, futures, and lives at stake, there is less kindness to go around than needed. I can’t vote, I can’t demonstrate, I can’t even sign the central petitions. I can, however, show a little kindness. And every day, someone seems to need it. It would take me a long time to count the number of times someone has expressed that they needed exactly that reminder on exactly that day. Most of the time, I don´t even know, why they need it; but they do, and I'm fine with that.

This is, in one important aspect simply reverse trolling. Just as the trolls and bots (remember to block them!!!) use your empathy to tear into people's feelings, because they know that we automatically establish a human connection around their awful utterance and treat it as if is is somehow meaningful, even when it is just hateful, I use peoples' empathy to soothe their feelings, because I know that they automatically establish a human connection around my consoling utterance and see it as meaningful, and thus put more into the words than I can. Empathy is a superpower—and can be harnessed for good.

However, there is a second—even more genre-like point: the recurrence makes the reminder move in time. You had one yesterday, and the day before that, you recognize it today, and you know it will return again tomorrow.  In my terms, you recognize it as a #genre and it works on you as such. And so, the recurrence adds power to the simple, apparently insignificant message. Just like nagging or criticism can wear you down, drip by drip, my little reminder accumulates impact, because it always returns. 

(Well, always and always. You get the point.)

It’s slightly pavlovian, of course, I am aiming for a conditioned response, but if that response is that someone smiles, feels better, and can handle what the world throws at them a little better, I’ll take it. 

NB: Again, this post was originally a twitter thread. You can see it here.

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Sacred Eating as Genre. An appreciation

My esteemed colleague Dr Meredith J. C. Warren has published a fascinating book on a genre called "hierophagy". Here, for your enjoyment and (hopefully) your enlightenment is a post on the book and its use of genre. It is written from an interdisciplinary genre research perspective.

The reference in—sort of—APA 6th:

Warren, M. J. C. (2019). Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature (Vol. 14). Atlanta: SBL Press.

And the cover. Not too sexy, but you know this is how these things look:

Let me add, that I really like Dr. Warren a lot. She is both a brilliant scholar and a very nice and energetic human being. I am a better researcher and a better person for knowing her. So, do not expect anything particularly belligerent. Today, I am not in the business of harsh criticism, but in the business of being extremely interested and making remarks to a piece of very fine scholarship. In other words, this is as much fun as academia gets, and I am here to enjoy it, not stomp upon it. I like having academic fun. I am just that kind of guy.

What is "hierophagy"? The book defines it as "specialized, sacred eating" (1). The book chooses it's topic from "Ancient Mediterranean Literature" with a clear focus in the Bible but also with a number of texts from the surrounding historical landscape. The basic idea is that somebody in a text consumes some item of food with an otherworldly origin (note that, apparently a book can be food; at least it can be eaten in a sacred way). The hierophagic eating transforms the eater and establishes a connection between the eater and the otherworldly realm. Persephone consumes food from Hades and is bound to the realm; John eats a scroll and has divine visions.

So, what is the genre angle?

Well, the hierophagic meal is itself a genre. It's a recurrent form of action with a particular social purpose. If you will, a "situation based fusion of form and substance". At this point, obviously, the genre crowd hears the voice of Carolyn Miller reverberating in the background. So here she is—in the foreground—with Chuck Bazerman. Don´t they look just lovely?

But I digress.

 The book is not a full-on piece of genre research; we'll get back to that, but it does rest on two moves already made in genre research, and it does so very well.

The first is, as hinted, Carolyn Miller's "Genre as Social Action" (1984). If you are somehow and do not know Miller, you can find the article here. It is the most quoted piece of genre research ever, methinks, unless you count Aristotle's Rhetoric. Also, there is a little piece on Miller and her influence on my blog here.

Anway, Miller describes how genres are forms of action. They serve rhetorical purposes in our social life, we use them in situations to achieve aims that are achievable through discourse. We do things with genre. This understanding has been foundational for modern genre research. It has been expanded, nuanced, developed, and sometimes twisted, but it has never been fully replaced, and is as alive today as it has ever been—and that's very much alive. 

Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature takes up the hierophagic meals as a genre in this Millerian sense, as it sees these meals as social actions. They are ways things are done in the social world. In the terms of genre research this, incidentally, is an uptake. A concept from Anne Freadman that Dr. Warren would enjoy immensely, I believe. I don't think it's online, but it is discussed in two central pieces by Freadman:

Freadman, A. (1994). Anyone for Tennis? In A. Freedman & P. Medway (Eds.), Genre and the New Rhetoric (pp. 43-66). London: Taylor & Francis
Freadman, A. (2002). Uptake. In R. Coe, L. Lingard, & T. Teslenko (Eds.), The Rhetoric and Ideology of Genre (pp. 39-53). Cresskill Hampton Press Inc.

Anyway, Miller only gets Dr. Warren halfways there, because her book discusses "Ancient Mediterranean literature" (emphasis added), not ancient Mediterranean society more broadly, and Miller's concept is directed at an actual sociality. Real people doing real people stuff. Enter stage (right) a lesser researcher; yours truly, who has the honor of playing second violin to Miller's primarius. (Oh, and being second violin to Miller is extremely honorable.Nothing modest here; I'll take that chair any day).

A few years back I made an aesthetic take on Miller by superimposing her concept of genre as social action on narrative literature and thus describing "Genre as Fictional Action".  The study—less groundbreaking than Miller, but you can be less groundbreaking than Miller and still be the s....!—can be found here. It is a lot of fun, if you ask me. The basic idea then is, that you can analyse genre use in a literary work in the same way that you can analyse genre use IRL by looking at the genres themselves, the way they are used, and the—intradiegetic—social situation in which they appear as attempted actions. 24/

This enables Dr Warren to make a central move in her own readings: she does not need to address the IRL-role of hierophagy as a genre; she just has to see the way it works within the literary text she addresses with no commitment to a sociality beyond the texts.

I shall not enter into the text readings in Food and Transformation in Ancient Mediterranean Literature. I might be able to add a thing or two from a perspective of literary analysis, but they are basically the scholarly realm of other researchers. Instead, I shall address two questions that are very much genre questions, and where I may have something more useful to add.

1) The position on the book vis-a-vis what I sometimes call genre research proper.
2) The hierophagic meal as an embedded genre.

1) By "genre research proper" I mean the field of research that either works with genre as its primary topic, or systematically uses existing genre research as an approach to other topics with a clear view to influence our general understanding of genre through its studies.

 The book is, obviously, much closer to the second approach, but it stops short of engaging with developing theory within the genre research field, among other things because it's field of reference is too slim to make a contribution like that. In case you are wondering: No, this is not a criticism of the book, it's an attempt to locate it in relation to genre research. In fact, the book has its own field or fields, as is evidenced by its rich bibliography from the study of ancient Mediterranean literature. It's first and most important contribution lies here. It's use of genre research is ancillary to this purpose. In that perspective, adding in a truckload of other genre researchers, some a lot better than me, would defeat the purpose by obscuring where the contribution lies.

Should we, nonetheless, choose to see it as a contribution to genre research proper, which is not an unreasonable uptake (there's Anne Freadman again lurking at the edge of the thread) even given what has been said above, we might say that it contributes to a return of aesthetics in genre research. Aesthetics has been well-nigh dormant in genre research proper for decades, but has been slowly resurrected these last years and might get to play a more prominent role in years to come. At least, I'll quote it in that function in future work.

2) By "embedded genre" I understand a genre that is contained within the framework of another genre; a pie chart in a report, a joke in a lecture, a threat in a novel. It is under-theorized in current genre research, and Bakhtin's description of primary and secondary genres has been given too much weight, including in my own "Genre and interpretation" (here). (I have a full-scale research article about it loitering in my drawer, but there are some revisions still missing before submission, so it might be a while).

In the context of Dr. Warren's book, it's worth noting that hierophagy as she describes it is systematically an embedded genre. It is not an overarching genre for a whole work, but is a genre that works as an element in other genres. So, it must always be seen in the context of the larger work, in which it appears. And it has this micro-genre kind of function: it is used as a building block in a larger whole. This does not make it any less interesting—personally I wrote a complete book chapter on the riddle in Grundtvig. Even if it only ever appears as an embedded genre in Grundtvig's writing, it is highly consequential. But it is worth noting because, among other reasons, the biblical form criticism also focuses on this kind of genre; even if it is wholly unaware of a organized field of genre research—often for purely chronological reasons: the form critics largely came first. So the questions become:

1) Does hierophagy exist on a "higher" level; is there such a thing as a work of hierophagy? 

