end of an era: portfolio and self-reflection
- Tadhg Kearney
- Apr 28, 2024
- 14 min read
Updated: Apr 29, 2024
The purpose of this blog post is to look back at all of the posts that I made throughout the academic year, which I must admit was a terrifying prospect. This blog started with no identity whatsoever, I mean, look at the title ‘i’m afraid of defining myself’ and try to tell me otherwise!
I suppose the main question I considered as of writing this post is this: has this sentiment changed at all, and the answer is a conclusive yes and no. It’s changed from an inability to a healthy refusal. And I suppose the content of the blog posts match this sentiment. Throughout the year, I got to try my hand at writing under a variety of different styles, some of which worked and some of which didn’t, and I got to experiment with topics that I wanted to write about, something that has hitherto been unavailable to me in academia. In that sense, this blog and portfolio was extremely fulfilling.
This blog also played a part in taking academia less seriously. I managed to orientate myself to how I felt in my first year of my undergraduate degree, which is to say, just have fun. I especially enjoyed writing my final two blog posts, where I feel I really came into my own in terms of voice and style.
The first blog post I wrote was all the way back in October, called “i have no clue what i'm doing: resentment, thoughts on academia, & writing for the sake of writing” and boy does it live up to the title. I had just come off a particularly long summer and transitioning back into academia was tough. I think this was a way for me to simultaneously do an introductory blog post and get some of my initial frustrations out. A little two-for-one. I begin by saying:
‘Generally speaking, when it comes to writing and academia, I have absolutely no clue what I’m doing. This is in spite of the fact that whenever I am asked to define myself, my mind immediately jumps to calling itself ‘a writer’ or ‘a student’ or ‘an academic’ or a myriad of other self-indulgent titles. But I spend remarkably little time actually writing, or studying, or being ‘an academic’- whatever that actually means.’
This lack of identity was immediately apparent… but as the post continues, what immediately strikes me is the resentment weaved into the words, and I’m not entirely sure where it came from. Another example:
‘I abhor the conventions of academic writing. I hate feigning professionalism. I hate feigning intellectual superiority.’
I mean, all of this remains true to a point, but I’m not entirely sure where this anger came from. And, I imagine this came from imposter syndrome. I suddenly found myself surrounded by verifiable geniuses, and I wasn’t sure if I fit in with them. Although my style of writing of choice might be a little bit more discursive than university standards ask for, that doesn’t call for childish complaints like this:
‘I think this is why I define myself as a writer of fiction first, and an academic writer second.’
This is a tricky fact to come to terms with, I only wrote fiction over the Christmas holidays, and neglected my novel otherwise. Oops. But even the best laid plans seldom survive contact with the real world and I did not anticipate just how busy this degree would render me. It also leads me to another point, the biggest departure from the original blog post. I don’t need labels to help me compensate for lack of identity, or push me through some identity crisis, or whatever it was Tadhg from October was going through. I am confident in myself. I am confident in my writing and in my ideas and I don’t need an insecure label to help me highlight that point. That was something I didn’t anticipate with this Master’s programme. I anticipated levelling up academically, not self-actualisation.
Okay, moving on. The rest of this reflection covers blog posts that have actual points rather than angry ramblings.
My next blog post was the first time I got to choose a text to write about. It is called ‘on transhumanism and vampires’ and I think it might be my favourite title out of all my posts. It just has a little charm. We had a seminar with Prof. Graham Allen about transhumanism. It was my first exposure to the topic and I left the seminar with more questions than answers. Mostly about the ethics of it all. Before exploring that however, I’d like to draw your attention to one line from the blog in particular:
‘I like to imagine myself, first and foremost, as a creative, and anything that puts a limit on my creativity is something I would fervently oppose.’
It’s a feeling again that I had, but this obsessive labelling is growing tiresome. Moving swiftly onward, this blog post is actually something I’m happy with to this day! It is a response to the utopian sentiments expressed by the transhumanists, such as Max More and Nick Bostrom, where they feel that the advantages of transhumanism would lead to unprecedented productivity. I argue against this sentiment:
‘In What We Do In The Shadows, we can define the vampires as post-humans. They were once humans and are gifted with capabilities that humans cannot exceed by normal means. We are confronted with people gifted with immortality, blessed with good lucks, carte blanche access to ancient knowledge in a library belonging to the Vampiric Council, and all they do is fail at things, sit around in their house all night, have copious amounts of sex, and I can’t help but feel like this is the most realistic depiction of immortality I’ve found in fiction.’
