finnlongman - Tumblr blog

[finnlongman]

I'm having a citation crisis and could use some advice.

I have the choice to use my department's stylesheet (designed for medieval studies but primarily for historians; requires manual citations and is also a huge pain), MHRA (not designed for medieval studies; can use Zotero), or MLA (I think this is in-text citations and thus not suitable for my needs; can use Zotero).

Whatever I choose, I will be doing the bulk of my footnotes manually, because I have a lot of abbreviated textual references that look like this

and this is, frankly, not something that referencing software can handle, and writing all of these out in full would double my wordcount and be completely unreadable.

Nevertheless, I would ideally like to use Zotero for my initial footnotes, if only because it'll make creating a bibliography a lot easier, and encourage me to ensure everything's been added to my library for later reference so I don't have to spend hours tracking things down later on. True, I have a large number of non-digital materials that have to be manually inputted, so this is not wildly convenient, but doing that now will make it easier than trying to find the publication info for a library book that's out on loan to somebody else at the last minute.

However. While this is fine for secondary material/articles etc, I have no idea how to go about setting up all my primary texts in Zotero. I need to distinguish between those which are only edited, and those which are edited and translated, in order to make it clear which translations are my own. But while it's easy enough to say (ed.) or (ed. and trans.) when manually citing, I ... don't know how to do that using Zotero?

Because the only way I can figure out how to list both roles is to list the person twice:

But obviously this is unsatisfactory since your footnote ends up reading ed. O'Rahilly, C., trans. O'Rahilly, C., and then you have to manually adjust them all anyway.

There seems to be no way to create a single role of 'editor and translator', and if I don't include that information, it's going to be a pain later. It essentially doesn't distinguish between a modern edited book and an edited medieval text, but those are in fact very different things.

UGH. I don't know what to do. The only stylesheet I have access to that actually provides information on how to handle medieval sources is the department one, but it's a) the worst, and b) genuinely just such a bad experience to interact with, like, it's essentially an essay about references with examples rather than a proper stylesheet.

Go away, this is not the time, I don't care, just tell me how to format this!

[finnlongman]

I've almost finished putting together my portfolio for Registration (the process by which a probationary PhD student gets confirmed as an actual PhD student at the end of their first year in Cambridge; different unis have different terms for this). It includes a draft table of contents, which I thought might be of interest, so here's what I'm currently claiming I intend to cover:

Draft Table of Contents

Introduction:

Definitions of friendship (philosophical and literary) Introduction to corpus and manuscripts/editions Review of prior scholarship

1. Verbal affection and the language of friendship

1.1 Popa 1.2 Comalta, comhdhalta, dalta and oide 1.3 Cara, caratrad,and cairdes

2. Oaths and service

2.1 Friend and avenger: Conall Cernach and Cú Chulainn 2.2 Friends from abroad: cara as ally 2.3 Sworn brothers?: Cú Chulainn and Láeg

3. Bodies and bonds: physical affection and markers of friendship

3.1 Shared graves and homes 3.2 Kissing and physicality in the Irish tradition 3.3 Courtly love and the presence/absence thereof in Irish prose 

4. Virtuous friendship

4.1 Critique and guidance: the philosophers’ ‘true’ friendship vs sycophancy 4.2 Classical and/or Christian virtue: friendship and society 4.3 Dangers and failures of friendship

Conclusion:

Nature of friendship in the Irish tradition and its expression in my corpus Summary of reasons for change/development Further work to be done

Of course, this is not very informative, because each of these headings (whether deeply vague or highly specific) is serving as a placeholder concept for a broader idea or theme: the chapter about Conall and Cú Chulainn, for example, is looking at more aspects of their relationship than simply Conall as Cú Chulainn's avenger, though it will be using Oidheadh Con Culainn as a starting point. Many characters and relationships will recur repeatedly in different sections -- I anticipate Fer Diad coming up in 1.2, 1.3, 2.2, 3.2, and 4.3 at the very least, and Láeg will be discussed throughout, too.

