Dr Laura Varnam

I’m delighted to be sharing this guest post from the newly-minted Dr Teresa Pilgrim! This is the second part of my post on how to prepare for your PhD Viva. My initial post with crowd-sourced advice from Twitter/X, and my experience of giving Teresa a ‘mock’ viva, can be found here and I’m delighted to share below Dr Pilgrim’s guest post about her experience of preparing for her viva. Thank you, Teresa!

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Top Tips for Preparing for your Viva (from a Student Perspective)

by Dr Teresa Pilgrim

So, what happens after hitting send on that most significant of emails or uploads in your path from PGR (Postgraduate Researcher) candidate to the final submission of your thesis? What comes next with preparing for your Viva? This is what I did and while there are many ways in which you can approach this final part of the PhD journey, I hope these reflections may be of help to someone else ❤

On 2 February 2024, I submitted my thesis for examination. First, I stepped back and DID NOT think about my thesis at all. Aside from revelling in the glorious moment that it is, when you hit submit on the email or upload of your thesis, I needed to relax. The final months of revisions, edits, proofreading and copyedits are intense and quite simply I think, if possible, it is a good idea to take time out even if it is only a couple of weeks (carefully balanced with the very real need of finding an academic post during this period of ECR life).

Once the administrative formalities of submission were confirmed I received an email with dates for my in-person Viva that, happily for me, took place in the same meeting room where I offered my students weekly office hours during my time as a PGR teaching at Surrey. On the day, 25 April 2024, prior to my Viva, I sat with my supervisor waiting in their office (for one final pep talk and to calm my nerves) before heading to meet my examiners at the allotted time. So, what did I do to prepare for this moment you ask? Well, with thanks to the kind offer(s) from my dear friend Dr Laura Varnam, I enjoyed a ‘mock Viva,’ which you can read more about in their blogpost here. But first, I took to social media to ask everyone for their advice. You can find the thread from Twitter/X here and the question I posed to Medieval & Academic Twitter/X was:

• I would love three or four questions or important things to think about in my viva prep… What suggestions do you have for me??

Huge thanks to everyone who replied below with their questions and valuable advice: Daisy Black, Vicki Blud, Kirsty Bolton, Vicky Brewster, Sarah Bush, Teresa French, Daniel Fountain, Dean Irwin, Mathew Johns, Niamh Kehoe, Helen King, Basil Arnould Price, Hannah Piercy, Curtis Runstedler, Joshua Rushton, Theresa Tyers, Jo VanEvery, Brenda Wallace, Vicky Wright, S. Ziemans, and thank you to everyone for all your wonderful good luck wishes!

Questions & Advice From Twitter/X:

• ‘Contribution’ questions and ‘next step/further research’ questions you can prep for, but you cannot really guess the examiners ‘depth’ questions. All you can do is know your research and how the thesis fits together. It is your work, do not be afraid to own it.

• I think it is worth reflecting on how you would explain your research, almost to a friend on the bus. Also consider how you would elaborate upon any grey areas or controversial claims.

• What did you think you were going to find? Really useful for working out how the project developed and what paths you took that led you to this point.

• I prepared to answer, ‘what contribution does your thesis make’ and that was the first thing I was asked; I was asked questions about my methodology (why I picked the texts I did, had I always planned to include X and Y).

• If I had to prepare for one now, I think I would reflect on what doing it had taught me – there are always things that do not turn out as you thought, or as others thought, or lead elsewhere, or demand cool new methods.

• I always recommend thinking less about what you have done (only you are the expert on that) and what is next for you, the research, what is at stake etc.

• The best advice I read for prepping was that ‘you are The Expert’ on your work; you have immersed yourself in it for so long. Whatever comes up the answers will be there for you even though you might not think so.

• My advice would be to practice talking about your thesis – aloud, either to yourself or get someone to ask you questions and reply. Of all the questions I prepared, the only one that came up was ‘how did you come to this project’! I prepared that in terms of idea, methodology, purpose, place in historiography, etc, to show to show the choices I made.

• I have a podcast episode on preparing for your viva that might be useful: https://t.co/Hn1q1B3IIx

• My prep was re-reading the thesis. I highlighted every time I made a major claim, every time I stated a major contribution, and every time I pithily summarized what the field had missed. Colour coded, of course! I also thought carefully about how I would briefly summarize my thesis and its major contribution, and about my responses to questions about methodology and scope. I also had a practice session with X that was super helpful!

• I also came in with a printed list of all the inevitable typos I had noticed in my read through. It saved time as we then did not have to discuss them all and at any rate, I had spotted more than my examiners had!

• Which do you think is your weakest chapter and why? What could you do to improve it?

• You might also be asked about things you didn’t do/include, such as methodology or texts. They are not trying to trip you up but find out how the choices you made shaped the thesis.

• ‘If you were starting this PhD today, what would you do differently?’ As an examiner, what I am looking for in that question is a sense of the journey that led to the thesis as it ended up: an awareness that we change our plans as we realise what evidence there is, for example

• How did you know when you were finished?

