Saturday, February 6, 2010

Request

Yesterday I got an interesting email from a French PhD student who wanted a copy of my dissertation, on the function of play in literature, specifically, in Nabokov's work. This is not an extremely hot topic, though I think it is an interesting one, obviously. I never turned the dissertation into a book, though I probably should have. I was so shellshocked by the entire process that I never wanted to look at the damn thing again, and the final chapter was so hopelessly inadequate, I'd have to start over.
The student wanted a copy of the dissertation and didn't know how to get it. He had written to a person in the Nabokov Society, who referred him to me. I didn't know what to tell him except that I used to get hold of such things via abstracting services. I referred him to his librarian, who would know about such things, and also Googled the subject. Of course, contacting the UCI library would not be a bad idea. They probably sell people copies of the dissertations in their collection.
If you have any ideas, let me know.
I also want to remind you, if you are nearby, to come to tonight's movie--James Whale's 1931 film, Frankenstein, the "first" film in my adaptation series. I put quotation marks around this because two weeks ago, I showed the actual first film, Kubrick's The Shining, and no one showed.
The film will be shown at Irvine Valley College, room P-0 (a trailer near parking lot 8A), at 7 PM. See you there!

3 comments:

Lou said...

I think that the UCI Library keeps all theses and dissertation on microfiche.

Robbi N. said...

Do they even have fiche anymore? Hasn't that stuff been digitized? In any case, I advised him to contact UC Irvine. I would have sent it to him via email if I had a copy I could have sent. It was in a defunct software program, and I threw it away. Of course, I have the hard copy.

Lou said...

He'll have to inquire.