Dissertation Day: Exploring My Writing Process

 Hello Readers!

     Happy Monday morning; time for another Grad.Life blog post! I hope everyone had a nice weekend and is looking forward to a productive week. Today will be a big dissertation writing day for me because I am off from my other job. It feels good to have a whole day ahead to use for my dissertation -- on the other hand, sometimes on a day like today I get overwhelmed by the pressure to accomplish a huge amount of work. It is like being in a small boat in the vast ocean, knowing you have to row yourself to the opposite shore; by the end of the day, you still can't even see your destination. In fact, the starting point behind you seems closer than the end-point. Maybe I should just turn around and lie on the beach....

     The thing about writing a dissertation is that you do have to treat it like a work task rather than a creative work springing forth from your brain and fingertips. I have fantasies of sitting down and magically producing page after page of my current chapter, my fingertips flying gracefully over the keyboard as elegant sentences and arguments flow into my Word document as easily as wine into a glass at a summer rooftop party. (You may, indeed, use my analogies to induce what I'd rather be doing right now.) But I've learned over the last few years that those kind of days rarely happen for me. In fact they only happen, at least for me, at the very beginning of a draft. After I get the basic thoughts down into something that is chapter length, the real work begins. It involves tedious, pain-staking, paragraph-by-paragraph, sometimes sentence-by-sentence revision. Sometimes revision is not enough a strong enough word.
   As I've begun new chapters, I've tried to change this style of writing; I've tried to go from my research and notetaking stage to the drafting stage in a more graceful way, a way that would eliminate this pain-staking revision stage that I have found myself in time after time; but so far, it hasn't worked out. It seems my process is that after a period of research (usually having generated only a percentage of what I will eventually need to complete the chapter), I feel compelled, like a surfer being caught by the swell of a wave, to create a document and begin the "Draft File." This is often what I enjoy the most; blocks of time disappear as I type, getting lost in the "work." But as enjoyable as this stage is for me, I am never doing my future self any favors. This draft is usually a piece of junk.
    I guess my problem has been not being able to fight that compulsion to begin writing. My adviser always says that I shouldn't fight it -- that if I am being compelled to write it is because I need to think through my material and argument through the act of writing. In other words, the resulting crappy draft is not the point of the exercise; it is the thinking that occurs while writing the crappy draft. In fact, I could probably just delete the whole thing after I write it and I'd be no worse for wear.
But then, of course, once all that writing is down into the file, I CAN'T BEAR TO DELETE IT. I can't even bear to ignore it. It has become something that I will mold, and re-shape, and nurture, maybe until it is completely unrecognizable, but never completely part with. I wish I could exorcise this always-too-early compulsion to draft from my writing process, but for now, I've resorted to it every time.
    After this current chapter, I will challenge myself once again to discover a different, perhaps more efficient, process... but for now, I am stuck with what I have -- which is a big messy 80 page document that will take me the next few weeks to craft into something readable and valuable.
     I am interested in learning about your writing processes -- and if you have any advice for this disseration writer! Please share your thoughts, gripes, and processes here!
Until next time, yours, Liza

Neurodiversity and Autism Awareness Month

Hello!
       I hope everyone at Fordham and beyond had a nice Easter Break, and will continue to enjoy the upcoming holidays and beautiful spring weather!
      This month, I wanted to mention a cause that is dear to my heart: Autism Awareness. April is Autism Awareness Month, and in this post, I wanted to increase awareness by sharing briefly how my interaction with individuals with autism has shaped my academic interests and intellectual pursuits.

