Comments on: Schools, Paradigms, and Other Forms Of Torture

By: historiann

historiann — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 19:27:11 +0000

Glad it helped, but please: no more flattery. If you knew me in RL you would be SO unimpressed.

Good luck with your book! It sounds like you’re almost there.

By: bsgirl

bsgirl — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 20:53:35 +0000

Thanks for both your advice. It actually was very helpful for me today as I was continuing to struggle with this section of the introduction; I felt like I had been given permission by two brilliant and accomplished scholars to not feel like I had to be an expert on EVERYTHING but to stake out the area of my interest and expertise. I’m not sure I’ve quite accomplished it yet but the work didn’t feel as impossibly difficult today as it did yesterday. So, thank you.

By: historiann

historiann — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:42:48 +0000

I agree with Squadratomagico on this. In some ways, when subfields like Shoe Studies get really big and well-developed, it’s easier. You can just cite the top 4-5 titles in your footnote as “for example,” and move along, can’t you?

You have identified one of the big struggles in completing a massive project like a dissertation revision. In my sub-field in history, it’s typical for this to take 7 years from Ph.D. date to publication as a book. So, when you include at least 3-4 years writing a dissertation, that’s 10-11 years of historiography to keep up with and incorporate beyond the historiography that informed the original framing and conceptualization of the project. At some point, I think, all authors have to just say, “OK, I’m not reading anything else. This thing needs to go to bed NOW and I’ll just have to live with the consequences.”

It’s much easier when you write a post-dissertation book. You’re freer in many ways to do what you want–in part, because your first book has established you as an authority in your field, so you get more leeway I think. (At least, that’s the fond hope I’m clinging to at this point in my career.) Good luck!

By: bsgirl

bsgirl — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 22:48:20 +0000

I knew I had borrowed that from someone but I couldn’t remember who. So, Tip O’ The Hat to Squadratomagico for her clever conceit!

I’m thinking about your advice: how to achieve contiguous-ness that is still thorough without being exhaustive. Hmmm …

By: squadratomagico

squadratomagico — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:44:53 +0000

Oooh, I once blogged about my work using the device of “Short Men Playing Bagpipes” — we assign similar cloaking devices to our research!

Can you position your work as contiguous to Shoe Studies, yet not actively participating in dialogue with Shoe Studies? That is, acknowledge that aspects of your work have been informed by this subfield, but also suggest that it’s a lateral influence, one that casts some extra light on certain chapters or arguments, but that is not the governing paradigm illuminating the whole book. I imagine, given what you say, that you will have to demonstrate some familiarity with the major contours of this critical school, but perhaps you don’t need to know every little intervention and argument that exists in that field in detail.