2) Does the book's treatment of the embedded genre improve our understanding of the workings of genre in ancient literature compared with form criticism? 

3) What can the book teach us about the working of embedded genres generally, even if it does not use the term? 

I believe at least question is sort-of answered in the book, but I'll leave the answers to Dr. Warren herself. 

Anyway, a highly interesting book. I very much recommend it to you. Go buy, go read!

NB: This thread was originally a thread on Twitter. You can see the thread here.

NB NB: You can buy the book here.

The "self-own" as retroactive genre

The screengrabbed tweet below is a clean example of a genre that is sometimes called a "self-own". 

(Screenshot by Twitter user David Harrison @davidlharrison)

The tweet itself has suffered a fate which is known as being "ratioed" on Twitter. Being "ratioed" means that the number of comments to a tweet strongly outpaces the number of likes and retweets. It's not a good thing, because it invariably means that the tweet has been met with a storm of negative replies (a positive respondent would also like and sometimes retweet the tweet.)  As I am writing this, the tweet has risen to 1,300 likes and 305 retweets, which is quite good, but also to a staggering 6,700 comments—which is downright awful. 

The replies are merciless. They point out that the Hotel Imperial in Vienna is a Mariott Hotel, and thus American owned. They point out that Austria's government up till recently was closely allied with the far right. They point out that the Austrian government cannot be held responsible for the state of elevators in Austrian hotels, because they are privately owned, since Austria is nowhere near a socialist country. They point to the staircases. Also, there is incivility going on. Loads and loads of often highly original incivility. it's all very entertaining—and very well deserved.

Without speaking of it as a genre, Merriam-Webster's listing of "Words We're Watching" includes this beautiful description of the self-own: 

On social media, people will often try to put themselves in positions where they look smarter than the person with whom they are arguing, only to have it blow up in their faces. They might, for example, inadvertently highlight evidence that contradicts their point, or simply present themselves in a way that comes off as more pathetic than the person they are trying to upstage. It is during such instances that we become witness to the glorious phenomenon of the self-own. (here) 

One could almost think that the description was written for Luntz' tweet; and it's a very good genre summary. The genre label "self-own", thus, describes a social action that backfires badly and in which a person tries to do one thing, usually something not very pleasant, only to experience a well-deserved backfire. The person has tried to "dominate" (the word is, again, from Merriam-Webster's description) someone or something, but finds that the only person being dominated is himself or herself.

Now, it's fairly clear that the genre of the self-own is not one, most people would actually attempt. In Rhetorical Genre Studies, a movement I seem to belong to without having ever actually applied for membership, we usually see genres as recurrent forms of discursive action. You need something done, and the genre is your way to do it. 

All this is well and good in most cases, but there are interesting exceptions. The self-own is one such exception. It is a retrospective genre label, one that is attached to an utterance after the fact; once it becomes clear that the utterance has actually turned into a self-own.

One of the key concepts in contemporary genre theory is Anne Freadman's rightfully famous concept "uptake", it describes genre use as based on an inherent "bi-directionality". The fundamental idea is that the genre identity of a given utterance is never completely fixed, but can be modified by later genre uses. The self-own demonstrates this by being a genre that can well-nigh only be applied after the original genre use. As Freadman describes it, a genre use invites certain uptakes, but cannot fully secure them. The genre identity of any given utterance is thus subject to a negotiation—and at times an interpretive power struggle. 

The self-own is by its very definition an agonistic genre, as it not only retroactively defines the utterance in a negative light, but portrays the person making the utterance as a someone who has brought the backlash on herself or himself, and who deserves the backlash to the full. Frank Luntz is a case in point.

There is however, at least one way—and dare I say: a very sensible one—in which a genre user can use the existence of the self own pro-actively. It has to do with securing and inviting uptakes. The Luntz tweet invited the uptake that turned it into a self-own, even if that uptake was unwanted. In the process it failed to secure the positive, affirming uptake it was aiming for. However, it remains fully possible to stop and think before speaking. And one thought might be: "does this utterance invite uptakes that would turn it into a a self-own". This line of thinking is highly recommended as it can lead to all kinds of good things—genre wise, discursive, socially, and otherwise. 

But, of course, if you are the kind of person liable to post bigoted stupidities, hoping for reflection and discursive pre-meditation may be too big a genre ask. 

