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PhoenixRed -> RE: BDSM & the Ph.D. AHHHHHHHHH (12/23/2007 5:20:14 PM)
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quote:
Surely you, me and the other scholars who have contributed to this post are pursuing interesting research agendas and we all must love what we are doing or we wouldn't have pushed through all that hard work to get where we are. But there are two unfortunate situations we must address, first is the issue of post-modern scholarship and second is the issue of over specification.
This is absolutely true. The journey may be trying but it is the end result which justfies the means.
In the first issue of postmodern scholarship we need to think critically about the very epistemology of our studies, especially those of us in the social sciences. Do we reject the positivist paradigm? or is progressive scholarship possible, and if it's possible is it desirable? These questions need to be answered by all of us. In the broad scheme of things I might ask you, What is the purpose of your study of Jodies. Is it your own personal satisfaction? Are you contributing to the larger scholarly literature and if so to what end? Probably you view your work (as do I) as both personally satisfying and contributing to the scholarly literature. But if positivism is imposible then really we are just working to satisfy ourselves, which in and of itself is unsatisfying. Furthermore, those of us in the social sciences must be acutely aware that our studies are largely sponsored by the state, and the state seeks to use our studies not just for scholarly understanding but also for enhancing social control. Is our blind pursuit of our research agenda, what you call "real scholarship" simply a way for us to separate ourselves from the very political business in which we are engaged? I don't know...
I believe that many of us that go for advanced degrees do so to contribute to the larger knowledge base. Part of attaining any advanced degree requires a knowledge of the literature in your chosen field. Who has contributed what and how was this accomplished? Paradigm shifts take years to evolve and are necessarily fueled by the accumulated contributions of many. For example, many advances in medicine throughout history have been rooted in the work of scientists doing basic research, not the clinicians that administer them. Not only the social sciences, but msot research endeavors are funded by government or state agencies. Also, the results from experiments in the natural sciences also have implications for social policy. For example, for the last 7 years I have studied how drugs of abuse (morphine) effect the progression of AIDS in the brain. There are many things to be learned from this line of inquiry....long-term effects of morphine on a body that is altered by a disease state, how the brain deals with viral invasion, etc. The social policy imlications are "should we as a society provide AIDS treatment drugs, which cost many thousands of dollars per person annually, to addicts that do not receive treatment if we find that continued use of such drugs exascerbates the course of the disease, and increses the costs of treatment of these patients?" Of course that is a generalization, I just used it to put forth a point. Politics exists in the academic power structure, in the decisions made regarding grant funding, etc. They're unavoidable.
The second issue of over specification is less complicated. I was bellyaching about "reading books nobody cares about" and "writing a dissertation no one will read" to which you responded "Fuck that". I'll take 'fuck that' to mean shut up and stop bellyaching. But the fact is that in everyday life much of the scholarly literature is little more then a pedantic debate between academics whose careers are dependent on engaging in and maintaining those debates. Even if the real substance of debate has long fled the language of the debate, the debate must continue. Thus, the books no one cares about.
The books you read should be meaningful to you. Writing a dissertation no one will read.....when I finally finished my dissertation, I sent a bound copy of it to my parents. Their response was "wow you wrote a book". I don't think they ever tried to read it, but they were proud of me for writing it. In these days of electronic repositories of knowledge, dissertations are read by yothers in your field. People do take notice. You may even be able to have the lab/company/etc that accepts you for a postdoc/internship/residency consider your dissertation work as a line of inquiry for you post-graduate work. It is true that many careers in academics are dependent on engaging and FURTHERING debates in their respective fields, but I don't believe all of it is pedantic. Dissention between those of different theoretical standpoints is exactly what sometimes leads to the revalations and research that cause eventual paradigm shifts. With the funding situation for research in general the way it is right now, it is hard to get grants...there is much more selectivity. Novelty, ingenuity, and promise for advancement in the field are criteria that are very highly weighted in decisions about who gets money and who doesn't.
Moreover, the dissertation represents our entrance into the academic world it's more of an exercise then a scholarly work. If you want evidence of that look and see how many profs. assign their dissertations for their grad students to read v. one of their books or articles (I'm of course biased by my social science perspective, perhaps this isn't true in the natural sciences). Therefore the research we are doing as graduate students represents a challenge to be overcome, but do not contribution in a positivist fashion to the scholarly literature, and that is of course if we accept that it is even possible to be positivist. Thus, writing a dissertation no one will read.
I think that a large portion of whether or not a dissertation contributes to the scholarly literature is up to the student and his/her advisor and committee. Some allow a lot of latitude in choosing a line of inquiry, some are very circumspect in the topics they'll allow. Not every prof assgns the dissertation their grad students work on. In my experience, most graduate theses are spinoffs of the lab's general research mission (but I was in the natural sciences, so I don't know how it works in your world).
Well that's a massive post and all the humor has been sucked out of the o.p. :( But I feel better.
And now I made it even bigger! lol Glad you feel better though. It does help to talk about it with those who have similar experiences.
Back to the dissertation!
Power to you!
Gee, I can't keep away from this topic! lol Good post, good questions. I've put my comments into the editied original quote in blue. I bolded the particular statement I was addressing.
One statement TammyJo made particularly hit home too....
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No one should continue on in higher education unless there is something internally that pulls you cause you wont' get rich this way or terribly famous and your households will need to be understanding.
It may be different for different fields, but no one I went to grad school with thought they were going to get rich doing research or teaching. Famous...maybe, but probably not. In time you will probably be considered an expert in your field though. Having a support network of friends, family and other grad students does help immensely in getting through it. Congrats for getting a tenure-track position TammyJo, it is more stable and there is a safety net. I was a TA and an RA in grad school, but my career ended up being 100% research track, and I don't regret that a bit. The only regret I've experienced lately is that, because of lack of national funding into the sciences and the difficulty in getting grants, my position was eliminated because I couldn't obtain my own (no safety net for soft money positions). Life goes on.
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