• Remember that you have two great historians in the room being paid to discuss your topic with you and milk them for every ounce of wisdom. Ask them where they think you should submit it for publishing. Ask them where they think you should take your focus next.

• If you are thinking about making your thesis into a monograph, you can ask your examiners about how you can do that!

• I got a question about a chapter where I did not go very deeply (deliberately), but which was in a broader range a research field of my advisor. It was totally okay to say what I did/knew and what not and why. Do not be afraid to say that you do not know something.

• Just remember that nobody will ever engage with your work in this level of detail. Enjoy it – I know it sounds daft, but this is your work, and you know your stuff.

• What was the most surprising finding? What did you discover that you were most excited about? Did anything in your research uncover a reason why modern people should change the way we view medieval people?

• Enjoy your viva! You have an amazing opportunity to talk about your passion with two interested experts. Be confidant in your work. With points that challenge your findings, do not be defensive, say something like, ‘thank you, that is a really interesting question. Do not be afraid to ask the examiners for clarification if a question they ask is not clear. Do not get led down a rabbit hole if an examiner picks on a minor point which is a bee in their particular bonnet. Be confident in your work. Be positive. Good luck

• ENJOY YOUR VIVA!! It is your one opportunity to have a really interesting intellectual discussion with 2 or 3 smart people who have read your PhD CAREFULLY. They want you to pass. Remember why you did this. Remember the exciting things you learned. Get a good night’s sleep and eat a good breakfast. You can do this!!!

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So, with all the above advice, what did I then do to prepare?

First and foremost, I reread my thesis, placing post-it notes to separate the preface, introduction, my lit review, each chapter and its conclusion, the thesis conclusion, and my bibliography. I got out the highlighters (thanks, Basil!) and I marked out 1) my claims, 2) my contribution, 3) what I extend, develop, build upon and 4) who am I in conversation with (or arguing against)? I found talking about the thesis aloud to myself in the car (while driving) really helpful. While we may discuss our research in conference presentations where they are ordered and carefully edited you cannot know what will be asked of you on the day in your Viva.

For this I turned to the list of helpful questions provided by friends and colleagues on Twitter and prior to my Viva, I practiced answered them aloud to myself or I wrote out my answers on the question sheet I printed out. I created a mind map on A3 paper to incorporate and address some of the suggestions. For example: 1) I thought about my initial plan 2) and illustrated the organic development and expansion of that plan. 3) My contribution to research and the intersecting academic fields I work across, which I itemised and fleshed out to the nth degree to ensure I had considered everything. I also summarised my thesis and its major contribution. I thought about the next steps and further scope for my research.

After summarizing my thesis, building on this idea, I then made use of some colour coded revision cards. With these, I listed some of the questions and suggestions generously shared with me on Twitter / X and added further questions of my own. For example, expanding on summarise your thesis in a couple of sentences, I applied this idea to each of my chapters to summarize – what is it about, which primary text/s does it examine, what does it argue, and which critics does it engage with or respond to? Why these texts? What is the research gap / challenge / opportunity you were aiming to address? What led you to this topic? What is your original contribution to knowledge? Who is going to use your research and how / why? What did you cut? Where next?

I also had my initial thesis questions and further, later, thesis questions that I devised as each of the thesis chapters developed; these I wrote up on revision cards and expanded upon to make each question and its answer/s as concise as possible. Additionally, I wrote a series of revision cards from my literature review, detailing the intersecting criticisms and approaches I used, and explaining the new conceptual framework and its new lexicon of terms that I developed as a result.

Then the ‘mock Viva’ with Laura took place and this rigorous conversation totally helped me get in the right head space for my Viva. Ahead of our meeting I sent Laura the preface and introduction to my thesis. Practicing for the Viva in this way really helped me prepare in practical terms. I had my thesis printed out in hard copy next to me while I answered questions and in case, I needed it for reference to any questions (which I did in both the mock and my actual Viva) but also, I cannot overstate the benefit of psychologically preparing for that important meeting and the discussion – and defence – that is the culmination of so much work. Then, came the day of the real thing. I was, of course far more nervous, but most importantly I felt ready for that discussion!

What the mock Viva and our helpful combined lists of questions and advice from Twitter enabled was a really generative (and supportive) initial discussion. The questions posed in my mock and actual Viva prompted me to think deeply about my work in considered ways that, in return gave rise to more detailed questions, based upon my answers. The expertise of the examiners and the questions they asked of me during my Viva, meant that I also gained valuable insights from their external perspectives of my work which led to a great in-depth discussion of this on the day. Some of the questions posed in my mock Viva and from Twitter/X cropped up in my actual Viva. I would say the distinction is the depth of discussion and differing dynamic in the Viva when you have more than one person critiquing your work and asking questions to which your other examiner also might then contribute or build upon with further questions of their own. The abiding memory I have of my Viva is one of mutual scholarly respect and supportive yet rigorous discussion.

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Important note: My mother died suddenly and unexpectedly in the weeks before my Viva. The thesis itself is a personal and critical response to the sustained extreme violence I faced while growing up, especially conversion violence, much of which I spoke about and addressed for the first time openly in the process of writing my thesis. Especial thanks go to my supervisor Diane Watt for their support throughout the entire PhD process and to my examiners, Dr Amy Louise Morgan (internal) and Dr Roberta Magnani (external) for their collegial generosity on the day during my Viva.

