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orichalcum at 10:27am on 21/04/2004
orichalcum at 10:27am on 21/04/2004Also, it's the Floralia, the Roman festival of spring which celebrates prostitution. All the prostitutes wore flower garlands and paraded up and down the streets, with one day for male prostitutes and two days for female prostitutes. I hope to defend my dissertation a year from now during this time.
No prostitutes, but you can look at the hundreds who marched through the Coliseum to celebrate the birthday last weekend.
Two other important issues I actually need commentary on:
1. Should I cut my hair? It's been growing again, and is now about 2-3 inches past my shoulders. It has also suddenly hit the "hot and hard to take care of stage" again; it's much more tangly than it was when it was shorter, and harder to keep from frizzing. OTOH, I like having longer hair, and there are always ponytails and buns for the summer. Thoughts? Opinions?
2. One of the things I really need for the next two conferences, this Friday and in two weeks, is to polish up my 20-second dissertation blurb. So I'm going to write a one-paragraph version, but I'm deliberately trying to use colloquial oral language rather than formal academic written language. Obviously, this is not any of your areas of expertise, but please, let me know if you a. understand it and b. find it interesting and c. how I could improve a. and b.
My dissertation focuses on the different negative stereotypes of promiscuous Roman women which were largely created by elite Roman men. I am mostly concentrating on different representations of prostitutes, such as the gold-digger, the good little prostitute, and the political manipulator, but I'm also examining respectable women who were tainted with the label of prostitute due to their unconventional activities and lifestyles. The second half of the book seeks to put the prostitutes of the high Roman Empire into a temporal and spatial context: one of the most fascinating aspects about female sex workers is that they interacted with and influenced men from all levels of society. I argue that the Romans were the first Western culture to draw a strong connotation between female promiscuity and female assertiveness or unconventionality, and that many of our modern stereotypes about women "who sleep their way to the top" or nymphomaniac/virginal career women are directly descended from these ancient representations.
No prostitutes, but you can look at the hundreds who marched through the Coliseum to celebrate the birthday last weekend.
Two other important issues I actually need commentary on:
1. Should I cut my hair? It's been growing again, and is now about 2-3 inches past my shoulders. It has also suddenly hit the "hot and hard to take care of stage" again; it's much more tangly than it was when it was shorter, and harder to keep from frizzing. OTOH, I like having longer hair, and there are always ponytails and buns for the summer. Thoughts? Opinions?
2. One of the things I really need for the next two conferences, this Friday and in two weeks, is to polish up my 20-second dissertation blurb. So I'm going to write a one-paragraph version, but I'm deliberately trying to use colloquial oral language rather than formal academic written language. Obviously, this is not any of your areas of expertise, but please, let me know if you a. understand it and b. find it interesting and c. how I could improve a. and b.
My dissertation focuses on the different negative stereotypes of promiscuous Roman women which were largely created by elite Roman men. I am mostly concentrating on different representations of prostitutes, such as the gold-digger, the good little prostitute, and the political manipulator, but I'm also examining respectable women who were tainted with the label of prostitute due to their unconventional activities and lifestyles. The second half of the book seeks to put the prostitutes of the high Roman Empire into a temporal and spatial context: one of the most fascinating aspects about female sex workers is that they interacted with and influenced men from all levels of society. I argue that the Romans were the first Western culture to draw a strong connotation between female promiscuity and female assertiveness or unconventionality, and that many of our modern stereotypes about women "who sleep their way to the top" or nymphomaniac/virginal career women are directly descended from these ancient representations.
busy
(no subject)
- rearrange the first sentence so it's clearer that the stereotypes were created by elite Roman men rather than the women being created by them :)
- maybe give an example of a 'tainted' woman (if you're going to be explaining this to people who have enough knowledge of your field to know who you're talking about), or give a few more specifics about the social class of the respectable women that you're talking about.
- change 'connotation' in the last sentence to 'correlation'
As for the question of hair...well, I'm not the best one to give advice on hair-cutting :) Maybe wait a bit, to see how you feel when the weather gets warmer?
(no subject)
As to hair, while I like how it is now, I really liked how bouncy it was when it was shorter. And I think either you should cut it now, or leave it be so there's plenty of it to pull back during the summer. But I really liked it bouncy and short! (Of course, this is me talking.)
(no subject)
As for the hair thing, I am inclined to say let it keep growing for a while; you will either find it comfortable or become annoyed and want to cut later in the summer. My $.02.
(no subject)
As for c, one thing that threw me was that you refer to your work first as a "dissertation" and second as a "book". Maybe your intended audience assumes that dissertations are books? Another thing is the phrase "draw a ... connotation" - I understand what you mean, but it doesn't sound like standard usage. I also think I agree with
As for the hair, that's where mine is now too (well, depending on my posture). My ponytail tends to alternate between 1.5 inches and 10 inches (approximately), and it definitely gets shorter in the summer. But that mostly has to do with the way I like it to look, and the ways I wear it. My general rule of thumb is to let it grow until I find myself getting frustrated with it - I personally don't view the extra length as being worth the bother.
Hair
Hair: I like how it looks short (though you look good either way), but don't cut it _too_ short right before the summer. I did that last year, and really regretted my inability to pull it into a ponytail or even tuck it behind my ears.
-MJNH