Elderflower cordial. The ultimate Danish summer-hygge thingy—a recipe with visual aids

No collection of genres is complete without a recipe—that broad, yet strangely poignant, genre for culinary action.

So, here is my favorite summer recipe—elderflower cordial. There are a truckload of different recipes going around. Fortunately, the best one is also the simplest. Here is what you do. 

You take an elderberry tree in bloom. Like this.

You collect a lot of flower heads. If you have access to volountary child labor, you are free to employ said child labor—under supervision—at this stage.

You then get out a large pot, and cut the elderberry flowers into slightly smaller pieces removing leaves and bugs from the mix, and put them in the pot. 

How many flower heads? Well, how many did you cut down? They do not take up a lot of space, and the taste only suffers if you use too few. I use a lot. 

Then it looks like this:

You add a lot of sugar. 

How much? Well, how much can the pot take? Then it looks like this. There are five kg of sugar in there. Some people will tell you to use brown sugar; I much prefer white. 

The trick here is a relation of ingredients. The amount of sugar your pot can take determines how much you can make. For each kg of sugar you need one lemon and 40 grams of citric acid. Remember to look around a bit for the citric acid. The price may vary wildly. Some people will tell you to use oranges. Don´t; it's a weak concept.

You add the citric acid, then it looks like this.

You slice the lemons and add them. Remember to use organic ones. You most definitely don´t want the pesticides from the non-organic ones in your cordial. Then it looks like this. 

I want to emphasize that you should not—I repeat: not—add the voluntary child labor to the cordial; no matter how eager to join in said child labor appears to be. Mine is all for going in head first.

Then you boil a lot of water. It looks like this—but I guess you more or less knew that already.

You then pour the boiling water over the elderflower-sugar-lemon and citric acid in the first pot. Notice, that there's likely to be a lot of bubbles, so stay safe. Notice also, that there will be a lot of air pockets hiding in the sugar, so if you stir, you will cause the cordial to bubble, and allow the water level to drop so you to add more water. You'll need it; the cordial is very strong as it is.

(At this point, keep volontary child labor at a safe distance; it may be too eager for its own good.)

I have no picture of this. I was pouring boiling water... 

But when the water has been poured it looks like this—and smells like heaven.

You put a lid on; let it cool down, and leave it in a cool place 4-5 days. Stir a few times a day. I have no pictures here, as I've only just made the cordial.

After that you pour it through a fine sieve and bottle it. Press the lemons and the elderflowers in the process. There's a lot of good cordial hiding in them. Remember to use a preservative or it will spoil. Some people freeze it instead; which is fine I guess. Except for the time I tried, and it leaked into my freezer. I had no idea what the word "sticky" actually meant before that.

Anyway, you dilute it with ice cold water and drink it. It's likely to be very strong, so have a sip before you serve it. If you add sparkling water instead, you have what my wife calls "champagne for alcoholics"; it's very good too, but definitely sharper. Some people will mix it into other drinks, but that's beyond my expertise. Do try—and tell me about it.

This, a summer day in the garden, and good company is as hygge as it gets for me.

Metodekogebogen som genre

Mie Femø Nielsen og Svend Skriver (red.): Metodekogebogen – 130 analysemetoder fra humaniora og samfundsvidenskab. København: Upress. 2019. Link.

Den foreliggende bog formelig indbyder til en genreanalyse, fordi den simpelthen bærer en genre som sin titel. Og ikke en hvilken som helst genre, men det, min gode kollega Jacob Ølgaard Nyboe ville kalde en ”genresignatur", altså en unik genreangivelse, der på den ene eller den anden måde vrider eksisterende genremærkater af led for at angive en ny og original vinkel, som værket ønsker at opfattes ud fra. 

Bogen er en ”metodekogebog”. Det vil sige, at den fører to kendte genreangivelser sammen, ”kogebog” og ”metodebog”, idet den forudsætter, at læseren er i stand til at forbinde noget med begge de to genrer og også er i stand til at forestille sig et møde mellem dem, der skaber en ny helhed, som henter elementer fra dem begge.

                  Men det er svært at overse, at denne tredje slags bog alligevel er betydeligt meget mere en metodebog end en kogebog. Der er et hierarki imellem de to genrer. Den er mere det andet end det ene. Det kan man gå helt biblioteksmæssigt til. Når man skal sætte den ind i sin reol, sætter man den sammen med sine metodebøger, ikke sammen med sine kogebøger. Replikvekslingen ”Hvad skal vi have til middag i aften, skat” – ”Det ved jeg ikke lige, jeg finder et eller andet i metodekogebogen”, virker simpelthen ikke helt efter hensigten.