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Thank you so much to Dr Teresa Pilgrim for this brilliant post and many congratulations again on passing your viva! Don’t forget to check out my post for part I of this discussion (here) and to check out the rest of my advice for grad students and ECRs list of blogposts here. And as ever, if there’s a topic that you’d like me to write about, get in touch here or on Twitter/X!

Hello everyone! A quick post to let you know about three further poetry events coming up in September and October!

In addition to our in-person Poetry Party for Primers at the Poetry Pharmacy (try saying that quickly!) in London on 23rd September (booking link here), we’re also having an online launch! That will take place on Monday 30th September at 7.30pm.

Link here to book via Eventbrite: Online Primers Launch.

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On 3rd September I will be the featured poet at the Oxford Poetry Library ‘This is Just to Say’ Open Mic night!

All the details are here but performers should arrive at 7pm to register for a slot and we’ll kick off at 7.30pm.

My chosen theme for the night is VOICE! I’ll be reading from Primers 7 (and I’ll have copies to purchase if you’d like to get one at a discount- and even signed!!) and from my wider Beowulf poetry collection! Hope to see lots of fellow poets there!

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In other Beowulf-related news, I’m delighted to have been invited to the Cheltenham Literary Festival to join my Oxford colleague Professor Heather O’Donoghue to talk about the poem!

That event will take place on Monday 7th October at 4pm and you can book here: Cheltenham Festival booking. (Booking opens for the general public at 10am on Thursday 5th September).

Really looking forward to it! (It’ll be the first time I’ve done an ‘in conversation’ event where I haven’t been the interviewer myself, so that will be fun!)

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It’s been exciting to see the first copies of Primers making their way in the world, thank you to everyone who has already bought one, and it would be lovely to see friends and fellow poets at some of these events in the next month or so!

Hello everyone! I was absolutely thrilled to receive my copies of Primers Volume Seven this week, featuring my poetry sequence ‘Grendel’s Mother Bites Back’! See this post to read more about the poems and the Primers mentoring process.

This post is mainly to tell you all about the London Launch Party for Primers at the newly opened Poetry Pharmacy on Oxford Street!

It will take place on Monday 23rd September 2024, 7pm-8.30pm and tickets are available to book at this link: eventbrite booking for Primers Poetry Party!

There will be short readings and a few words from selecting editor Katie Hale & from Jane Commane, head editor at Nine Arches, but the plan is to mingle and chat for the most part!

We are also planning an online launch with more extended readings from Antonia, Jade, and myself, so I’ll post details of that once we know more (it’s likely to be a weeknight later in September).

Thanks so much for everyone who has purchased a copy, it’s been so exciting to see them out in the world in social media! (I’m off to give a copy to my Mum and Dad now!!)

I’ve written before about Rejection, Revision, and Resubmission (see this post) but recently I had to do some revisions on an article and I was really struggling to do them! And not just to do them, but to want to do them!!

Sometimes when the feedback comes through, it can be challenging– intellectually and indeed emotionally. Especially if the feedback feels personal or it suggests that, for whatever reason, the reviewer didn’t get the point you were trying to make. Feedback can be triggering (hello imposter syndrome and anxiety!) and sometimes, you can just get… stuck.

And I was stuck with this particular piece of work. I felt like I was having to approach it like I would a wounded animal whose response I couldn’t predict or control! (Which is silly, because an essay isn’t really going to bite me… is it?!) Objectively, I knew that whether I liked it or not, I had to address the feedback, and I also knew that some of the reasons I was feeling anxious about knuckling down to the work was a) because the essay was personal and meant a lot to me but also b) because the way the feedback was phrased reminded me of experiences in the past that had been really challenging to deal with (and a couple of the adjectives used were just plain hurtful!!). So there was a lot of baggage and a lot of emotions in the mix!

So I did what I normally do… tweet about it!! And here is some of the great advice I received and some of my own top tips for doing revisions when actually you’d rather just have a tantrum and throw the whole thing out with the baby and the bath water!!

5-4-3-2-1 do it!

This is a tip from the brilliant podcaster Mel Robbins and it works for writing or for any activity that you don’t want to do! (Sending that email, getting out of bed on a cold, dark morning, making that phone call!). The idea is that you just say 5-4-3-2-1 and then do the thing! It circumvents the part of your brain that gets anxious about doing the thing and therefore stops you from doing the thing! Just do it! You’ll often find that it isn’t as bad as you thought it was going to be.

Just do ten minutes

Ten minutes can’t hurt you, right? And then you can probably do ten more… and ten more… (Another way to trick your brain! You can easily get through ten minutes, that’s barely a cup of coffee!!).

And relatedly, ten minutes will get you:

Easy wins!

I’ve written before about dividing revisions into ‘easy-medium-hard’. Tick off a couple of those easy ones- even if it’s just ‘find that article that they want me to read’. Easy wins are motivating! (You can also colour code those parts of the article by highlighting/changing the font, as Sarah Pyke suggested on Twitter).

