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June 15, 2006
Decadal Immersion, or How to Justify Watching Mary Tyler Moore as Serious Research
Part of my dissertation process has been trying to immerse myself in the particular decade I'm studying. It's a fun approach. I had a professor teach use about 19th century Russian music by having us write a book report on a Russian novel of the period, write weekly journals on whatever we had been thinking about in relationship to the class, listening to a cassette of his grandmother recalling her girlhood experience in Russia during the Bolshevik revolution, and other cross-disciplinary activities.
It was years ago, but the class is still vivid in my mind. Once you "feel" the culture, it's so much easier to understand the music. That's a mushy way of describing what was an incredibly profound experience.
Back to my dissertation: I already immersed myself in the 1930s (New Deal here we come!) and the 1950s (no, the decade was not like Leave it to Beaver episodes), and now I'm into the 1970s. Vietnam, Nixon and wonky Bicentennial celebrations (more on those later). And the Mary Tyler Moore show, thanks to Netflix. Never really watched it before, except for a random Nick at Night while babysitting as a teenager. It's really hilarious. And the clothes...wow! Just a quote from one of the books I've been reading, that's quite applicable,
The sexual and synthetic revolutions combined forces to produce some of the ugliest and most outrageous clothes ever seen.
--The Seventies: From Hot Pants to Hot Tubs by Andrew J. Edelstein and Kevin McDonough
dissertation | By Tim and Jo | 04:31 PM
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