I found the first outline draft of my thesis today. It was written about two years ago and it is interesting to see how much my ideas changed. What fascinates me most is the optimism and beauty of grand thoughts. It is rather naïve and I find it quite sweet.
I wonder if I will have a laugh at my present ideas when I finally get a research position. Hopefully, I will just nod and smile and think this is where it all began.
I have received an information pack on my graduation from the University of St Andrews today. Enclosed was a leaflet from Ede and Ravenscroft. I love their slogan Robe Makers and Tailors Since the Reign of William & Mary 1689. There are not many "since..."- slogans in Norway. I do not think history and tradition matter as much when it comes to marketing. Perhaps it is due to our lack of firms of that age.
I have just opened an e-mail from the internal examiner with the subject line " Bravo/Congratulations". He tells me that the corrections have indeed been accepted; "You have certainly done all and more than your examiners asked you to do." I could not be happier than when I read "it really reads very well indeed".
I am so pleased it is accepted. I should celebrate!!!
I have finally recieved an answer from my supervisor on my final draft. I have been given a small list of corrections. So small it will be done in half an hour. I am very pleased that I got an answer and even more plased that he had something to comment upon which means he must at least have had some look at it (does this sound familiar to anyone?).
I hope to send the whole thing to the internal examiner tomorrow. And fingers crossed; this will be the final send off.
While I was an undergrad I always felt good about being in the library on the weekends before the exams. It was something about being very saintly about reading when the rest of the world had the time off. Unfortunately, I often was so pleased with myself for getting to the library on a non-working day, that I managed forget about reading and had never-ending tea-breaks instead.
I still like the feeling of working at times when one does not expect to get anything done, like weekends and evenings. It feels as though those extra hours compensate for time wasted when one should have worked.
Despite my perfect whole-working-on-thesis-day being ruined, I feel as the day did not go to bad. Whilst two of my classes were doing maths exercises and German essays, I managed to start reading through the chapter I had planned to work on. I do not feel guilty about the students as I was only asked to sit and supervise these classes. On the other hand I felt good about myself for being efficient. And thus the day was not a complete waste.
I have now finished correcting all the small and silly mistakes in my dissertation; the misspelled French words and names (quite embarrassing), missing inverted commas in references (too many of those), an ibid. in a footnotes that no longer corresponded to the previous footnote, a few has/have slips and all the other slips of the pen. I have corrected all the remarks I got from the examiners and everything I now have been able to seem myself which I was blind to in December.
Now I have to do the changes in two of my chapters to make their argument correspond to what we agreed on at the viva. I do not feel a particular urge to do this. These chapters have already been written and rewritten. I am still waiting for two books to arrive at the library which I have to consult. As I have been asked to read them I suppose they expect me to put their reference in a footnote, so I cannot avoid them.
I think I will start by brainstorming new structures for these chapters. I suppose I can keep much of it, but it might be easier with a new start.
I have re-read the comments to my thesis which I received officially by mail yesterday. It is written by the chairman of the examination committee and is mainly a summary of the discussion we had in London. However, in addition there is some paragraphs taken from an email from one examiner to the other which discuss a problem in one of my chapters. In these paragraphs there are many sentences including 'Ms Brorson's thesis' and 'she writes'. Of course I knew they were discussing my thesis, but when I came across 'the author's comment to this quote' I wondered who 'the author' was until I realised that this also was a reference to me and my work. Just as I was amazed when my thesis in progress was called a manuscript, I am now amazed by being an author. I still feel like a student and 'manuscript' and 'author' seem so professional.
I have now calmed down enough to write about the viva. It might have been an interesting post if I wrote it on Thursday, but I did not feel like it.
First of all, the viva went very well. I had a good discussion with my examiners. Secondly, I realised that the correction time is three months, something which means that I will not graduate this summer, but in November and that means that my applications for jobs and PhD grants were a waste of time as I will not be a M. Phil this summer.
The first should have made me happy, but it was overshadowed by the second fact which means I have to rethink my plans for this year.
I was not too nervous on the day of the viva and managed to answer all the questions. At least I think I did. Together with the examiners I managed to make it clear what I really wanted to say. It was actually quite nice to discuss my dissertation with two people who knew it almost as well as myself. Our discussion also made it clearer to myself what I thought about things I had found it difficult to explain in writing. It was really only two things which was discussed and it was nice to know that it was not the whole thing which was unclear.
The most pleasing thing was that I was encouraged to do further research on conceptual history in gender history as they had found this chapter very interesting. And as this is the field I am interested in and have written research proposals on, I was very pleased with my own judgment that this is a field I could do good work in. I also agree on the weakness they pointed out, they saw unclearities in the two chapters I was not especially pleased with.
My thesis was given "pass with minor corrections" which was what I expected. However, I had not earlier understood that the correction time is three months. As the evaluation of the thesis took some time and the viva was not until March, the three month period will not be finished before graduation and I will have to graduate in November. I assume that my PhD applications now will be annulled as I will no longer be a qualified applicant as I will not have a M.Phil by the start of the next semester. This was very hard to swallow on Thursday, but now I am more relaxed and see that a "gap year" might not be the worst thing. It is just a re-routing of the road.
I will be given a letter of the corrections suggested in a few days and until then I am relaxing. It is actually quite nice that this coincides with Easter and I am thus able to take an Easter holiday together with the rest of Norway. I am now hoping for nice weather for the next days.
I have not been much on the net for the last days trying to concentrate on the preparation for my viva tomorrow. I am off to London this afternoon and the viva is at three o'clock tomorrow afternoon.
It is strange reading one's own text. I have not read my thesis since I subitted it in early December. However, I find it easier to read it now than when I did my last revision. It has been easier to see weaknesses now than when it was newly written. I see sentences which I see does not say what I want them to say at the same time as I understand why I wrote them in that way.
Despite the improvement in self-criticism, I still have a reading block unable to see the text itself. I am mostly reminded of what I thought about writing it. This does not always correspond to what is on the paper. It will be interesting to see what my exameners think tomorrow. I do look forward to discussing the text with someone who knows it well, but at the same time I worry that they will have much to remark. Time will tell.
As I now have submitted, I find it time to tell the reader who do not know me personally, the title of my dissertation. It is 'Histories of Concepts after the Linguistic Turn'. Histories of concept is in my definition wider than Begriffsgeschichte, for those of you who are familiar with it.
I was wondering whether or not to publish the abstract, but I think I will wait until it has been accepted. And then I will also try to put the whole thing on-line. I have checked with the university and there sees to be no problems for me publishing it after it has passed.
If somebody felt a bit cheated by being told the title and not the contents, please drop me an e-mail, and I will try to go a bit deeper.