In theory, if each sub-section is around 5,000 words, then each chapter will be 15,000 words, which means my chapters will come to 60,000 words overall and leave 10,000 words each for the Introduction and Conclusion. In practice, however, I suspect that strict 80,000-word limit is going to be an absolute pain and I am going to spend half of third year trying to make everything shorter 😅

[finnlongman]

Well, that's conclusive. I guess I am officially Not Doing A PhD for at least another 2.5 years. At which point I will hopefully be actually not doing a PhD because I will have done the PhD, past tense. I suppose then I'll have to find another way to be in denial about my continued engagement in academic research.

It's lucky I don't research anything actually important or proprietary or worldchanging, because I am constantly posting my research discoveries on here as soon as I make them (and while they're still in-progress) instead of waiting until they're written up and published and if anybody else in the world cared about my topic they could steal my ideas so easily 😆

But this is a friendly reminder that anything tagged as "Finn is not doing a PhD" is in-progress research so a) might develop/change as I learn more and b) should preferably not be repeated without credit as these are my own discoveries and theories!

(I don't want to accidentally spread misinfo via new ideas and I also don't want to get accused of plagiarism down the line because somebody posted my new theory on a blog somewhere before I published it lol.)

[finnlongman]

PACING IS ABOUT LOAD BEARING WALLS.

*staples violently to my own forehead*

[finnlongman]

My academic vibes are "in denial", apparently.

Needless to say that did, actually, turn out to be a masters thesis. Jury's still out on the other, since it only sprang into being in the past week and still has the potential to go absolutely nowhere...

[finnlongman]

Emailed my potential supervisor with my not-a-PhD ideas which is the closest I've got so far to admitting it might actually be a PhD, so if you'll excuse me, I will be screaming for the rest of the day.

[finnlongman]

See, if you go back far enough in the PhD-denial tag, you reach the point where it was true

For someone who is Not Doing A PhD, I sure am sending a lot of emails to people asking for references.

[finnlongman]

I will never again complain* about the Cambridge - London - Dublin - Donegal Town - Glencolumbkille journey... at least that doesn't involve stopping at two separate islands en route.

Although this year I am doing Cambridge - London - Belfast [for Ulidia Conference] - Enniskillen - Donegal - Glencolumbkille. Which is also long, but at least the first half and the second half are happening at totally separate times, and also I'm taking it nice and slow and stopping in Donegal for a night to avoid Bus Stress™. Because Bus Stress™ is the worst.

Next month I'm going to Brest for the Celtic Students Conference and I need you to know that my journey involves a bus/taxi, two trains, a tube, a car, and two ferries, at minimum, plus an overnight stay. It's Cambridge - London - Poole - Guernsey - St Malo (via Jersey) - Brest. It's unhinged. It's going to take about 36 hours. I'll arrive at 11pm having left Cambridge at lunchtime the day before. I will have spent almost the whole day enduring Ferry Shenanigans.

(On the way home it's marginally shorter, since the ferry doesn't go via Jersey and thus I might be able to get home from Poole the same day instead of staying overnight again. Seriously, why does it go via Jersey?)

Anyway, if I seem a little tired when giving my paper on the first day of the conference, it is because I will have endured an entire immram to get there. And unfortunately I get very seasick. 😬

[finnlongman]

Next month I'm going to Brest for the Celtic Students Conference and I need you to know that my journey involves a bus/taxi, two trains, a tube, a car, and two ferries, at minimum, plus an overnight stay. It's Cambridge - London - Poole - Guernsey - St Malo (via Jersey) - Brest. It's unhinged. It's going to take about 36 hours. I'll arrive at 11pm having left Cambridge at lunchtime the day before. I will have spent almost the whole day enduring Ferry Shenanigans.

(On the way home it's marginally shorter, since the ferry doesn't go via Jersey and thus I might be able to get home from Poole the same day instead of staying overnight again. Seriously, why does it go via Jersey?)

Anyway, if I seem a little tired when giving my paper on the first day of the conference, it is because I will have endured an entire immram to get there. And unfortunately I get very seasick. 😬

[finnlongman]

Also I should probably get over my denial of Currently Being In Academia and update my tag, shouldn't I?

It's lucky I don't research anything actually important or proprietary or worldchanging, because I am constantly posting my research discoveries on here as soon as I make them (and while they're still in-progress) instead of waiting until they're written up and published and if anybody else in the world cared about my topic they could steal my ideas so easily 😆

But this is a friendly reminder that anything tagged as "Finn is not doing a PhD" is in-progress research so a) might develop/change as I learn more and b) should preferably not be repeated without credit as these are my own discoveries and theories!