                  Man kunne også sige det på en anden måde: Genreforskningen af i dag analyserer i meget høj grad genrer efter brug eller social funktion. Denne bog har sin funktion som metodebog. Det spejler sig da også klart, når man ser både dens eksplicitte målgruppe, universitetsstuderende og studerende fra professionshøjskoler, og dens indledning. Man skal altså rigtig langt ind i den indledning, før noget der bare ligner en kogebog dukker op.

                  Betyder det så at titlen – og den medfølgende genreangivelse er en billigt salgstrick eller i værste fald et bedrag. Slet ikke. Faktisk forudsætter bogen, at læseren er i stand til at gennemskue nøjagtig dette. Man skal kunne se at dette er en metodebog, der i et vist omfang leger, at den er en kogebog. Det giver sig udslag både formelt og i bogens formodede funktion. Formelt set betyder det, at vi forfattere har skullet klemme os ind i nogle meget stramme rammer. Vi har skullet angive ingredienser for vores bidrag, og vi har Gudhjælpemig også skullet angive – eller for nogles vedkommende: opfinde – en fremgangsmåde, så man kan fået en fuld opskrift ud af de enkelte opslag.

                  Det har vi naturligvis skullet, fordi teksten har en bestemt modtagergruppe og en bestemt funktion. Den er en metodekogebog, fordi den skal instruere sin læser i at lave retterne. Læseren skal ikke bare blive klogere på metoderne, men lære at bruge dem selv. Derfor spændetrøjen til os arme forfattere en mulighed for læseren. Læseren skal kunne lave retten; Meningen er, at man efter endt læsning af et opslag mest muligt skal kunne gennemføre den analysemetode, der er beskrevet i oplægget.

                  Kan man så det, kunne man spørge. Kan opskrifterne laves? Det må vist være helt afhængigt af læserforudsætninger og af den individuelle opskrifts sværhedsgrad. Efter at have lavet et par opslag i emner, jeg ikke mente at vide noget som helst om, så kan jeg rapportere, at jeg gerne serverer en ”Digital kildekritik”, med forbehold godt vil forsøge at opkoge en ”SWOT”, men til gengæld slet ikke tør servere en ”Stakeholderanlyse”. Den steak bliver branket.

Til gengæld er jeg ret ubekymret over for, om nogle af retterne er for svære at lave, for opslagene i sig selv er ikke for svære at læse. Jeg tror, jeg faktisk lærte mest af at læse om stakeholderanalysen, også selvom jeg ikke kan lave sådan en ting. Og én fordel mere ved kogebogstilgangen: Den er utrolig praktisk, så jeg gætter på, at hvis man bruger disse artikler som en indgangsvinkel til at læse om en metode, så har man fra begyndelsen en dejlig anvendelsesorienteret tilgang i sin læsning. Det at læse metode kan hurtigt blive uhyre langhåret og komme langt væk fra noget, man faktisk kan bruge. At begynde sin læsning med en opskrift, kan hjælpe en til at holde fokus på, at den metode man læser om, faktisk skal bruges.

Redaktørerne har bedt om forslag til senere udgaver, så allerede nu: to forslag, baseret på, at vi har at gøre med en slags kogebog. Jeg ville godt kende lidt mere til de færdigheder, man under alle omstændigheder skal bruge til at lave retterne, og jeg ville også gerne have lidt råvarekundskab. Eller sagt på en anden måde. Det ville være fantastisk med en indledende gennemgang af i hvert fald nogle grundtræk i god videnskabelig praksis, så de værste uredelighed- og plagiatproblemer kunne aflæres fra start. Og, råvareingredienser, det ville være utrolig gavnligt og oplysende at få et indledende opslag om ”data”. Dette her, man gør til sine ingredienser eller gør til genstand for sin metodiske kogekunst, hvad er det overhovedet for en størrelse.

Men alt dette her er jo bare glubsk sult i mødet med en bog, der allerede er rigtig Karl Stegger-lækker. Så tillykke med det. Tillykke til forfatterne, vi har alle skrevet noget, der vil blive brugt; hurra! Tillykke til redaktørerne og godt skuldret! Og ikke mindst: tillykke til alle de studerende på universiteter og professionshøjskoler, der endelig har fået en metodebog, der er rigtig god at koge efter. Find de åndelige potter og gryder frem og slib de analytiske knive.

