Despite spending hours a day writing, I feel like I'm getting nowhere. Which I think has to do with the fact that writing only one perfectly crafted paragraph, over and over again during the course of a day, is not what I thought I'd be doing. So, this is me, in the middle of writing a thesis proposal which will decide whether or not I'm continuing on to a PhD or if I'm going to be getting just a Master's Degree in Shakespeare Studies (*Note: Never thought I'd ever say "just a Master's Degree"). This thesis proposal is one that I am giving to the University of Birmingham to be considered for one of their Elite Scholarships. That, along with grades from my previous terms spent at other Universities, will decide whether or not I am good enough to qualify.
The good part about all this investigation into my thesis is that I am finding books, articles, and research about the very topic I wish to discover and write about... has already been written. This is not to say that I'm wasting my time here, as no one has covered my area just yet (or at least I haven't found the book that looks as if it was written by me four years in the future), but the research models are there. You have no idea what it feels like to discover that you aren't crazy. That the type of research you wanted to undertake has been done before. That there are people out there in Internet-Land that can help you, if you are humble enough to look.
That being said, the type of research that I have wanted to participate in is called Practice as Research, though I did not know the name of it until a week ago, and there are a bunch of books that describe the process. One very helpful one is even available entirely online through the University of Birmingham library, aptly named Practice as Research by Estelle Barrett and Barbara Bolt. It tells the love story between research and artists who use their processes as a means of discovery. "Bourdieu contends that because knowledge of the condition of production comes after the fact and occurs in the domain of rational communication, the finished product, the opus operatum, conceals the modus operandi (Bourdieu 1993: 158)." (Barrett: 4) I love this quote. I can't use it, but I love this quote. The authors are quoting a sociologist named Bourdieu to make their point, saying that the process by which we do things (specifically in the arts) is often hidden by the result, and since finding the vocabulary to talk about what has already happened exists in the common vernacular, we should use the same vocabulary to describe the process. In paint, performance, or in writing, our processes are hidden in the end by the words we choose to describe them.
I love finding books like this, and I haven't even read the whole thing yet. If you are at all interested in research in the arts, and think an arts-based PhD is for you... check it out.
Now, all I have to do is write it down so that it sounds scholarly to a group of academics that would be more inclined to think that they are just paying me to play around for three years and then write about it then they would if I told them that this is really serious to me. One day, ya know after I get the money, the credit, and the PhD, I might actually post my full idea here (or somewhere else) and see if I get a response. At the moment however, I'm a bit paranoid about posting my thesis idea on a public forum... it's not unheard of to get your idea stolen by someone else.
I swear to God I'm getting somewhere with this stuff. I just hope it won't always take me four hours to write one paragraph.
If I chance to talk a little wild, forgive me. -- Henry VIII, Act I, Sc. IV.
Year 1, Day 59 -- Words Written: 0, Term Paper Topics: 2, Thesis Proposal: 0.5
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