My friend Kristen Haas Curtis also recommends working in ‘blocks’ of 1.5 hours. I really like the idea of blocks: they’re long enough to have lead time to ‘get into it’ and then to get something substantial done. They’re good for hard revisions! (Plus, you can often work a ‘block’ into your timetable for the day, even if you’ve got lots of other things on! So then you feel productive and virtuous in scheduling research time- double win!)

Write it out or talk to someone

Why is this making you anxious? Writing it down or talking about it helps as it takes it out of your head and you can then begin to think about it neutrally. I’ve been very lucky with this set of revisions to have helpful, supportive, and patient editors who were willing to listen to my concerns and then give me the time (and cheerleading!) that I needed to get it done! Knowing that they believed in me really helped (yes, I’m like a small child sometimes, what can I say!! But it made me feel like I wasn’t in this alone! Thank you- you know who you are!)

Occupy the twitchy part of your brain

I find that listening to music often helps to distract the part of my brain that gets… distracted! (I often listen to certain kinds of music for certain projects so that I can then get back into that headspace more easily at a later stage by listening to it again). You might also be able to concentrate better by snacking on an apple or some raisins, or playing with a fidget toy etc, while you’re reading/editing. Anything that stops the twitchy part of the brain reaching for social media!!

More specific writerly tips include:

Reread the article and make the changes you want to make first

That way, when you start editing the article you have ownership over it again before you start working on the revisions required by the reviewers. (Thanks Elizabeth Biggs on Twitter for the suggestion!)

For getting back into the headspace:

Aimee Merrydew recommend working through Rachael Cayley’s Reverse Outline strategy and making a checklist of revisions which you then respond to: done, to do, not part of the scope of this article & reasons why etc. This can also give you control back over the piece.

(It also helps, as I said in my previous post, to write out a neutral list of the required revisions in your own hand or on a fresh document so that you don’t have to return to the potentially-triggering original review!)

I often have to start retyping the article because I am more practically engaged in the argument then and am less likely to zone out (as I might do when I’m just reading!). It also helps because you can edit as you type and before you know it, you’re thinking of better ways of phrasing things!

Change your environment

Take the revisions to your favourite coffee shop and bribe yourself with a treat!

Go to the library and tell yourself you have to have done at least one practical revision before you can leave!

(In my case, I told myself that I was going to my office and I wasn’t allowed to come home until I’d at least made a start!)

Alternate the revisions with something fun– I had some exciting research on the slate that I would rather have been doing, so I let myself read one article for each revision I accomplished!

Energise!

Go for a quick walk around the block or have a dance to your favourite song to get the endorphins going! (I’ve recently watched Derry Girls and so I got my 90s pop nostalgia fix by jumping around to Gina G’s ‘Ooh Aah Just a Little Bit’, but that’s just me!!)

Let me know if you have any more suggestions!

It can feel silly or a bit ‘first world problems’ to be worried or anxious about revising a piece of written work- especially given the times we live in and the terrible pressures that so many people are facing- but that doesn’t make it any easier to knuckle down and do your work. (And sometimes the distractions are indeed the news and feeling powerless to do anything about it). But I hope the tips here have been helpful and do check out my other posts for academic writers, grad students, and ECRs here. And if not ‘happy’ writing, then ‘less stressful’ writing everyone! You’ve got this!

Hello everyone! I’m really excited to say that my Grendel’s Mother poetry sequence, Grendel’s Mother Bites Back: Poems wið Beowulf is published this week in Primers Volume Seven from Nine Arches Press!

The Primers competition is a biannual mentoring and publication scheme and this year the judge for the competition was the brilliant Katie Hale, assisted by Nine Arches Press editor Jane Commane. I entered the competition with five poems from my Grendel’s Mother sequence back in September last year and in October I heard that I was on the shortlist of ten poets. I then sent off a further fifteen poems (twenty poems in total) and in November I was delighted to hear that I was one of the three winners, alongside Antonia Taylor and Jade Cuttle! I was so thrilled!!

The process of producing the book has been wonderful- really supportive and encouraging, and I’ve learned a great deal! We each had two mentoring sessions with Katie and then an editing session with Jane. With Katie, I chose the fifteen poems (out of the twenty I had submitted) that would make it into the final book- and that discussion was very illuminating in terms of thinking about structure and forms across a collection (where to begin and end, how poems riff off each other in a sequence, what happens if you moved them around etc)- and we workshopped the individual poems to make them as good as they could be! Then with Jane, I polished up that final selection and Jane had some super edits of her own to add- often small changes that really made a difference! I learned a lot about my own poetic practice and the process of putting together a poetry project, so I’m very grateful indeed to them both for all their hard work, advice, and inspiration!

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Here’s one of the poems to whet your appetite for the collection, ‘Grendel’s Mother addresses the Author’ (published on the Nine Arches blog back in September):

‘Nesh’ is a northern dialect word that means something like ‘wimpy’ or ‘feeble’. It actually goes back to the Old English ‘hnesc’ which means ‘soft/tender/unable to endure hardship’ and came to mean cold/feeble. (A refrain in our house growing up, if I was cold, was ‘put a jumper on and don’t be so nesh!’)

