Dear Research Diary,

Last night I had a nightmare about my thesis!!!! I can't believe it's come to this already! Here's what happened:

Instead of ... an actual thesis, upcoming graduates had to take a sort of thesis exam.. which was in three parts and somehow related to our individual topics. We had only an hour and 15 minutes to complete this exam, and I ran out of time! I remember taking my time with the first part, and barely having any time to finish the third part. This is an obvious representation of my fear of running out of time and having to finish my thesis on time! I remember my dream "thesis exam" being a mix of many unrelated topics, which caused me to lollygag and be confused and not finish. Clearly my subconscious is telling me to choose a topic already so I have adequate time to complete everything!!

With that being said, I have not had a chance to discuss my latest summary here. As you know, I consulted Art Since 1900's chapter on Futurism. I am drawn to this topic, given that there would be an abundance of sources. In fact, I consulted the "Further Reading" list at the end of the chapter, and our library alone has half of the mentioned authors' publications on Futurism. I snatched the citations with my Zotero YES!! I will definitely consult one which looks most compelling.. probably Christine Poggi's Inventing Futurism: the art and politics of artificial optimism. Some of the chapters look quite interesting.

Anyway, Art Since 1900 compared some aspects of Italian Futurism to Russian Futurism. Although I know far less about them, I am very drawn to the Russians. Being born in the Soviet Union, I identify with and understand many aspects of the culture. I appreciate the undeniable relationship of the art and the politics, and am very familiar with the language. So again, without abandoning my current investigation into Futurism, I am going to sidetrack and see what's up with Russian Futurism, Suprematism, and Constructivism.

Dear Research Diary,

Today I am thinking about the Russians.

Dear Research Diary,

I've been thinking non-stop about my thesis and it's driving me crazy! I just don't know what to write about! Without abandoning my current path, I've taken a moment to return to step one and re-evaluate my options. I think I need to stop thinking about my thesis as the end of the world, and to chose something that I really enjoy. My senior thesis will not determine the rest of my career, or even the next step in my education. As long as I demonstrate my ability to research and write, I have the freedom to chose what I want (within certain limits of course).

The obvious choice is to write about something Italian. This makes sense, given that I am in Rome and read adequate Italian. I've studied Italy's history and its politics, but I'm not sure if I feel truly compelled to embrace an Italian topic. My favorite period in art history has always been the first have of the 20th century, so Futurism would be a nice choice. I'm going to read and summarize the chapter on Futurism in the ever handy Art Since 1900, and add this to my pool of thesis ideas. I think that by doing this with several possible topics, one will eventually emerge victorious. YES, this is something I should have done a while ago, but better late than never.......and it's definitely not too late!!!!!! I will soon find the perfect thesis topic!!!!!!!!!!!

Dear Research Diary,

Today, I have been thinking a lot about graduation (examining my graduation checklist/transcript, looking at the preliminary Spring 2011 schedule). This is of course reminding me that there is much work to be done on my thesis!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Today I became acquainted with citeulike. It's nice, but when I tried to access some interesting sources, I just came upon an external link leading me to an article for which I had to pay : (

It seems that I can find much better (and accessible) articles using JSTOR or Project Muse. Yes, you can collect all of your sources, but JSTOR has this option as well. So far I am not terribly fond of this website, but perhaps I am not using it right!??!?!

Oh Research Diary, what the heck should I write my thesis about?!!! helpppp

Dear Research Diary,

I have been trying out some of the bibliographic tools Livia Piotto introduced us to last week. I will be posting my experiences with them this week.

Zotero: Wow! So cool! This is especially useful for a quick session of research. I can easily save a citation for a book or article and find it with great ease later. This is especially useful since while I am at home, I do not have access to the full text of scholarly articles in many databases. So, if I collect some citations, I can easily bring my computer with me and access what I need at the university, or even export them and use another computer. I wonder, however, if I can log into my account on the Zotero website and access my references this way, without using the extension on firefox. I will have to investigate this, perhaps during my shift in the library tomorrow. In any case...this tool seems almost too good to be true. There is also a very basic and helpful guide addressing a variety of matters and explaining many tips and trips if I ever need

Update: You can easily log into the Zotero website and see "My Library" which has all of your citations.

Dear Research Diary,

Today Ilaria Gianni spoke to us about her research. It was great to have a lesson from her again, and very interesting because I was unaware of her past theses! She shared many valuable tips, such as to embrace many different types of sources available to us here in Rome. She personally offered to arrange for me to hear recordings of lectures from the What Ever Happened to Italian Architecture symposium which I missed last weekend! How wonderful!

Dear Research Diary,

I am so sorry that I have abandoned you for my midterms. However, they are now finished and I'm back to tell you about what I've discovered. During my last summary, which was about influence Mediterranean vernacular architecture in post-war Italy, I noticed an abundance of journals, books, and people that may be of use to my research. I will list them here for future reference.

Aldo Rossi - 1970s

Edoardo Persico

Alberto Sartoris

Ardengo Soffici - Fascist painter, intellectual

Il Selvaggio - journal

L'Italiano - journal

Gruppo Sette - promoted modern architecture (tradition, poetic qualities of context + culture)

Armando Brasini - fascist

Giuseppe Terragna, Luigi Figini, Gino Pollini - Mediterranean modernists

Regionalism and Modern Architecture (1957) by James Stirling (essay)

Italy Builds - Kidder-Smith

Space, Time and Architecutre - The Growth of a New Tradition (1941) - Sigfried Giedion

brasini

Today Angels told me about a two day symposium happening at the Swiss Institute here in Rome this weekend titled "What Ever Happened to Italian Architecture?" These series of lectures seem incredibly relevant to my current research. Perhaps we can go after our visit to the Biblioteca Nazionale on Friday morning.

Dear Research Diary,

Today I went to work on the assignment that Professor Yawn gave me, which was to find out what was happening in the art world in post-war Italy, coinciding with the Neorealist movement (1945-1952). This was somewhat challenging because nothing particularly significant occurs in Italy at the time. Futurism, Novecento, and the Scuola Metafisica come before, and Arte Povera comes after.. but what happens in between??

I began research and with one article I found so many answers! 20th Century Italian Art by Joseph Vincent Lombardo, published in 1952 in Art Education is a nice, comprehensive guide to the first half of the century. Although most of it speaks of Futurism, I found some useful snippets! The most relevant discovery: the Fronte nuovo delle arti. This was a group of Italian artists formed after WWII aiming to revitalize Italian art and combat post-war pessimism. Wow! I had no idea such a group existed. I searched around and found a list of names, and briefly took a look at their art. Here are some I picked out!

Emilio Vedova

Ennio Morlotti

Armando Pizzinato

Alberto Viani

Renato Guttuso

Carlo Levi

Interesting... more to come!