Tag: thesis

Acknowledgements

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So, yesterday I had my viva. I’m still quite out of it, and haven’t processed the fact that it’s done, I’ve fixed my typos and am about to go pick up the bound copy and submit it. Meantime, I wanted to post up my acknowledgements…
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I owe a great deal more than gratitude to the many people who have supported my progress. My first thanks are due to the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the University of St Andrews’ School of Classics, the Thomas Wiedemann Fund and the Classical Association for their financial support and to St Andrews’ School of Classics for their administrative support, without which this project could not have been carried out.

Secondly to my supervisor, Jill Harries, who has been a font of wisdom and support, my heartfelt thanks. I owe much to her ability to encourage her students to follow their odder ideas whilst still keeping them on the right track, and to her understanding of when they need to be pushed and when they should be sent home to put their feet up. I am also indebted to Christopher Smith for his years of support, and to Jason König for encouraging me to read Foucault in the first place.  Read more...

: Academia
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Is Back Home

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Sitting in front of the tennis watching Federer and ignoring Robson (who isn’t doing herself any harm with her performance, even if she does go down to Hantuchova). I have seventy thousand photos to process still, but that’ll happen (slowly), and seventy thousand words to edit. I have a print out of the thesis-so-far and am wielding the pink muji pen over it to try and sort out the two problem chapters to the soothing sounds of tennis balls being hit too and fro (and this is why I won’t be watching much women’s tennis – the grunting, it is NOT soothing).

Tanzania ended in a Battle Royale with Kenedy (albeit with less blood) which we finally won. Fortunately, Zanzibar is such that it’s appeal can survive even his awfulness in the memory. Dar not so much – but then there is so little to do, and it’s horribly humid, so it’s not so appealing. We spent our last day on the Msasani Peninsula relaxing at Sea Cliff Village. I got very excited because there was a Spur, which I know from holidays in South Africa, and so we ate amazing steak, and waffles and ice cream, whcih meant there was no room for plane food at all, fortunately.  Read more...

: Musings,Travel
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72,125

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That is how many words are currently in the “Thesis Text” document on my computer. All the thesis bar the conclusion is now drafted. This is deeply, deeply, exciting to me. Yes, I have to do a good amount of editing on two chapters, and make sure that I my argument says what I want it to say without deviation, repetition or hesitation. And yes, I have to pick up some bibliography and throw it at the footnotes so that I can fill the ‘learned’ criterion, as well as the ‘orginal’ one. But this is all editing. I have very few New Words to write. It’s actually delicious.

And so I have beer. I have Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. And I have about 500 photos from Rome still to edit… But I like this plan for the evening.

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: Academia
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help!

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I have just written the following sentence: “The form of the Philippics both dictates and encourages the the rhetorical creation of such a semantic vacuum.”

Clearly I need saving from myself.

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: Academia
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the circularity of politics

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I now have a footnote in my thesis citing Matt Yglesias and George W. Bush’s speech to this year’s Republican Convention.  The footnote lurks in a chapter on the Philippics right now, although it will move, in the final showdown, towards the conclusion as I chat happily and not at all ominously about the problems of the existence of multiple understandings of political concepts in the Late Republic.  Basically my line of argument, at the moment goes something like Cicero says so-and-so is a good citizen because the things that so-and-so has done benefit Rome, which begs the question of who gets to decide what actually benefits the Republic.  Answer, pretty much no-one, they all just fight about it, which is all pretty much fine until someone rocks up with an army to back up their side.    That someone in this case being Mark Antony, whilst Cicero, having attempted to push Antony out of Rome as a non-citizen ended up with his head and hands cut off and nailed up in public.

So this is me on Cicero on good citizenship: ”Nonetheless, this remains Cicero’s own understanding of the good citizen, not a universal one, and his tendency to define other understandings of political concepts, as wrong and dangerous for the Rome, rather than accept the possibility of their validity in a different understanding of the nature of the res publica precludes the opportunity for negotiation and compromise that might have enabled Rome to avoid civil war.”  Read more...

: Academia,Arts,News
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I hate structure

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Why can I not just present my ideas in bullet point and let my readers work out the line of argument they want to take through them. That would truly be a postmodern thesis.

Sigh. Supervisor numero due wanted me to put together some rough word count ideas for my thesis plan. Haha. This meant I decided to go through all the sections I have written so far and try and work out what I have, word-count-wise, on each topic. If only it were so easy. I should know by now that things don’t fit into neat little boxes of structure with flowing arguments. Working out whether constitutional structures should be talked about before citizen behaviour is frankly the least of my worries. Oh this year is going to be so much fun. 80,000 words of writing here I come. To think that the easiest bit is going to be explaining Foucault and making him relevant.

Hopefully the fact that I’ve done most of the actual work will help? Hopefully. If only because I procrastinate more when I’m reading than when I’m writing. Eeeeeeeee.

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