Tale holdt ved receptionen for ovenstående værk på Institut for Nordiske Studier og Sprogvidenskab 30/1-2019. Forfatteren har bidraget til værket med opslaget ”Genreanalyse”

Three curious genre features of the American TV-series

 Genres are strongly habitual. As we learn to understand or perform a genre, we also learn to accept any number of conventions as normal that may or may not be rational or true. These things become naturalized to the user to such a degree that he or she can move through the genre repeatedly without ever stopping to reflect on their genre-bound conventionality. Here are three such conventions from a genre my long life as a father of small children has given me amble opportunity to experience: the American TV-series of sufficiently unchallenging character to be consumable when very tired.

The “as you know” conversation

Being about interesting people, and not just ordinary dofuses like you and me, the American TV-series frequently moves in environments permeated by experts. Given that the field in question will be a driving force in the plot of individual episodes and longer story arches, some minimal knowledge of the field is required. However, since the viewer, being in fact an ordinay dofus like you and me, cannot be expected to actually understand the field or fields of expertise involved, there is the “as you know”-conversation.

In this genre of conversation, two experts with a deep, shared, field-specific knowledge will engage in an exchange of 101-level knowledge about it. This conversation will be initiated by one of them saying, “as you know …”, or a variation thereof, to her colleague. The other person will then be nodding with encouragement and otherwise look interested in the extended explanation of stuff she knows already, and might even pitch in with a few pieces of entry-level information herself.

Curious addition: House MD omitted the "as you know" conversation from its genre register. By consequence, it's diagnostic discussions are fast-paced, energetic, agonistic, and well-nigh impossible to follow for a lay person. I love them to death, of course.

The strangely – and badly – kept secret

Contrasting genre interpretation.

In a Russian novel, if a character has personal information or even conjecture that should obviously be kept from her significant other, she will immediately storm into a dinner party where her significant other is present and shout it in his face, adding, “you are a bad person Ivan Ivanovitj, a bad and LOW person. You disgust me!” The ensuing chaos from the untimely reveal will then take up the rest of the novel.

However, in an American TV-series, if a character has personal information that should obviously be revealed immediately to his significant other, he will for some unfathomable reason decide that it is imperative that the information is kept secret. I mean, why tell your significant other that you have applied for a job in another state, have discovered a child from a liaison 12 years ago, or has been diagnosed with a crippling degenerative disorder? The secret will then obviously not be kept but instead revealed at the worst possible moment. The ensuing chaos from the aberrant decision to keep it secret in the first place, will then take up several episodes in a story arch.

The P….-moment

If you are a seventeenth century person, the thing to be is “virtuous”. If you are a modern day researcher or research application, the thing to be is “excellent”. However, if you are a character in an American TV-series, the pinnacle of achievement is to make somebody “proud”. Thus, the P….-moment. The moment occurs at emotional high point of a series. It includes high-strung feelings, and declarations about making people proud. It is expressed in sentences like,

·        “I have always been proud of you”,

·        “All I ever wanted, was to make you proud”,

·        “You have made me so proud”,

·        “Your father would have been so proud of you, if he had seen you today”, or

·        Your uncle Ben would have been so proud of you, if he had seen you today”.

(Ok, that last one is Spider Man, obviously, but you get the idea.)

Apparently, making a significant other “proud” counts as the ultimate validation of a person’s being. It means that you are an excellent person in possession of all the necessary virtues to make your life and your contribution to the world meaningful. The P.…-moment activates that validation as a tension in the plot (the “all I ever wanted”, variety), or as its crowning moment and concluding release.

All these genre features are, of course, intimately connected to the plot. And—as you know—it has been known  at least since Aristotle that the plot is at the core of a narrative text. They are all there to enable the action of the plot, as drivers, informers, motivators, and if you see them as plot devices more than anything, and recognize the enormity of the task of establishing any dynamism in a plot structure that has to move through often more than 100-episodes, they will look much less absurd. At least in this case, there’s a method to the genre convention.

I still want to know about the P....-thing, though. Why proud? What is the cultural significance of the word? Why do American characters need to make people proud more than European characters do?