I really like the tone here and it’s most emblematic of the way I write now. A little light-hearted but actually articulating (semi) interesting ideas. It was also a really enjoyable experience writing about a show that I absolutely adore. I think I present some good ideas, and I actually toyed with exploring 21st century depictions of vampires in my dissertation for a while after writing this, but ultimately decided against it. I would also like to draw your attention to how I conclude this post:
‘I suppose, to wrap things up, I’d like to say that this was just a surface level excuse to discuss one of my favourite shows. But it does highlight a key tenant of my own personal philosophy: assuming this technology is inevitable, how do we hold on to our humanity? [...] …what will humanity become? Will art have a place in this world? The next few years will be interesting. But, in the meantime, at least I have my silly little vampire show.’
Here, I end with a question: will art have a place in the world in a future of transhumanism? This sentiment, an anxiety about the future of art, is actually a key concern for my dissertation! The working title of it is 'Survival is Insufficient’: The Literature of Emily St. John Mandel and the permeance of art is actually a core concern of my thesis. This fascination about the future of art has, apparently, existed for a lot longer than I had realised, which was really interesting looking back and seeing.
My next blog post took two months to write. There were various reasons for this: other essays, classes, and finding my feet. I believe I was also working four days a week at this point, which I subsequently cut down to two after Christmas. Coming into the holidays, I was just burned out and the lack of posts reflect that. I open:
‘... I have found this program a lot more difficult than I expected. This, with a sudden shift in priorities, has made this academic year a lot different to my previous ones. The oddest change is having classmates who I actually speak to (hi, lads, if ye’re reading this, how’re ye getting on?) and not just one, but two jobs. I’ve gone from hunched over a desk in the library, living and breathing academia, to a different sort of thing which I can’t really articulate.’
I enjoy my use of the word ‘thing’ there, even italicised to show that I really have a point I’m making. In hindsight, I believe it was me finally growing out of this need for labels. I could just be (nice use of italics, right?).
(Royal Shakespeare Company's production of Twelfth Night)
The title of this blog is ‘terrible time management + shakespeare and trans studies’ and it’s okay, I think. I believe it could have done with significantly more editing. It’s a good reminder that even though some of my ideas are good (the ones expressed in this blog post were fairly surface level), I can always articulate myself better:
‘I must admit, this is where mine and Dr. Chess’s research interests divert, where mine rest squarely on and around (to a point) 21st century literature, she focuses on the Early Modern period. One example of a text I might apply Dr. Chess’s theories to is Euphoria, a 2019 show by HBO. For all of its flaws, Euphoria offers a great portrayal of a trans-woman, in Jules Vaughn. It is true to the insecurities and problems a trans-woman might face, in particular the trans-misogyny perpetrated by the show’s antagonist, Nate Jacobs.’
I can tell the point I’m making here, but the syntax and word choice is just unbelievably clunky. I also think there was a lot more room to develop the ideas I put forward. In particular, the application of Egg Theory and Glee, but I do think I successfully managed to relate Dr. Chess’s ideas to my own research interests. I should have let it marinate a few days, let the ideas stew in my brain, but this was right around Christmas time, and I think the desire to have a break won out, which I can’t blame myself for. Nevertheless, I look at this post and see lost potential, and I might revisit it in the future.
My next post kicked off semester two, this one considered ethics and perpetrator trauma. Looking back on it now, however, it just did not stick the landing. I tried to experiment a little, but the seriousness of the topic I was discussing coupled with the levity of my tone just did not gel well together. I understand what I was trying to do, but ultimately the tone of the piece just isn’t me. I am grateful I wrote it, however. I said:
‘I also wanted to inject some more of the creative process into academia, or indeed my own academic practice, so I think I might explore this as if I was creating a character from scratch.’
Okay idea, terrible execution. To offer an example of this, here I discuss the hypothetical radicalisation of my hypothetical Nazi soldier:
‘But now we introduce a crisis in our character- the people he thought were good killed his brother. Maybe he gets radicalised, totally buys into the war machine... now he’s a war criminal. Yikes. We have a person who dehumanises and kills communists (and subscribes to Aryanism in general, not a great look unnamed character, do better). How do we contend with that? [...] the ethics of a fascist killing anti-capitalists is just a no-no. And we haven’t even touched on The Final Solution yet.
The tone of this is just not respectful to the severity of the topic being discussed. In hindsight, I want to take it down. I would have taken it down if not for the reason of this impending little self-reflective exercise. Because it does give me the most to reflect about, and for that reason, it is valuable.
I think that this was the most experimental I got with this blog, and it was just too disingenuous to my own style of writing. It was just laced with sarcasm. It probably also could have been two separate blog posts. I should have devoted more time to the ethics of it. I discuss an article by Joanne Petitt that I could have expanded on. The hypothetical plus that could have been one and the representation of trauma in Ted could have been its own. The only valid point I make here is:
‘...some fantasy novels have very clear real world allegories, but totally alien worlds crafted in Sci-Fi or Fantasy might be an ideal canvas to build on.’
