Humanities Research Methods is a class that leads students through the research process that, eventually, leads to a senior project. Since I am further away from my senior project than many who take this class, I am in a good position to look deeply into a topic that may (or may not) become my topic of research for my capstone. This freedom has been unbearable!
My interests go in a few directions– such as the history of thought, civic engagement and community building, social philosophy, etymology, and the idea of home and domesticity. So my task over the last couple of weeks has been to whittle into these interests to the common inner material, and see which of these areas best supports my goals at this point in time.
My goals are to be a freelance writer (in both the short term and the long term), and to go on, after much schooling, to be a teacher of some sort. I could imagine teaching high school social studies and literature, and I can see teaching as an adjunct in various colleges about town. I would also happily accept a position in a local non-profit that is doing good work. Essentially, I will always be a person of many projects.
I came to see the commonality of my above interests as very surely lying in the idea of domesticity and the concept of home. I attempt the history of an idea. At what point does home become something more than a physical space? At what point is it allowed to become a romanticized notion, more becoming to magazine photographers than to the people who attempt to make a life inside it?
Are we still attempting to interact with our homes today as in times past? Are they reflections of who we are or are our homes landing pads from which to dive into the world? How does socio-economic status and sub-cultural inclination affect the idea of home? Is home private or public?
All of this dances around the idea of domesticity. What is it? Do we still have it today? Where did the idea come from and how has it moved through time?
Driving this inquiry is my experience of childhood. My grandmother was the 1950′s housewife (sans apron and often seen rocking some Gibran or Wordsworth, in the swivel chair, of course) who kept everything in order. The dinner was served at the same time each night, it was always balanced with choices of meat, veggies, and starch (read:potatoes), and it was always made in portions for company. Each birthday was graced by the traditional red cake, made from scratch of course. The only boxed food in this pantry was jello, and certainly it was ingredient for some recipe itself.
On the other side of my life was my rockin’ mom, who rocked with a group of girlfriends all about the Dayton area– not to be confused with rocking in one’s favorite chair. My experience with my mom was in some ways polar opposite to that of my grandmother’s house. Where one was steady and predictable like a wave machine and white sand, the other was full of tides and undertow and rocky coast. I wouldn’t trade either experience for the other, both are integral to who I am.
So, while my quest is for the history of an idea, my quest is also for ways in which to apply that idea- in todays world, in my home, in my head. I do not think the idea will turn out to be anything like the two page spreads in Country Living. I don’t think I will like all parts of the idea, and I expect some will confront my modern thinking and it’s feminist underpinnings head on. In some ways, it is a dangerous journey, because many a strong ship has plowed into a sand dune and sunk, right there in the open, on such a navigable inland water as Lake Erie. If there is one thing I am learning from the Classics program, it is that things are often very different than they seem, and that what seems new is often very old. So instead of looking for the beginning and end of something, we look instead for the theme and pattern of the thing. (The thing is always but an idea…)