Before I freak out and start emailing professors, I thought I would ask the collective wisdom of the three or so readers of my blog for advice on how to deal with my first major dissertation research crisis.
Subscribing to the po-mo, hippy sort of research method, I wrote my proposal with the intention of then discarding it to go with the flow of whatever was in the archive. That's all fine and dandy as I am finding exactly the sorts of documents I was expecting to find in the archive I am currently working in. The problem, however, is that there are about 2 billion too many of them to actually read and/or photograph. And my list of archives to visit grows exponentially by the day. Therefore, before I completely lose my sanity, I would very much like to know whether it is more advisable to cut the project down to what I think are more manageable proportions now and stick to that path (and new argument) or should I keep this new path in the back of my mind while continuing to look at lots and lots of different sources and documents?
I'm quite confused about what to do, as you can see. Mainly I'm just concerned that if I cut the project down too much (which is what my blood pressure is telling me to do) I will lose the part of the project that is the "cool" part. On the other hand, if I continue on this path, I may never finish the dissertation at all because I will be buried under a mountain of decaying typewriter paper (whoever thought tissue paper would be a good way to make extra copies of documents was an utter moron).
So, dear readers, would you rather read about people who throw off the burdens of the nation-state to defend human rights and ethical principles, or about the ways that Christians in postwar Europe thought about Islam (with, of course, a detour through some concentration camps in Algeria)?
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3 comments:
Wow, that's a toughy. My advice: take pictures of everything you can now. Sort through it later and then let the sources tell you what your diss should be about.
If it makes you feel better, we all read tons of stuff that never makes it into the diss. Like only 5% ever does. But it's good to have the stuff anyway. You can always use it for an article, conference paper, or another project at a later date.
I feel like I need more specifics here. What's the line of argument you've got? What is the argument you're looking to cut?
I'm on the other side of the fence from CBAM: I'm all for figuring out your argument as soon as you can, and not reading stuff in the archives that doesn't pertain to what you're doing. I also suggest reading and taking notes on as much as you can and not photographing as much as that's possible. When you get home, you don't want to have to wade through thousands of photographs.
Yes, more details on the argument. And on what you think is interesting. Though I think I side with CBAM--I'd rather bring home stuff I never use than get home and realize I need to go back.
On the other hand, you're in France. What's wrong with going back to France?
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