Let's have a salon

[jenett]

Several years ago, I ran a series of weekly salon posts, where I'd post a topic to get us started, people would show up in the comments, and conversation would ensue. Now seems a good time to try them again!

(You should not feel restrained to keep on this topic! Start other topics! Encourage topic drift! That's part of the point. Feel free to ask random questions, there's a chance someone might know about the thing.)

This week's question

What are you learning right now that you're really interested by? (That might be a project for work, for personal stuff, a gaming geekery thing, a book you're reading, a podcast you're listening to, the fact you're learning a lot about Dreamwidth and how it works this week, or anything else.)

What do you like about it? What are you finding more challenging?

Things currently contemplating

I'm currently reading Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic by Sam Quinones, which is well-researched and has a really interesting structure where he's looking at different pieces of it through small slices (individual people, towns, situations) and tracing back to the origins as much as possible. I really like books where the information part is well done, but the structure creates connections between pieces of information in helpful and new ways.

Notes:

* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.
* If this works this week, I'll do an updated FAQ and continue.
* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)
* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.

Comments

[makamu]

That's a clever idea - thanks for hosting us jenett! *shyly offers virtual tea and cookies*

I am currently doing a lot of research into both Elizabethan theatre and gender conceptions (as well as political theology) and late-eighteenth century political debates in England (think: Jacobins, Burke, Wollstonecraft and how the political ideals of that period are reflected in the literary output of the younger Romantics (especially Mary Shelley) for my Phd.

I am also researching a lot about the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany (especially cultural history) for a fic I am planning to write. For another fic, I am doing an extensive read-up on turn-of-the-century Austria-Hungary and all sorts of politics and cultural history there. Of course, as a history nerd, I am going hopelessly overboard with all of those topics because I am learning interesting stuff

[jenett]

I am glad to host! These are fun things, and I love seeing people talking to other people about stuff I'd never have thought to ask about.

If you come across really good bits of turn of the century Austria-Hungrary, I'm definitely up for recs.

[makamu]

Yes, I also love how you can use threads like these to learn about stuff you never thought you could even think of learning something about.

I'll try to remember: but at the moment, I am still reading a lot of overviews and secondary sources. So far, I can definitely recommend all of Brigitte Harmann's books (a historian who specialised in the era and whose books are very accessibly written). I don't how many of them are available in English, though...

Oh, do you have any recs for me, too? Thanks a lot!

[dejla]

Let me hunt around for English recs -- once I could read French well enough to get through Camus, but that time is long long past.

[makamu]

In case you need that: I am fluent in English and German and also have good reading compehension in French, Italian and Spanish. Thanks in advance for all the help :)

[dejla]

Oh, thank you!

[dejla]

Oh, I would love to hear what you've found out! Both periods are catnip to me.

[makamu]

Okay, I will definitely let you know when I come across an interesting nugget

[used_songs]

The research is always one of the most fun parts of writing. It's so easy to get off onto all kinds of interesting tangents.

[makamu]

Oh yes... but it's also a bit dangerous, at least when it comes to writing my dissertation ;)