When Expression Becomes Treason
Todd Butler is a faculty member in the English Department at WSU. He recently won the Lewis E. and Stella G. Buchanan Distinguished Assistant Professorship in English Award.
Can you talk about your current research project?
My current research looks at how political and legal culture in seventeenth-century England handled questions of treason. In particular I'm interested in how thought--in this case that someone had "compassed and imagined" rebellion--could be demonstrated through a variety of texts, such as manuscripts, codes, and print. I'm thus intrigued not by specific moments of rebellion but by larger considerations of how thought becomes politically and legally actionable. For example, if you think something but don't write it, or write it but don't distribute it, is that still rebellion?
You do research into seventeenth-century literature, culture and thought. What is it about your scholarship that is prescient and relevant today?
Given our country's "war on terror," I think there's a real need to reconsider how we regulate the expression of thought, and how certain elements of government claim that their deliberations--for example, the appeal to "executive priviledge"--are off-limits to interrogation. Just two years ago a U.S. grand jury issued the first formal indictment for treason in over 50 years. That indictment wasn't directed at people who had actually acted against the U.S. but against a Californian who has become a chief video propagandist for Al Qaeda. Though the mediums are different--digital versus print--we're still struggling with the same basic questions the seventeenth century did.
What advice would you give to graduate students who are in the process of developing their research topics and their scholarly voices/personas?
The first thing, I think, is to find something that you're genuinely interested in, and then to nurture that interest. Don't shy away from asking big questions, or pursuing lines of research that seem like potential dead-ends. But also--and this might seem counter-intuitive--don't become isolated and consumed by your research. Be able to explain what you do--and why you care about it--to people who *don't* study in your field.
You recently won the Buchanan Award. Can you talk a bit about the steps you go through to publish, from how you settle on a topic, to how you go about revision and select your publication venues? You might also talk about how you manage your time, since you obviously accomplish so much as well as having a young family at home.
After finishing my first book I have to admit to having had a gnawing feeling of terror, driven by worrying that that book was the only thing I had to say. In this regard, at least, I'm still not that different from a beginning graduate student. But that passed. Unlike some literature scholars, I don't usually start with a writer or text. Instead, I tend to start with a conceptual question, usually--given my personal interests--one that is historical or political in nature. I find that as I sharpen that question the literature I want to write about hopefully falls into place. In terms of finding publication venues, part of that is driven by familiarity with the field, and by thinking about the journals I like to read. In this I'm not that different than most scholars I think.
Now that we have a one-year-old, managing time has become more complicated (and thanks for the compliment--I'm not sure I always "accomplish so much"!). I try to match up the times I'm most productive, which for me is the morning, with when I need to do more long-range research and reading. I then try to save things like email for those points in the day when I only have 20-40 minutes. One piece of advice I got a long time ago that's served me well is to "stop facing downhill"--that is, stop work for a day in a place where, when you come back to it, you can move on quite quickly, just as if you parked your car facing downhill.
Also, I can't discount the support I get from my family and friends. Scholarship can seem like a lonely business, but the best work, I think, rests heavily on not just individual efforts but that of a community.
Since your research and scholarship draws from such a wide array of publications and places, could you talk about what it takes do do thorough and accurate period research?
Let's see--an attention to detail, persistence, and experience. But that's common with any research. For the early modern period, I think, it's especially important--at least initially--to try and take the times on their own terms, to understand and even more important take seriously beliefs and attitudes that we might not share today.