Which Way to Go?

Monday, May 23, 2005
Queen Victoria Day

Am spending the day, and last night, trying to figure out how to map out my dissertation. I know, I know- this is a little early. However, any of you who count among the grad school refuges know, September and October bring the mysterious, hideous process known as “SSHRC and OGS applications”. That means that, as soon as your feet land in a new school, the department expects you to be able to sell your thesis or dissertation to the government (for funding), even though you may not actually have to start the thing for one or three years more! Therefore, as a result, I hope to have a rough, short proposal before September- to get a jump on it all.

The major problems rest in methodology and format. Now, if you can get the nuance here, I need to know if the horse or the cart goes first. Should I deal with a topic per chapter, giving the theory and then illustrating this with film scenes and themes, or should I deal with one or two films per chapter and then explain the social importance behind them. The former allows me to cover far more films, but the latter allows me to give proper attention to some central and interesting films (it is also closer to what book are like on similar topics). Further, on a selfish note, the latter method allows me to spend several pages per chapter just on describing the film(s), and, when faced with 300 pages, this may be a bonus for me. Any ideas?

In any case, I am giving myself an ulcer. I will send this general question to my advisor, and see what she thinks about all this. However, my teeth grit to think of what she’ll say: “We’ll talk about that when you get here.” Yippee: While I am still trying to figure out the hallways, I will be forced to figure out all these various knots- and expected to do so well enough to get funding from the government. YAY! However, she can’t say that I didn’t TRY to do it early.

Oy!