      I began graduate school as someone who loved literary studies. I thought, and still think, that studying and teaching literature, and art in general, could make the world a better place; that by extending conversations about art, we could forge connections and understandings between individuals and groups that would create harmony in the world. I know these are maybe naive ideas, but I truly feel that studying and teaching humanities provides a benefit to the world.
       In order to help put myself through graduate school financially, I began working as an ABA therapist in the home of a family with two children who had been diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder. What was incredible about working with these two boys was that it opened me up to understanding how diverse the human brain and mind really is. These boys each learned, thought, and processed information in ways completely different from each other, and completely different from anyone I'd ever met. It changed my whole perspective on the ways in which studying and teaching art, language arts, and humanities subjects could, indeed, have an impact on the world. Suddenly, I began to see that forging connections and understandings between individuals and groups was important to bridge not only cultural and social gaps but also cognitive, perceptive, and sensory diversities.
      This realization changed my life and changed the way I studied literature and narrative. I embarked on my dissertation project which studies the history of representation of mental disabilities in American fiction. I also began attending disability studies panels and conferences, which are great because they are interdisciplinary and thus have exposed me to a wide variety of graduate research and scholarship  related to disability, bodies, difference, and neurodiversity. I also began working at a school for children with Autism, hoping to be able to help more learners with Autism acquire the skills in the way they learn best, in order to become more independent and self-expressed.

         In celebration of Autism Awareness Month, I urge you to learn something new about ASD, or share what you know and have experienced with someone else to keep the conversation going!
In the meantime, check out the Organization for Autism Research, which gives grants to graduate students researching autism issues across disciplines such as psychology, sociology, biology, neuroscience, and more. And, here's a great article from The Chronicle in 2009 called Autism as an Academic Paradigm. 
Let me know if you have any other questions or thoughts!

Communitas '12 on March 30th

      It seems it would be slipshod of me as the GSAS blogger not to mention the special GSAS event that is coming up at the end of this month! On March 30th, the GSAS will hold its annual Communitas ’12 and Spring Gannon Lecture event!

     Here’s how the schedule breaks down:

     Starting at 12:30pm, student presenters from every department will be presenting their work, from recent and current research projects, in the Walsh Library. Click here for the schedule of presentations! 

      At 5:30pm, there will be a Dean’s reception in the Walsh Library Atrium, where the presenters will be exhibiting their research posters and videos. Last year’s winning entries are posted on the GSAS Research Competition webpage. I just browsed through the projects – they look amazing! It definitely is inspiring to see the work of my peers, not only in my department but throughout the entire GSAS, displayed and showcased for a larger audience. Communitas provides a nice space for graduates to take pride in their projects that their blood, sweat, and tears have gone into for probably months and maybe even years.

       Then, at 6:30 pm, everyone will move into the Flom Auditorium for the Spring Gannon Lecture. Unfortunately, I hadn’t previously known this event existed, but after learning about it, I realize that it is such a wonderful opportunity for GSAS members to gather together and enter a conversation about a timely and important cultural topic. According to the GSAS website, “The Gannon Lecture Series, which began in the fall of 1980, brings distinguished individuals to Fordham to deliver public lectures on topics of their expertise.  Fordham alumni endowed the series to honor the Rev. Robert I. Gannon, S.J., president of Fordham University from 1936 to 1949, who was an outstanding and popular speaker.” (1980! That means the lecture series is as old as this blogger!)

       This year’s lecture topic sounds like it will be a fascinating and timely topic. The lecture is entitled, “Sandstorm: Interpreting the New Middle East and North Africa” and will be given by Dr. Kamal  Azari, GSAS ’88, and Dr. John P. Entelis, Prof. of Political Science and Director of Middle East Studies program at Fordham. (By the way, I went to the Middle East Studies webpage on the University Website – it looks like an amazing program!) Both Dr. Azari and Dr. Entelis will surely bring out important perspectives on political, social, economic, and cultural issues related to the Middle East and North Africa.  

       The question I want to ask now is this: What can we do as a community to encourage more consistent and wider attendance at these kind of events, which will surely benefit all who attend, either professionally, academically, or intellectually? From my experience, I feel as if being a part of the GSAS community as a whole wasn’t and isn’t presented as a priority or even an expectation as I began my coursework years ago at Fordham. Readers, do you agree? Was this was just a personal experience unique to me – did my own actions (and non-actions) cause me to miss out on these GSAS wide opportunities? Or is it a larger issue? And, is this something we as a whole should work to correct? How important is service or participation to the GSAS as a whole in comparison to serving and participating within our departments? I’d love to hear your thoughts! 

       In the meantime, I hope to see you at the event!