But I continue on with just odd, bizarre phrasing:
‘Now, there are always the real world implications in, I don’t know… off the top of my head… how about a story centering a genocidal and brutal warmongering younger brother of a King colonising an entire continent? The third book of Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive series, Oathbringer happens to follow a genocidal and brutal warmongering younger brother of a King colonising an entire continent, what a happy coincidence.’
I chalk it up to a failed experiment. I’m happy I tried it.
My next post was on our Wikipedia editing session, which was a really enjoyable experience. But since that was already assessed, I’ll move on and here we finally arrive at work I’m proud of again! In this post I responded to Dr. Alan Gibbs’s seminar ‘Contemporary Naturalist Climate Fiction and Physical Injury’ and discussed some recent dissertation research. I think it is in this post that I manage to finally synthesise light-hearted elements with actual academia. I’m particularly proud of my use of the ‘I know writers who use subtext’ video.
In the weeks leading up to this blog post I changed my thesis idea. For a solid chunk of the year I intended on writing about post-2010s trauma narratives. I had been toying with changing this idea– quite frankly, the books I was reading were too heavy and beginning to affect my mental health– and this seminar kind of made ideas I’d been considering click into place. This seminar discussed naturalist fiction which I had loved in my undergrad but for some reason had not considered for my thesis. There was a lot of talk of McCarthy’s The Road in the Q&A portion of this seminar and that is what inspired this post and got me thinking about Mandel offering a counternarrative to McCarthy’s deterministic, pessimistic stories.
One paragraph I’m particularly proud of:
‘Non-linear story-telling might be more inclined towards determinism. Linear fiction gives the illusion that the future is in flux. Whereas from the first page of Mandel’s The Glass Hotel, we know the dark fate that Vincent will inevitably meet. Here, form seems to negate content and theme, which is fascinating to me. On the surface level, determinism should equal non-linear storytelling and indeterminism should equal linear storytelling. But it is much more nuanced than that. Not knowing the ending doesn’t change the fact that it is determined... Likewise, just because we know the ending, it doesn’t mean we can’t choose how we get there.’
And:
‘Consider now, The Road, which follows a father and son as they journey across a devastated landscape, struggling to survive in a world ravaged by catastrophe. Throughout their journey, the characters confront the harsh realities of survival, including starvation, violence, and the constant threat of death, in a setting characterised by ‘overwhelming environmental determinism’ (Gibbs 13). Meanwhile, the apocalypse plot of Station Eleven is embodied by the phrase: ‘Survival is insufficient.’
Some of the points here are points I might expand on in my thesis, but it’s what led me to researching naturalism, and determinism specifically, and consider weaving it into my thesis. Also, I like writing longer pieces. In other blog posts, I felt the need to limit myself and not harp on, but here I let myself finish when I wanted to.
After this came my conference reflection. Here, I discussed how I felt I performed on the day. You can read more about that in the post itself. But one thing that I didn’t discuss in that original post was that my presentation, examining the ethical representation of trauma in Megan Park’s The Fallout, was originally supposed to be a blog post! I had all of the research done before our first class about the conference and my thesis idea was not developed enough at this stage, so I repurposed it for my presentation. It was nice to show off my research on trauma theory in some capacity because I did a lot of it, especially in semester one.
My final and favourite blog post examines Amazon Prime’s newly released Fallout TV show (no relation to the aforementioned The Fallout, just a happy coincidence). Fallout is a franchise near and dear to my heart and I want to express my fondness for naturalist stories before I rip them apart in my dissertation. Consider this extract where I consider an aspect of determinism Alan raised in his seminar about physical injury:
‘Also in this episode, we have Lucy and The Ghoul’s “honest exchange.” The Ghoul hogties her [during an escape attempt] and, in one final desperate attempt, Lucy bites off one of the ghoul’s fingers. In return, The Ghoul carves one of Lucy’s fingers off as well. After which, he says ‘that was the closest thing we had to an honest exchange so far’ (‘The Ghouls’ 00:14:15).
‘...they remove each other’s trigger finger, the finger that you use to fire your weapon. This is the finger that facilitates violence… Crucially, however, Lucy isn’t given back her original finger, she is given a spare one from a cadaver when… [it is] surgically reapplied onto her hand. However, The Ghoul stitches Lucy’s old finger onto his hand.
