bvlsingler To Do Lists

People in squishy hats

I had the pleasure of attending my youngest sister’s graduation ceremony at Warwick this week.  Its always a great sight: a gaggle of nervous undergrads rocking the robe and mortar board, usually over the party dress that they’ll wear to cocktails and dancing later! A bit different to a Cambridge graduation where the dress code is strictly waitress/waiter: black skirt/trousers and a white shirt (or a plain black maternity dress for my MPhil graduation!).  Our German College Praelector is infamous for rigorously upholding the dress code and sending people away if they get it wrong (Navy shoes! Shocking!)

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And among the gradauating cohort at Warwick there were a few PhD students in their squishy hats and fancy gowns.  This was a useful reminder to me that people DO finish their PhDs and have a nice day with family and friends while still wearing that silly squishy hat.  There is a light at the end of the tunnel, if you just keep plunging on through the dark!

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So in that vein, my plan for the rest of this week:

  1. Seriously, get more interviews organised and done!
  2. Plan papers for the EASR/BASR conference and start timed writing to get going on them 🙂

Still plunging on in the dark….

 

 

bvlsingler To Do Lists, Writing

To-Do-List no. 25367…

A slightly short day and week again this week as I have a graduation to go to (well done little Sis!).  But here’s the highlights of what I want to get done this week…

  1. MORE interviews… organising and doing.  I am really worried I am not getting enough interviewing done.  It seems to be at least a couple of weeks of too-ing and fro-ing via e-mail before I actually get someone in place and I really need to have more done by the end of this year.  40 plus if my supervisor is right….
  2. Finish reading and notes for the papers for the BASR/EASR conference, start planning them! Major task as most of August I have no childcare and the conference is at the beginning of Sept!
  3. I’m planning on attending some of the Cambridge timed writing groups and working more on my journal article that stalled prior to the writing school. 
  4. Read Brasher.  I’m being put off by the ‘cyberspace-y’ pictures in the book, but I’m sure she’s got something good to say….

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bvlsingler To Do Lists

Current Projects (Apart from PhD Thesis):

Right, now for a bit of work planning and summarising.  I find writing out lists like this reminds me to get on and write the darned things!

  • BASR/EASR Conference Papers (to be written for September 3rd-6th Conference):

Big, Bad Pharma: New Age Biomedical Conspiracy Narratives and their Expression in the Concept of the Indigo Child

5.7 million American children aged 3 to 17 have been diagnosed with ADHD. Approximately two thirds of those diagnosed have been prescribed amphetamine based drugs such as Ritalin as a treatment. Diagnoses and prescriptions are also increasing exponentially in the UK. Diagnostic checklists include: fidgeting, answering questions before they are finished and being unable to stick at long and tedious tasks.

In this paper I will explore New Age conspiracy narratives which accuse the pharmacological industry, or Big Pharma, of collusion with schools to turn naturally active children into compliant drones. In particular, I will describe the category of the Indigo Children: allegedly a special, intuitive, spiritual generation appearing since the 1980s. This category celebrates the inability of some children to fit into mainstream systems while actively attacking the commercial machinations of ‘Big Pharma’ involving children: over-medication, but also harmful vaccinations and genetically modified foods.

Blame Sheila: The 2011 UK Census, ‘Other Religion’ and the Rhetoric of Narcissism

This paper will consider the 2011 Census question on religious affiliation, specifically responses under the category of ‘Other Religion’ where the public was able to write down a choice instead of box ticking. Answers included, ‘Jediism’, ‘Scientology’, ‘Wicca’, ‘Spiritual’, ‘New Age’, ‘Heavy Metal’, and ‘Own Belief System’, amongst others.

Parallel with an overview of sociological approaches to new religious movements and spiritualities I will discuss how the numbers in this category of ‘Other Religion’ have been reported on, including their changes from the 2001 census results.  I will explore how reactions to this part of the census have replicated a rhetoric of narcissism and individualism, such as seen in Bellah’s (1985) definition of ‘Sheila-ism, while they have also dismissed answers voluntarily made as cynical parodies or ‘spoilt papers’.

Bellah, Robert (1985) Habits of the Heart, (California: University of California Press; 3Rev Ed edition (7 Sep 2007)

  • Harvard Conference Abstract for October Graduate Conference (Submitted, waiting to hear, end of July)

The Indigo Child as Other, the Indigo Child as Self: Forms, Categories and Experimentations within a Contemporary Online Spirituality

“…today’s children are different – more challenging, more intelligent, more confrontational, more intuitive, more spiritual, and in some cases even more violent – from any generation we have yet seen”.[1]

The Indigo Child is a category that has emerged within the New Age Movement that expresses several important religious and spiritual themes and scientific speculations.  Indigo Children are considered to be an especially psychic, sensitive and innovative generation which first appeared in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Interpreted variously as psychic warriors, revolutionary trouble makers or messianic heralds of the New Age, Indigo Children are both a source of celebration and of parental concern.  The category has been used to explain behavioural issues in children, including those that the mainstream would consider biomedical in origin, such as autism and Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and the therapies advised by Indigo experts represent technologies of the self and a way of employing scientific discoveries which has its origins in the broader history of metaphysical religion in the West.

However, the category can also be a description that individuals choose for themselves.

This paper introduces my PhD research into the Indigo Children as a contemporary spirituality, or New Religious Movement, and will problematize the distinction between self-labelling and the labelling of others, a distinction that is often unremarked upon by the community itself.  I have explored this issue through fieldwork with New Age groups, interviews with Indigos and their parents, and through a historical consideration of the origins of the concept from both New Age and scientific, secular source material.

[1] Virtue, Doreen (2001). The Care and Feeding of Indigo Children. Pub. Hay House UK Ltd.

  • Book Chapter: New Religious Movements, the Internet and Legal Pluralism: Scientology and Jediism (Title to be worked on! And it needs a new Abstract): Rewrites due end of September
  • Rewrite of journal article on Pro-Ana based on MPHil research for resumbmission (I have a writing course next week I am going to be using this project as a sample to work on, so hopefully that will get this project going again!)

PHEW!

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