This “comprehensive guide to content and process” offered everything from how to get started in your research to overcoming barriers. It even had a chapter titled, “Becoming an Expert While Controlling Your Own Destiny” -- now if that isn’t overselling, I don’t know what is.
No offense to the authors, but “controlling your own destiny” or any other aspect of the dissertation process is an impossibility. There are too many geniuses in the mix and too many rules for the doctoral candidate to have anything that resembles “control.” Control is a moving target. You have to just go with it.
There it is.
I think this is a legitimate “ah-ha!” moment. There needs to come a point in time in which the doctoral candidate surrenders to the process, acknowledges he or she is unproven and malleable, and becomes submissive to the constant rebuffs of a learned Committee and institution that dictates when the metal is ready for the maker.
I am there. After two years of hammering out a proposal that prompted the equivalent of cyber slaps upside the head “NCIS”-style, I may have finally reached that intersection where the light turns green. Now, I am idling. I have refueled. I have one stop to make before I can proceed: formal presentation of my topic.
I have only to get my three Committee Members to agree to a day and time for this formal presentation, and I will be able to step on the gas.
My research topic has a working title: “The Changing Communication Technologies in Grief Memoir.” I haven’t played around with it much, frankly, because I have been focused on putting each piece of this puzzle together to nail the key voices on the subject. They range from the phenomenal Elisabeth Kubler-Ross to Geoffrey Gorer to Terry Eagleton and Jessica Mitford.
They are names that, to most of you, should generate blank stares, but to anyone familiar with grief or literature theories, they are heavy hitters.
In any case, the point is, I have had sufficient positive comments (finally!) to get this project in the driving lane. Here’s the plan: Get the “road map” officially approved within the next four weeks (hopefully sooner than later). That means presenting the topic in a formal setting to my Committee, showing that I have command of the topic and a solid plan to explore it, and a legitimate question that will make a contribution to the Humanities.
That “green light” gets me on the right road. It means I can finally begin writing the paper that will explain how interesting grief memoirs like Isabel Allende’s Paula, C.S. Lewis’ A Grief Observed, Joanne Foley Gross’ Legacy of a Young Hero, and others, have risen to popularity in spite of the publishing industry’s feeble suggestion that memoir was of no interest to the general reading public.
More than that, the paper will demonstrate my findings in comparing new forms of “grief memoir” that have developed today through the use of the Internet. I’m looking at the growth of blogs, Internet sites or other electronic methods for memorializing loved ones. Are these newer tech methods legitimately “memoir”? That is the question.
I have renewed optimism that I can do this. I am going to fight to maintain that optimism, and will count on my friends to stick by me to see that I do.
In the meantime, I want to share a lesson learned on this dissertation journey for those who are thinking about taking it themselves, or who are perhaps already on the road as I am.
As I mentioned, I read Surviving your Dissertation. Yes, it was helpful. Yes, it mapped out the process for me, soup to nuts. But there were a few things missing in my edition so I am writing my own version. I am calling it “Staying Sane in the Dissertation Lane.”
Here’s my list of what you need:
A skilled hostage negotiator. Someone who can talk you off a ledge. Because for certain, there will be many moments you will want to jump off a building, a bridge, a cliff… You will need someone to be that caring voice that will remind you that you are worthy.
A comedian. Someone who you can go to for a guaranteed laugh because you will feel like crying. You will melt down. You will get riled up. You’ll need someone who has that talent to make you laugh when you feel like busting through a wall with your fist.
A masseuse. I put this one in here because it is a luxury that somehow should be a necessity in our lives, the way that bread and milk are always on our grocery lists. You will be spending a lot of time on the computer. Your muscles will scream. Your head will throb. You will need to take care of those aches, so you can feel good through all the agony.
A higher power. Whoever it is that you pray to or reach out to in your darkest moments, be sure to keep this one close. Because when all else fails you, this higher power will still be there. Believe. Be strong. And let go of the tough stuff. You’ll make it.
Copyright 2011 By Marianne V. Heffernan
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