In this poem, Grendel’s Mother speaks back to the poet– and later translators (I’m looking at you, Seamus Heaney!)- who are determined to present her as a monster. It’s in the poet’s best interests to make her his ‘mearcstapa’ [boundary-stalker] because it’s by pushing things to the outer edges, making them abject or marginalised, that the dominance of the centre (the patriarchal rule of kings and heroes!) is reinforced. By making Grendel’s Mother a monster, he solidifies the humanity of men. (I say ‘he’ for the poet here because although it isn’t proven that the Beowulf-poet is definitely a man, I do follow Gillian Overing in thinking that the poem is ‘overwhelming masculine’ and does, as a result, reinforce a patriarchal agenda).

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I’ve prefaced the poems with the many and various definitions of the word wið in Old English because it captures the relationship between my poems and the original. My poems are sometimes oppositional or contrary to Beowulf, sometimes sitting beside or sidling up to the original, some poems are a mode of exchange or requital, some offer compensation to Grendel’s Mother for her treatment by the original poet. All of the poems speak ‘from’ a specific moment in the original- either as dramatic monologues that are located in a specific time and place, or they grow out of particular close readings and passages that I’ve dug into. You can read my poems in contrast or comparison to Beowulf, you can read them alongside the original. Above all, they’re in dialogue with the original poem and I hope that they’ll encourage readers to revisit Beowulf– or indeed to read it for the very first time!

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If you’d like to read another poem from the collection, ‘Aftermath I: Blood in the Mere’ is available on the Nine Arches blog here with an accompanying blogpost about how I came to write the poem. (It’s quite a grisly one- about Grendel bleeding out after the fight with Beowulf when his arm gets ripped off!! It’s a passage I teach every year and often feel uncomfortable about because the poet really goes to town on the description of the blood in the mere and as we know, the mere is the home of the Grendelkin…). So do pop over and check it out!

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If you’d like to read more about my wider ambitions for the project, writing about the other women in the poem (from Wealhtheow to Freawaru, Hygd to Hildeburh!), check out my project page here on my website: Beowulf.

And keep your eyes peeled for announcements about our Primers launches! 23rd September in person in London and then online too, with myself, Antonia, and Jade! I’m so excited to hear more from my fellow poets- their poems are just brilliant and there are so many interesting connections and resonances across the book! And special thanks to Eleanor Baker who has created an amazing linocut artwork for one of my poems- more on that to follow in a special post of its own!!

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Huge thank you again to Katie Hale and Jane Commane, and to everyone who has supported my poetry. Special shoutouts to: my family (especially my Mum, who always sees the humour in Beowulf!); Helen Barr, Robert Shearman, Cheyenne Dunnett, Teresa Pilgrim (wonderful friends and writers, all!); my students in ‘Team English’ at Univ (whose ideas and engagement with Beowulf are always an inspiration!); Rishi Dastidar & Clare Pollard (magnificent mentors, both!); and the ‘Cows are in the Field’ gang from the Arvon Poetry Retreat at The Hurst last year (Andrea, Ian, Paul, John, Daniel, and especially Natalie- superb poets and brilliant friends). I couldn’t have got to this place with my poetry without you all (and I certainly couldn’t have won the competition without your advice and encouragement to be as ambitious as possible with my work!). Writing, of all kinds, takes a village, and I’m most grateful!

Primers Volume Seven is available to buy here!

Last month, my dear friend the brilliant Teresa Pilgrim had her viva for her PhD thesis on Female Masculinities and the Environment in Early Medieval Texts. As part of her preparation for the viva, I offered to give Teresa a ‘mock’ viva… only I’d never actually been in the position of ‘giving’ a viva before, I’d only experienced one as a student (many years ago!). So I did what I always do when I need academic advice- I asked the good people of Twitter! And boy, did they deliver!

(Special thanks to everyone who replied to this thread: Diane Watt, Catherine Clarke, Marianne O’Doherty, Will Anselm, Hester L-J, Jonathan Ellis, Olivia Smith, Thomas Smaberg, and especially to Daisy Black and Helen Swift who emailed me with questions too!)

Having written blogposts on lots of different topics for my Resources for Grads and ECRs page, I thought it was about time I wrote about vivas and how to get ready for them. This post is going to have two parts- one from me about the questions that I asked Teresa and one from Teresa herself about the process of preparing for the viva from the student perspective (and I’ll add a link to the second post in due course).