‘In Alan Gibbs’s seminar... he mentioned that neo-naturalist texts often feature instances of bodily harm and physical injury when characters learn a lesson. This… foreshadows the ultimate effect Lucy and The Ghoul will have on each other. The Ghoul literally takes on a part of Lucy, receiving something… human, indicating a potential resurfacing of his own humanity. Lucy, however, receives something dead [...] signifying that a part of her has been permanently severed off... [and] in order to survive, she must learn to utilise this new dead finger. It is the physical embodiment of character traits being passed onto each other, complimenting each other, allowing them to survive in this harsh wasteland.’
I really liked the points that I raised here. I think it was an interesting application of the theory. I will say that the post would have been stronger if I omitted the third section. It was very just an excuse for me to gush about the various philosophies in the universe. The post meanders a little, but quite honestly, I’m okay with that because, ultimately, I had fun.
Returning to the point I had raised in the beginning of this enjoyable self-reflection, does this blog– or indeed, me– have an identity? And the answer remains a conclusive yes and no. This blog is a mish-mash, an amalgamation of my favourite things, it lacks an identity because I lack one. It can be about anything at all and, I believe, it would continue to make sense if I decided to write about any of the other things I wanted to write about this year. There was a phase where I jumped down the rabbit hole of Arthurian legend; I intended to write about folklore and evermore by Taylor Swift (this marks the first year in university where I didn’t write about her, scandalous) or other musicians like Noah Kahan or Ethel Cain. In my perpetrator trauma post, I say:
‘I intended to get a blog post out sometime last week, one that featured a short story. It was more of an excuse to actually write something in all honesty, but it didn’t turn out quite how I wanted it to. I don’t know, I might tweak it, edit it, do whatever it is I usually do when stories misbehave, and put it out in my next post.’
This was a short story inspired by T.S. Eliot’s ‘Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’ that I ultimately thought was not worth posting. But I cannot help but feel that this blog and the portfolio has so much lost potential. But there is only so much time during term and I am proud of some of the posts I made on here, in particular: ‘on transhumanism and vampires’ and my two posts on naturalism and determinism. I must admit that I’ve fallen in love with writing about whatever I want. I imagine that this blog will continue in some capacity in the future. It’s nice having my own little space where I can talk about my special interest of the month. So while it may be the end of an era, it is the start of a new one. Onward;
WORKS CITED
Kearney, Tadhg. ‘i have no clue what i'm doing: resentment, thoughts on academia, & writing for the sake of writing.’ i’m afraid of defining myself, 3 Oct. 2023, https://tadhgkearney12.wixsite.com/tadhgkearneyblog/post/i-have-no-clue-what-i-m-doing-resentment-thoughts-on-academia-writing-for-the-sake-of-writing. Accessed 27 April 2024.
---. ‘on transhumanism and vampires.’ i’m afraid of defining myself, 10 Oct. 2023, https://tadhgkearney12.wixsite.com/tadhgkearneyblog/post/on-transhumanism-and-vampires. Accessed 27 April 2024.
---. ‘terrible time management + shakespeare and trans studies.’ i’m afraid of defining myself, 6 Dec. 2023, https://tadhgkearney12.wixsite.com/tadhgkearneyblog/post/terrible-time-management-shakespeare-and-trans-studies. Accessed 27 April 2024.
---. ‘thinking out loud about the ethics of perpetrator trauma.’ i’m afraid of defining myself, 26 Jan. 2024, https://tadhgkearney12.wixsite.com/tadhgkearneyblog/post/terrible-time-management-shakespeare-and-trans-studies. Accessed 27 April 2024.
---. ‘wikipedia editing was fun i kinda wanna keep doing it.’ i’m afraid of defining myself, 9 Feb. 2024, https://tadhgkearney12.wixsite.com/tadhgkearneyblog/post/wikipedia-editing-was-fun-i-kinda-wanna-keep-doing-it. Accessed 27 April 2024.
---. ‘Dissertation Research + Considering A Recent Seminar on Neo-naturalist Climate Fiction.’ i’m afraid of defining myself, 27 Mar. 2024, https://tadhgkearney12.wixsite.com/tadhgkearneyblog/post/dissertation-research-considering-a-recent-seminar-on-neo-naturalist-climate-fiction. Accessed 27 April 2024.
---. ‘conference reflection.’ i’m afraid of defining myself, 22 April 2024, https://tadhgkearney12.wixsite.com/tadhgkearneyblog/post/conference-reflection. Accessed 27 April 2024.
---. ‘“War never changes”: Neo-naturalism and Determinism in Prime’s Fallout (2024).’ i’m afraid of defining myself, 24 April 2024, https://tadhgkearney12.wixsite.com/tadhgkearneyblog/post/conference-reflection. Accessed 27 April 2024.
IMAGES USED
First image obtained:
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Screenshot from What We Do In The Shadows, Season 2, Episode 6, 07:00.
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All images accessed 28th April 2024.
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