I am now, sort of, working on my third dissertation. Again, sort of. And I’m not even scheduled to take my oral exams until the latter part of next September.
Currently, I’m working on what I won’t even consider to be “Chapter One” of “the diss,” though it is work that will provide a ground point for my theoretical framework and the overall questions I will be asking in and of my project. I have around 15 pages as I type this; tonight I hope to have at least five more. That will be 20 down--150, 200, infinite number, to go.
But what about the two other dissertations?
You see, I have now been involved, er, romantically, with two individuals who have either completed, or are in the process of completing, their dissertations, both in Literature (my field as well). The first person, who will remain unnamed (as will the second), was making the suggested final revisions by his committee when I met him. He had gone through his defense already, had around 150 pages toward a positioning of post-WWII African American “white-life” novels, a tenure-track job…and then? He spent the next two years, the bulk of which we were together, totally reworking the project chapter by chapter, page by page. By the time it was completed he had added around 50 new pages and an entirely new introductory chapter, not including endnotes and new sections. My current sig-other is now working on the first chapter of his diss, though he has pages and pages (I actually don’t know how much, except that it’s a significant number) already written that he is piecing together and reframing into the larger project. (Incidentally, this person just exited my office after doing a “7 pages dance”--in the past couple of hours he had written seven pages and needed to blow off a little steam and celebrate a triumph some might deem insignificant. Some who have never, perhaps, considered “dissertation” in its verb form.)
So you see, I obviously haven’t written these last two dissertations, but due to the nature of how these endeavors unfold, I have had some contribution either to or in them. Contributions that range from the domestic (making dinner while the other sits bleary-eyed in front of the computer), to the theoretical (talking through ideas and passages in the car, in the office, in the shower) to the concrete & errand-running (finding and retrieving books from the library, looking up shit on Google). And in return I can see their work manifest in my own: my understanding of situations and readings is informed by the theories we discuss(ed) and my vocabulary and world-knowingness is increased by their work which is not my own (because I do not “do” either 19th century American Literature or 20th century African-American Literature).
And I am sure that before I finish my own project I will work on several others. My closest friends and colleagues will be working on theirs as I do. We will discuss passages and texts, events and ideas, frustrations and overcomings, over bottles of wine, cigarettes, and South Park episodes. We will share the one copy the library has of an important text. We will celebrate “minor” triumphs with office dances, by breaking into song, or, quite possibly, by crying our eyes out.
Being involved with other people’s dissertations, even as a bystander, has already enriched my own (yes, all fifteen pages of it). Because while I only have these few words down in digital ink now, the ideas, the languages, the texts, are already more organized, more thoughtful, and more productively contested. Going through the process with other people has shown me different structures I might have not come to on my own, different methods of research I didn’t learn in my classes, and, yes, provided some good examples of “what not to do” (mainly Vault energy drink and World of Warcraft J). And it proves to me that this isn’t necessarily the solitary endeavor the academy seems to think it is or should be. While we don’t often write co-authored dissertations in English Departments in the US (and generally the Humanities as a whole) this by no means signifies that they’re not collaborative. My “thanks” page will already have to include various exs: lovers, bosses, professors; currents: lovers, friends, professors; as well as my family, friends on the “outside,” and so on. Also other scholars, thinkers, and writers: I never met Michel Foucault, but I credit him (and a dear friend) for sending me to gradschool; I credit different people for keeping me here. Yes, I will credit myself when I am finished. And soon it will be my turn to really dissertate. Soon I will be able to say “Chapter One,” and “My dissertation is on…” Not quite yet, but soon. And you’d better believe I’m gonna want dinner ready on the table, a book or two fetched from Melville, and a discussion about Derrida as I’m lathering up my hair in the shower. Karma, baby...karma.