Mock Viva Questions:

With huge thanks to my colleagues and the people of Twitter, this is the list of questions that I asked Teresa in the mock viva (and in the rough order in which I asked them):

• What brought you to this topic? What fascinated you about it?
• What was the research gap / challenge / opportunity you were aiming to address and how did you do this?
• What’s the most important conclusion of your research?
• Can you summarise the thesis in one or two sentences?
• What’s your main contribution to the field / your original contribution to knowledge? Why is this topic worth tackling?
• What’s unique about this project?
• How did you choose these texts / this primary material (and not others)?
• How did you choose this structure? (and not an alternative)
• How did you choose this methodology? (ditto)
• Can you explain the logic of the structure of your thesis? How do the chapters build on each other?
• What limits did you have to set on the project and how did you make those decisions?
• Is there anything missing from the thesis that you would have liked to address but didn’t? (And why not?)
• What is the thesis not about and why?
• What changes did you make along the way?
• Has anything changed between the submission of your thesis and the viva in terms of your thinking?
• Are there any downsides to your approach? Is there anything that you would have done differently?
• Who will use this research and how?
• Where would you take this work next?
• If you could write one more chapter, what would it be on?
• How does your work sit with current scholarship?
• Who is your most important critical influence?
• Where does your work leave criticism now?
• What academic challenges did you face and how did you overcome or work around them?
• Are there things that were fundamentally important along the way but that might not have been visible in the final thesis?

Typing this out, it strikes me that many of these questions are useful for academic writing more broadly- for books and for articles too!

There are a couple of glosses I’d like to give to the questions above. I think it’s important to acknowledge, and be able to justify, the scope and limitations of a project. You can’t do everything! Plus, there are often reasons why the thesis turned out in the shape that it did- some of those are beyond our control! (Especially given the pandemic!)

A thesis is never going to be perfect and it doesn’t need to be- it needs to be PhDone!- and for me, part of the learning process of the viva is reflecting upon how you arrived at the finish line and the changes that you might now make (which is especially useful if you want to turn your thesis into a book). These kinds of questions are about critique and not criticism– it’s not about saying ‘why didn’t you do it this way’, it’s about recognising that there might have been other paths to follow, but the rationale for your thesis is as follows. (I know people often talk about the viva as a ‘defence’ of the thesis and that’s useful to some extent but it shouldn’t, to my mind, feel too adversarial!)

(When I did my PhD, I had written four chapters and my final one was going to be on Julian of Norwich but at the last minute I decided that, sadly, Julian wouldn’t fit because my focus- on sacred space in Middle English texts- had become much more concrete and material, and focused around church buildings, and so thinking about Julian’s visionary spaces might not be the best final chapter any more. Thankfully my supervisor trusted my judgement and let me go off and find an alternative set of texts to examine! I can’t remember if I discussed this in the viva but it was an important part of my journey!)

I also think it’s important to remember the joy, curiosity, and interest that brought you to the topic in the first place! You’re probably exhausted at this stage of the game but think back to when you started- why did you want to do this in the first place? Have the questions you wanted to ask been answered? Or have you come to a new set of questions as well as a new understanding? (I always find the process of reflecting on writing so interesting!)

My Advice for Preparation

Teresa is going to write a post about preparing for the viva from the student perspective- top tips, what worked, etc- but I thought I’d add a few suggestions of my own (even though my viva was seventeen years ago now!!).

Something that I think it’s important to hold on to when preparing is that you are the expert on your topic! No one else knows this material as well as you do (although your supervisor might come close!), so that should give you confidence going into it.

In terms of the nitty gritty of preparing, I would say that it’s probably important to take some time off after the submission itself- you’ll be exhausted for one thing! But also because it’s important to let the work settle in your mind. It’ll still be there, percolating away, and you’ll have a fresh perspective and renewed energy when you return to it.

It’s important to know the details of the thesis, of course, but it’s also important to be able to take a bigger picture view. One way of doing this is to take yourself off to a coffee shop or library and write about the thesis without having the thesis in front of you. What are your key arguments? Why does the topic matter? Can you answer the questions above without referring back to the text? (I’m sure you can!). If I’m feeling bogged down in material, I often do some freewriting without my notes / drafts in front of me and often the most important points float to the surface!

You can also do this kind of preparation by talking to someone who isn’t an expert in your field. A friend, a family member, someone in a different department or discipline. (It’s a version of the ‘explain your research to a five year old’ idea!).

I would also say- enjoy the viva! Yes, it’s a nerve wracking experience but it’s also a fantastic opportunity to talk to other experts in your field- and not only that, but experts who have spent time with your work, are invested in it, and want to help you to develop and defend it!

And on a related point, I think if I were having my viva now, I might have taken the opportunity to ask the examiners for advice about publication and reshaping the thesis into a book (which if you’ve been a reader of my blog for a while, you’ll know was a journey! See this post!).

I hope this has been useful and do keep your eyes peeled for Teresa’s post from the student perspective (which I will link to here in due course). Do check out my Resources for Grads and ECRs page for more advice on academic matters- and do let me know here or on Twitter if there are other topics that you’d like me to cover!

Huge thanks to DR Teresa Pilgrim for letting me practice my viva-giving skills on her- it was a fascinating conversation and a privilege to talk to her about her amazing and field-changing work!

It was such a thrill to be invited back to my favourite podcast Backlisted, not least for one of the live episodes at Foyles bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London! The subject of the episode was the late fourteenth century romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and I joined hosts Andy Miller & John Mitchinson and the brilliant Dr Martin Shaw to discuss the original poem, its various modern translations and adaptations. We had a fantastic time!

