So here I am, without a job and without anything else to do but work on my dissertation. I’m trying to cram as much archives and reading as I can into these summer months because before too long I will need to get a job and pretty much the only thing I am qualified to do is stand on the sidewalk holding up a “Cash4Gold” sign. Look for that guy. He’s probably a history Ph.D with 50Large in student loans. Am I loving this? Hell yeah! For the first time in ever I can work on my own research project under my own creative direction without having to do anything else. This will never happen again after July. Will I hate this a year from now? Probably. But for now, this is the life.
The entire structure of this thing changed about one week into the archives. But that’s just in how the chapters are organized. I think it will be stronger, but far less artful, than originally planned. By the way, the current title is Faith, Work, and Family: The Domestic Ethos in the Antebellum PiedmoZZZZZzzzzzzzzzz. Ok. I promise, if any of this ever sees the light of day, it will have a snappier title.
This is daunting. The archival work on one of my first subject appears endless at this point; and I’ve got six subjects. I’m reading other historians but that just reminds me how little I know, how weak my analytics are, and that each book leaves me with a list of three more books to get to. Fellow and former dissertators? How do you not get swamped?
I wish I could convene a daily briefing with Donald Mathews, Daniel Wickberg, Jane Censer, David Brown, Vikki Bynum, Mark Noll, Jonathan Wells, Chuck Bolton, Samuel Eliot Morrison, Frederick Jackson Turner, Bruce Catton, Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, George Eliot, Mark Twain, and Jim Broomall to just talk all this through because every day brings something new, exciting, and perplexing.
As it is, my only friend, Lizzie, over there…twelve year old Lizzie, thinks this is the most boring thing ever and that we need to be outside enjoying the beautiful weather. She insists. She’s no help.
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