Sleep

It is vital for our well being and to ensure that we can go about our daily activities. It helps improve memory, process emotions and allows our bodies to repair themselves. But it is not always so simple to achieve just the right amount of sleep.

'A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow.' Charlotte Brontë

I'm sure most of us have experienced this at some point or another. Those long nights where thoughts continue to whirl around your mind long after being snuggled down under the covers. Now there are many places that will tell you to only use a bed for sleep or sex, and whilst I believe these are important where's the reading? To me being in bed with a good book is wondrous. I find losing myself in another world, ideally a fictional one that is several steps removed from my academic work, can soothe my mind so that sleep descends upon it. I couldn't count the number of times that I wake up with my hand still holding the book open on the right page and the light on. This is why I'd recommend investing in a good long-life bulb for the bedside lamp.

What about too much sleep? Those nights where you awake for a few moments just to plunge back into another dream. Nothing seems to rouse you for very long. Your own world is the most seductive. These are not 8 hour sleep nights but ones where it's 12, 15 or sometimes even 24 hours out of 30 (the latter is usually from some kind of illness). It's as though your body will not permit you to do anything other than dream. I find these days confusing because when it comes around to bedtime there is rarely any difficulty in going back to sleep again. These sleeps are vital for healing, comfort and restoration in a time of crisis or transition. This aspect brings me to Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum's book Madeline is Sleeping that is a dream-like book of sexual awakening, coming of age and a girl Madeline who has been asleep for a long time reminiscent of Sleeping Beauty. I will discuss this in more depth another day, but for now I will leave you with part of the opening fragment of the book:

'hush

HUSH, MOTHER SAYS. Madeline is sleeping. She is so beautiful when she sleeps, I do not want to wake her.

The small sisters and brothers creep about the bed, their gestures of silence becoming magnified and languorous, fingers floating to pursed lips, tip toes rising and descending as if weightless. Circling about her bed, their frantic activity slows; they are like tiny insects suspended in sap, kicking dreamily before they crystallize into amber. Together they inhale softly and the room fills with one endless exhalation of breath: Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.'

Madeline is Sleeping, p. 1

Welcome to Corporealities

What is the aim of this blog?

I am a first-year PhD student working in the field of Sexuality and Gender Studies. I want to use this blog as a playground, an interactive notebook and as a way to help allay my nerves about writing for an audience. As such unlike the remit of my PhD, Corporealities will not have a narrow focus but is rather a place for me to test out ideas, find new ways of expression and write about those books, films and ephemera that seize my imagination.

Why is this blog called 'Corporealities'?

It embraces the idea that one only conceive of ideas from a state of embodiment. This notion draws together my main research interests, which include: representing the sexual body, non-normative sexualities, different relationship practices, body image, the fat body, food, cooking and clothing.

It also suggests different ways of relating to 'reality'. There are multiple realities. We each have our own interpretation and sense of 'reality' that can vary moment to moment. I am interested in those transitional moments - the in-between spaces - where someone is neither asleep nor awake, particularly dreams.

Why have I started this blog now?

Since I started my PhD 10 months ago, I have been thinking of starting a blog along similar lines to Corporealities, though I kept finding excuses about why it wouldn't be a good idea. Yesterday I read Hugh McGuire's article on 'Why Academics Should Blog (redux)' and thought why not. I want to improve my ideas, practice my writing skills in a less rigid form and write about topics that are not always appropriate or relevant for my thesis. So thank you Hugh McGuire, you've inspired at least one fledgling academic to follow your advice.

Happy reading and may this blog see me through to at least the end of my PhD.