You can listen to the podcast via the Backlisted website here or via all good podcast apps. And if you’re a Backlisted patreon (join up here!), you also get access to the bonus Q&A with the live audience- wow, the questions were incredible! It was so nice to meet fellow fans of the podcasts and to catch up with old friends and new (especially Rob Shearman and Una McCormack!)

As well as reading from the original poem, in its northwest dialect of Middle English, I championed the 1967 translation by Marie Borroff which I think is a wonderful scholarly companion to any reading of Gawain. Borroff wrote a fantastic book on the style and metre of Gawain in the early 60s and she brings all her scholarly knowledge to this translation while also making it readable and capturing the humour. It was important to me to champion a female translator- Borroff was also the first woman appointed in the English department at Yale University- but we also discussed the Tolkien translation and the translation by Keith Harrison for Oxford World’s Classics (which includes an introduction from Professor Helen Cooper, Univ’s first female fellow!).

At the end of the episode, I completely forgot to recommend two additional books for further reading (-blame the excitement of the live recording!!). Firstly I wanted to recommend Iris Murdoch’s 1993 novel The Green Knight as a really fascinating modern exploration of the Gawain story (no spoilers, just read it!). I also wanted to recommend Sian Hughes’ 2023 novel Pearl which was nominated for the Booker Prize and is inspired by the dream vision elegy of the same name, also by the Gawain-poet. Pearl the novel is a book about books (always a favourite theme on Backlisted!) and it follows the story of Marianne whose mother has gone missing when she is a child and she attempts to use Pearl (and then Gawain) as a way of navigating her loss and looking for answers.

Huge thanks to John & Andy for inviting me back to the show! If you’d like to hear my other Backlisted episodes, you’ll find me on the following:

Daphne du Maurier, Beowulf, Elizabeth Jane Howard and MR James.

Hello everyone! It’s been a busy year so far, switching back and forth between wearing my Beowulf hat, my Du Maurier hat, my Margery Kempe hat, and recently my Gawain and the Green Knight hat (or should that be helmet!). But more on the latter in another post…

As many of you know, I’m currently working on a poetry collection inspired by the women of Beowulf (more information on that project here) but I’m also working on a book about Margery Kempe in modern medievalisms, that is, in modern adaptations (novels, plays, poetry etc!). Since working on my Beowulf project, however, I’ve also been using poetry as a way of ‘thinking with’ Margery’s Book and life, and my eventual book project will include poems as well as traditional academic prose. I’m really fascinated by ‘creative-critical’ work (and in fact spoke at a fascinating conference on the topic last week in Oxford, organised by my Univ colleagues Joe Moshenska and Iris Pearson) and I’ve recently had two poems published that are part of my Margery project.

The first poem is called ‘Medieval Mystic Margery Kempe in Tesco’ and it was published in The London Magazine last week (here). This poem began life in a workshop run by the amazing poet Rishi Dastidar– thanks Rishi for the prompt!

The second poem also, funnily enough, began life in one of Rishi’s workshops, but back in June last year when I attended an incredible Arvon Foundation writing retreat that was run by Rishi and fellow brilliant poet Clare Pollard. My poem was published in Amethyst Review in February this year and it’s called ‘White Things about Her on Every Side’:

This poem is a response to the vision that Margery has of angels surrounding her in chapter 35 of The Book. (At the time of the retreat, I had just written an essay on Margery and angels, so they were still knocking about in my mind!)

In February this year I was delighted to be invited by Dr Sarah Salih to present my research at the Institute of Historical Research’s Medievalism seminar in London. I talked about Margery Kempe in modern poetry- and presented some new poems of my own!

The image below, of the highs and lows of Margery’s spiritual experience, was drawn by my brilliant friend the cartoonist and medievalist Kristen Haas Curtis. Thank you, Kristen!

This coming week, I’ll be presenting at the Gender and Medieval Studies conference at the University of Lincoln. GMS is my favourite conference and this year the theme is connections and reconnections. This works perfectly for my current interests and I’ll be thinking about creative-critical connections in Margery and modern poetry.

Earlier this year, the first piece of academic writing from my current project was published in the journal Medieval Feminist Forum. It’s an article about Michelle Paver’s 2019 novel Wakenhyrst in which Margery Kempe was the inspiration for the fictional mystic Alice Pyett. In the article, I explored Paver’s transformation of Kempe into Pyett and also used the novel to interrogate my own affective and emotional relationship with Margery Kempe and the ways in which she often functions as an inspiration for feminists.

(Please do drop me an email if you don’t have access to the journal but would like to read the article).

I hope you’re all keeping well and I’ll be back with further updates on my other projects before too long, I hope!

Hello everyone! It’s been an exciting couple of months for me on the Du Maurier front! In February, the wonderful US press Suntup Editions announced their new collectors edition of Daphne du Maurier’s most famous novel Rebecca, featuring specially commissioned illustrations by Iva Troj and a new afterword by yours truly!

You can read more about the numbered and lettered editions on the Suntup website here: Rebecca. Both editions sold out immediately upon release! And I’m not surprised because they’re absolutely stunning.

