Ok, so this week didn’t go so well. First, the start of the CC semester took more out of me than expected: time-wise, two full days instead of the expected one. (Another day spent in driving). Second, as previously noted I just don’t have enough notes on primary material to give the full account of church discipline I want. That stumped me a bit. I wrote up about six pages on what I do have. Problem here is that I take my narrative from the notes at hand, and I develop the narrative from the writing I’m doing at the moment. So the notes tell me X, X, X, and X, and I organize that first as A, which will naturally lead to B, which is followed perfectly by C, and D is the end of this argument. Now, when I collect up the primary sources to augment this section, they’ll appear in my head as y, WW, B1, and 13, meaning they don’t fit easily into the argument I presently have, and attempting to insert them as they are will make the whole thing just awkward. Oh well. To that end I’m in correspondence with a number of religious archives trying to track down the meeting minutes of a number of congregations. Unfortunately, the stuff I’m looking for may be spread out all over Pennsylvania.
Also, not sure I can use the Warren Harrington case. Thought I found a new case regarding the slander of Maranda Sharpe, but I’m not certain that will make a good example, either. (Church court determined that the stories about Maranda were true, therefore the person spreading rumors was not committing slander. Don’t know the nature of the stories, but if you know women and southern church discipline, you can probably guess with a certain degree of accuracy.)
On the good news side, I figured out how to cut and past important parts of my Wesleyan episode paper from last summer right into this chapter. (Not how to cut and paste, but how to fit one into the other.) The new context will require quite a bit of tweaking and massaging on the second (and third, and fourth, and fifth…) pass. But it’s there. The idea I’m working with on this section is rather abstract (see the post below), and I’ve got about three different versions with clear but different directions that I need to harness into a coherent line. I perceive that this whole chapter just isn’t going to lend itself to easy organization.
Next week’s work, I think, will be more cutting and pasting of old draft into new. That’s a nice feeling because of the appearance of progress, laying down pages and pages at a time. But we’ll get to next week tomorrow. Still have nine hours left of this week.
Question? Does anyone know how to pronounce the surname “Usery”? (sometimes spelled with two SSs) Is it “You-sery,” or “Uss-ery”? Thanks.
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I want it official on this blog that I am distraught that the Kansas Museum of History has decided to end it’s Cool Things in the Collection podcast. I can’t think of a better example of public history programming out there in terms of accessibility, likeability, good history-telling, and general dorkitude (which I’ve established here before is a good thing.) It made this North Carolinian actually want to visit Kansas and see it’s history in person. I know why it happened (budgets), but it still sucks.
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