Planning, Snippets, Advisors, and the List of Shame

I like the idea of "snippets." They sound like a good way to monitor progress. Speaking of which ... productive time management was the subject of some discussion at the orals workshop this evening. Everyone on the panel said that accurate planning was crucial to a successful orals experience, and I would think it would apply to the dissertation too. One woman suggested that it helps to familiarize ourselves with how many pages we can read in an hour and then plan blocks of time accordingly. According to our department chair, we should allow a semester and a summer to prepare for the exam; that includes meeting with committee members, compiling the lists, reading the books, taking the notes, and planning to be finished no less that one week before the exam.

Dealing with the Orals Committee

Since our department requires three areas, we need to find and choose three committee members. Very often, according to the workshop panel, the areas and the lists may have as much to do with who you want on your committee as much as what you want to do in the future (more on the latter later). For instance, one woman chose an area outside her concentration simply in order to work with one professor. If we've already established relationships with professors we like, it's a good idea to approach them as soon as possible because they will often be very instrumental in the construction of the reading lists. If it's more of a cold call, one professor intimated that he likes to receive a heads-up e-mail prior to a walk-in.

From what I understand, the following things are most important in our relations with committee members:
1) Speak-Easy. Choose people with whom we feel comfortable having a conversation.
2) Comfort Level. Choose people who make us feel like scholars.
3) Familiarity. Meet with them as often as possible in order to establish a rapport and also to learn their verbal idiosyncrasies. (One student had a horror story about a professor with whom he had only met in person once: The student literally could not understand his questions!).
4) Guidance. Meet with members and give each of them a list of 5 topics that really interest us in relation to the books. They may ignore the lists, but they may not. If we don't, though, they are likely to formulate their questions around what they know best and not what we know best. Horror. Horror.
5) Order. We can choose the order of the committee members and let the chair of the committee know what we would prefer.
6) Opening Statement. We should prepare an opening statement of "approximately" 8 minutes. In preparing the opening statement, we should think about how our lists "talk" to each other and how they may (or may not) relate to our dissertation topic.
7) Conversation at Large. WE want to come in as AUTHORITIES so we should prepare some general statements for conversation. (There were many Palin jokes around this).

The Lists

Down and Dirty:
Each list should have 30-40 books. The ratio of primary to secondary texts varies. Some said 20/20 per list. Others said anywhere from 30/6 to 25/12. I guess we just have to feel our way through that.

Figure out access. What books will we buy, borrow, ILL, or steal?

Write out an ideal syllabus for each list.

Lists can be divided by time, theme, genre, motif, area, whatever ... but they must, or we must, have an agenda.

Stick with the lists once completed. Don't keep adding more texts.

Read JSTOR book reviews to be up on what works got trashed and why.

Some lists I heard today:
1) Euro. Modern/Amer. Modern/Conspiracy Theories
2) The black female body on Stage/in Theory/20th C. Lit
3) 19th C. Con-Men/19th C. Economic Exchange/19th C. Victorian Crime.

It seems as though there is a lot of flexibility -- large and narrow scopes.

I'm really sleepy, so I'm certain that I've forgotten something. But that's what I got for tonight!