I still can’t quite get over the fact that my words will be included with Daphne’s novel! The title page is just gorgeous and I can’t believe my luck! I was delighted to be asked to write this piece and I can’t wait to see the editions in real life. As many of you know who follow me on instagram, I have quite the collection of Rebeccas so it’s going to be incredible to add an edition featuring my own afterword to the shelves!

I’m very grateful to the team at Suntup Editions and to the Du Maurier Estate for trusting me with this commission.

As if that wasn’t exciting enough, earlier this month I was invited to take part in a panel discussion of Du Maurier’s work on the BBC Radio 4 programme Open Book, presented by Olivia Bright and also featuring writers Olivia Laing and Wyl Menmuir.

The programme was an in-depth discussion of Daphne’s work and you can listen again here: BBC Open Book Du Maurier. It formed part of the ‘Daphne du Maurier: Double Exposure’ series which also included new dramatisations and readings of Daphne’s work and a new drama featuring Helena Bonham Carter as Daphne (a list of the programmes is available here).

We packed a lot into the half hour programme, discussing My Cousin Rachel, Jamaica Inn, Frenchman’s Creek, Rebecca, and The House on the Strand, and I even managed to get in shoutouts for some of my favourite lesser known works, The Parasites and The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte (you can read more of my thoughts on the latter two in my interview with Five Books here). We could have talked for hours!

It was hugely exciting to visit the BBC and to record the programme at Broadcasting House. The TARDIS was in the lobby!! (This Doctor is certainly ready for a time travel adventure if the showrunners are interested!!)

You can read more of my articles on Daphne via my Du Maurier page here on my website and if you’d like to listen to me discussing one of Daphne’s most extraordinary short story collections, The Breaking Point, do pop over to the podcast Backlisted here.

Thanks for reading!

This summer I was delighted to review Nancy Campbell’s award-winning 2022 memoir Thunderstone for the Lady Margaret Hall alumni publication, The Brown Book. I wanted to share the review on my website as I loved the book and it meant a great deal to me when I read it last year.

Nancy Campbell, Thunderstone: A True Story of Losing One Home and Discovering Another (London: Elliott and Thompson, 2022).  

Sometimes a book comes along that feels like a safe harbour in a storm and last summer, for me, that book was Nancy Campbell’s exquisite memoir Thunderstone: A Story of Losing One Home and Discovering Another (2022). I couldn’t put it down. Not in the usual sense of wanting to race through it (although I did inhale it like a swimmer gulping down air) but because once I’d finished it, the book had taken on a talismanic quality, rather like the thunderstone of the title. Campbell writes that ‘it was believed lightning would not strike a house that held a thunderstone’ (p.44) and her book took on that quality of protection. I carried it around with me for days after finishing it.

            In its pages− that deal with a difficult lockdown, the health problems of Nancy herself and her former partner, and her challenging new life in the caravan– I found the kind of readerly intimacy and restorative courage that makes you feel as though a hand has been held out to you. Campbell writes beautifully and compassionately (with the true etymological sense of fellow feeling, ‘to suffer with’) about her former partner’s stroke and how Anna’s severe aphasia radically altered both of their experiences with words. She explores housing precarity, ill health, and relationship breakdown in ways that are raw and honest, but never mawkish, and the book is brimming with hope and comfort. Moving into a second-hand caravan on the river in Oxford, an experience that tests both her practical and emotional resilience, Campbell shows us how we can live well and live richly through an interwoven tapestry of literary texts and the inspiration of nature. I felt that I came away from the memoir with real, tangible tokens with which to sustain me, most especially from the diary part of the book as life in the van takes shape following the aftermath of a heart-breaking lockdown. Early in the June part of the diary, Campbell writes a haiku: ‘Wren returns to its nest / and flies out again, in and / out in out all day’ and she reflects, ‘Old habits must be shifting. Usually I can’t write a word before my first cup of coffee, but the wren distracted me, pulled me forward into the day’ (pp.59-60). Thunderstone pulls us forward into a life more attuned to nature, forging generative new communities on the margins and inviting us in.

            Campbell is an especially nuanced and thoughtful writer of place and for those of us may still find the Oxford of the ‘dreaming spires’ rather aloof and forbidding at times, Campbell’s alternative Oxford offers a new kind of magic. Her new friend the Assassin tells her this part of the canal had once been called the Gates of Hell but before that it was ‘Joy’s Field… and you’ll make it that again if you choose’ (p.39). This is still the Oxford where ‘rifts in the fabric of this world might lead us into other worlds’ (p.37) but rather than fantastical, those worlds feel radical, authentic, and necessary. Campbell concludes her diary with a photograph of her van, nestled in the undergrowth, and a quotation from Bashō: ‘I jotted down these records with the hope that they might provoke pleasant conversations among my readers and that they might be of some use to those who would travel the same way’ (p.225). It’s a privilege to have travelled with Nancy Campbell in Thunderstone and if I could press a copy of this book into your hands right now, I would. In the opening chapter Anna tells Nancy that what she wants from life is to ‘live with grace. It is hard to have grace now, but I will do my best’ (p.20) Thunderstone is full of grace and I am deeply grateful for it.

Laura Varnam (matric. 2004)

[review first published in the LMH Brown Book, summer 2023)