Week 2: Research Edition: Eula Biss' "Time and Distance Overcome"
More likely than not, you’re already familiar with the Eula Biss Essay, “Time and Distance Overcome,” which is both available in her book Notes from No Man’s Land, as well as being available online in The Iowa Review.
I feel like you’ve probably read this essay if you’ve taken any nonfiction writing course in the past ten years, and for good reason: it starts with a fairly innocuous
bit of research about the history of the telephone, but ends in such a larger darker place. We know that there is no direct causation between the spread of telephone networks and the spread of lynching, yet it is now impossible to pull those two things apart. Again, we can go on about this (and please do in responses!), but I want to focus this on the author’s note, where this research comes from.
I am legitimately shocked that the essay didn’t start with the idea of lynching, but with telephone poles, with (I’m assuming?) her grandfather’s job and injury. In my own research-based writing, I usually know, like, one interesting fact before searching out more in order to build up the metaphor. I love that this essay came from a place of pure curiosity: stories about telephone poles before a pattern emerged, leading to more research and etc…
Unlike “Naked Mole Rats,” this one does have a personal narrative, though I do find it interesting that it also doesn’t present itself until the end of the essay. This one can more or less be broken down into 3 parts based on section breaks: part one about the invention and implementation of the telephone, part two focusing on lynching from telephone poles, and part 3 (by far the shortest) is two paragraphs about her grandfather’s work on telephone lines, the way lines once held beauty but now present something else, our author’s vision (and our own) shifting in real time in response to the research.
I’m still not sure what to make of this…I wanted to start with a closer look at the idea of research, and in two research-heavy essays, the narrators seemed to leave themselves out of it--to let the information build upon itself--before humanizing everything at the end. I do think this technique is pretty impactful, but for the next post I want to find a more present narrator to see how that shifts the meaning. If anyone has any ideas (or wants to write a post) let me know.
Writing Exercises:
I have two possibilities for this week, both on the topic of research. With an author’s note like that, it seems it would be malpractice not to suggest doing a database search on an unconventional object or topic (go with toasters, or Frisbees, or whatever topic you have a personal connection with) in a 20 year range. Scan the headlines until a pattern emerges.
The second (for those of you like me without access to a good database search), we’re going to go the Venn Diagram route: read the Wikipedia pages for two topics to find some common areas in which to work out your ideas. A fun version of this involves clicking hyperlinks to find a path from one article to the other… to go with the aforementioned example, I can get from Frisbee to toaster by seeing the early frisbees were made from pie tins, which connect to pie irons, which connect to toasters. I doubt there’s an essay there, but the exercise is a useful (and occasionally fruitful) one. Think of it as a game to play on your phone when you’re bored, and eventually the shocking connection will find its way out of it.
I feel like you’ve probably read this essay if you’ve taken any nonfiction writing course in the past ten years, and for good reason: it starts with a fairly innocuous
bit of research about the history of the telephone, but ends in such a larger darker place. We know that there is no direct causation between the spread of telephone networks and the spread of lynching, yet it is now impossible to pull those two things apart. Again, we can go on about this (and please do in responses!), but I want to focus this on the author’s note, where this research comes from.
I am legitimately shocked that the essay didn’t start with the idea of lynching, but with telephone poles, with (I’m assuming?) her grandfather’s job and injury. In my own research-based writing, I usually know, like, one interesting fact before searching out more in order to build up the metaphor. I love that this essay came from a place of pure curiosity: stories about telephone poles before a pattern emerged, leading to more research and etc…
Unlike “Naked Mole Rats,” this one does have a personal narrative, though I do find it interesting that it also doesn’t present itself until the end of the essay. This one can more or less be broken down into 3 parts based on section breaks: part one about the invention and implementation of the telephone, part two focusing on lynching from telephone poles, and part 3 (by far the shortest) is two paragraphs about her grandfather’s work on telephone lines, the way lines once held beauty but now present something else, our author’s vision (and our own) shifting in real time in response to the research.
I’m still not sure what to make of this…I wanted to start with a closer look at the idea of research, and in two research-heavy essays, the narrators seemed to leave themselves out of it--to let the information build upon itself--before humanizing everything at the end. I do think this technique is pretty impactful, but for the next post I want to find a more present narrator to see how that shifts the meaning. If anyone has any ideas (or wants to write a post) let me know.
Writing Exercises:
I have two possibilities for this week, both on the topic of research. With an author’s note like that, it seems it would be malpractice not to suggest doing a database search on an unconventional object or topic (go with toasters, or Frisbees, or whatever topic you have a personal connection with) in a 20 year range. Scan the headlines until a pattern emerges.
The second (for those of you like me without access to a good database search), we’re going to go the Venn Diagram route: read the Wikipedia pages for two topics to find some common areas in which to work out your ideas. A fun version of this involves clicking hyperlinks to find a path from one article to the other… to go with the aforementioned example, I can get from Frisbee to toaster by seeing the early frisbees were made from pie tins, which connect to pie irons, which connect to toasters. I doubt there’s an essay there, but the exercise is a useful (and occasionally fruitful) one. Think of it as a game to play on your phone when you’re bored, and eventually the shocking connection will find its way out of it.
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