Monday, March 13, 2006

Wanted: Historian

This morning I finally finished my woefully overdue special topics reading list.

It's long. It's really long. It's freakishly long.

I ended up doubling the number of novels I'm reading and I'm actually reading poetry too. Honestly, the best part of constructing the list was looking at the fiction -- I found some kick-ass novels and shorter works that I can't wait to read. I posted a query on the Victoria list and the feedback was wonderful. Expanding the non-fiction section was more of a challenge -- the "usual suspects" (Carlyle, Arnold, Burke, Paine) only go so far, so I ended up doing a lot of speed-scanning of works online to see if they were appropriate, and I'd never before realized the beauty and genuis of subject headings in library catalogues -- such a time saver.

Secondary sources were trimmed and then expanded. Much of my old research centred around sociology, but I'm more interested in historical-literary aspects so I ended up scanning a whole whack of new works and cross-checking far too many books and articles. I felt most retarded in this area: how do you compile worthy historical sources when you're not a historian? The answer: lots of scanning of book reviews, current journals, reference databases and journals. In other words, lots of work that would be much nicer if one was able to hire a historian as a researcher. Alas, such indulgences are not yet financially feasible (although I heartily welcome any volunteer historian or librarian assistance).

In the end, I'm pretty happy with it -- the scope has widened considerably, but I think it's the dissertation list. From this point onward, anything I add will be complimentary rather than constituent. That's a good feeling, especially when the damned list took so long to put together.

In other news, the hubster's recent automobile collision situation has been resolved. Our car was a total write-off, so we received a lovely cheque from the insurance company (for more than I predicted we would get) and today we found a new car after just one phone call. It was also very sunny and lovely today, so things are generally looking up.
doctor T 6:55 p.m.

4 Comments:

i am taking my prelims right now. i sort of feel like my head is going to explode. i had my 24hour exam last tuesday, and then started my week-long last thursday. i'm supposed to cram about 90 texts into 15 pages of writing. iiiiiimmmpossible. next comes the prospectus. ugh.
yay for subject headings and cataloguing! those crazy librarians were really onto something :P

i'd like to hire someone to do all my assignments for me..blech!
i wish i was a historian so i could help. it does sound fascinating though.

i miss school :P
I had no idea about the accident. I hope you guys are fine. A car is just a car.

Take care

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