(I don't want to accidentally spread misinfo via new ideas and I also don't want to get accused of plagiarism down the line because somebody posted my new theory on a blog somewhere before I published it lol.)

[finnlongman]

Sounds fun! I know almost nothing about X-Men but I enjoy seeing people do creative things with Irish material and put it into new contexts 🥰

Tumblr is so lucky to get to witness the cutting edge of Celtic Studies research in real time (me and my friends being weird about medieval texts on the internet)

[finnlongman]

👀 Do tell me more...

Tumblr is so lucky to get to witness the cutting edge of Celtic Studies research in real time (me and my friends being weird about medieval texts on the internet)

[finnlongman]

Tumblr is so lucky to get to witness the cutting edge of Celtic Studies research in real time (me and my friends being weird about medieval texts on the internet)

[finnlongman]

It's lucky I don't research anything actually important or proprietary or worldchanging, because I am constantly posting my research discoveries on here as soon as I make them (and while they're still in-progress) instead of waiting until they're written up and published and if anybody else in the world cared about my topic they could steal my ideas so easily 😆

But this is a friendly reminder that anything tagged as "Finn is not doing a PhD" is in-progress research so a) might develop/change as I learn more and b) should preferably not be repeated without credit as these are my own discoveries and theories!

(I don't want to accidentally spread misinfo via new ideas and I also don't want to get accused of plagiarism down the line because somebody posted my new theory on a blog somewhere before I published it lol.)

[finnlongman]

(The reason I posted this today is because my supervisor just got back to me confirming I wasn't mistranslating this sentence.)

As I noted in my other post, the term ara can just mean attendant, but it is used widely within this text – an early 17th century copy of the independent Comrac Fir Diad – to refer to Láeg and Idh, so the charioteer definition is equally plausible. All other versions of CFD that I know use the term forbfer or something similar, meaning 'serving-man', so it's distinctively different.

The implication is plainly that during their training, when Cú Chulainn was the junior figure in their partnership, he took on a subservient role – but for that to be the charioteer's role specifically is juicy for both Láeg parallels and possible classical influence.

Hello Tumblr, how would you feel if I told you there's a text in which Cú Chulainn used to be Fer Diad's charioteer

[finnlongman]

okay but how old is that text and why does it immediately make me think of the circularity of ? idk something but the idea of cú chulainn being fer diad's charioteer before laeg is cú's and the possibility of switching of roles and growing into something you once served and understanding the position the other is in. different angles and perceptions in this totally fictional headspace of mine but it sure is tasty (sadly don't know the texts well enough tho. but i would love to write a tragic character-driven poem about the charioteer and the love for his hero, growing and changing and forming new bonds and understanding the position of the other. maybe seeing the role of the hero and becoming it and understanding what that means. how you think this will and and how inevitable it is. i love you but i can't change this road we're on. anyway. as i said, i don't know the texts well enough, but i like this idea)

RIGHT

It's one of the independent versions of Comrac Fir Diad, preserved in a manuscript from the 1610s (I'm not sure if there's been any linguistic dating of the text itself, so I don't know if it's the same age as its manuscript or older). So, fairly late, obviously, but earlier than many of the manuscripts of CFD. The word used is ara, which can just mean attendant, but is far more commonly used to mean charioteer, including within this text (to describe Láeg and Idh). Every other version of CFD that I've looked at uses forbfer or similar ('serving-man') to describe Cú Chulainn's subservient role during their training, so this divergence is... fascinating.

It's funny, actually, because when I wrote To Run With The Hound in 2018 (the draft I will be cannibalising to write a new book with for release in 2027), I actually did have Cú Chulainn occasionally serving as Fer Diad's charioteer during their training together, so that they could get up to Chariot Shenanigans together; I had no idea there was precedent.

Anyway, the group chat has been yelling about this somewhat. It is JUICY. So much potential for doubling and mirrors and role swapping and progression and FEELINGS.

[finnlongman]

Hello Tumblr, how would you feel if I told you there's a text in which Cú Chulainn used to be Fer Diad's charioteer