asteroid B612

I cant speak to what's appropriate for a diss, but I would recommend against giving yourself extra work, considering the bambino and all...

hehee, I have a friend who just completed his dissertation. He said that one of the cruelest things people could ask a Ph.D. student is "how is your dissertation going?" He actually hid (!) during a scholarly conference so that people wouldn't ask him, at a time when he was stuck in his topic!

This is the only advice I can offer: When I wrote my Senior Paper at Luther (which is about 1/100th of a diss) I chose cool or practical for my topic. Half-way through I realized that while practical would've been the smarter way to go (and would've yielded a better grade), cool was much more fulfilling to me (albeit much more work) because it's something I really enjoyed.

Jo, I've thought of that. :-) But I can't afford to hide at this one.

I guess it's not so much practical vs. cool, rather should I pick the topic for which my coursework has prepared me better, or should I risk having to learn major new skills in the course of the diss when I have such draconian time limits (and an infant)?

Have you talked to Dr. H? Things here seem to have calmed down a bit with the influx of new students and rearranging of the semester's schedule, and I'm sure he can give advice or help you work through the pros and cons of each topic, especially since he's advised students dealing with the Draconian time limit before. =) It's harder to talk to him over email or the phone than it is just to walk into his office, though.

Also, remember what Dr. Smyth said about picking a well-defined topic so that you'll know when you're done? Does that help at all? Sheesh, I don't want to do a dissertation anymore. =)

Andy and I understand. While Andy can speak better to choosing a topic I can pray well for you. With Baby 3 due in Feb and the projected finish line sometime between Dec and next spring the question Andy and I avoid right now is "So, when's Andy's PhD gonna be finished?" I simply smile and tell them that's a great question, let us know when they find out. We will be praying for you.

Oh, and Gid attended a conference when he was 6 wks old. He says it changed the course of his life forever.

I think you should pick something you love, and I'm sure you'll refine "marketable" skills along the way. If you love it, you'll have more energy to invest in it. And I'm sure whatever you pick, you'll do it creatively and with lots of academic integrity.

Pick the topic for which your coursework has prepared you better. Remember - your dissertation is not the be all end all. It is simply the license for more research and work... Once you have the degree, you can learn major new skills and blow the world away.

I thought that asking a philosophy major what kind of job they were going to get after graduation was bad enough. This sounds much worse.

1. I am going to stop asking you everyday how the diss is going! (I so identify - I am SICK of people asking me how you-know-who's job search is going!)

2. I am impressed with the answer "a-non-a-mouse" gave about the diss being the license for more research and work. Both Machen and Vos chose "safe" topics as an academic means to an end. Get the degree, and get started!

Here is a section from Jim Dennison in "Vos: A Life Between Two Worlds" (Kerux V14):

(Start quote)
Ironically, Vos's Ph. D. dissertation at Strassburg was not in New Testament, not in Old Testament—it was in Semitics. His advisor—Theodor Nöldeke—was an expert in Arabic and Syriac (significantly, Vos would in fact teach Arabic and Syriac at Princeton Seminary). Vos's dissertation was a brief exercise in textual criticism—Arabic textual criticism—the collation of an Arabic manuscript describing the conflict between two Islamic sects in the Middle Ages. It was written in German, again underscoring his parental ancestral roots as well as his gift with the language.

I must confess to bewilderment about the choice of topic for Vos's Ph. D. It was a "safe" choice; it would engender no controversy in the theological faculty at Strassburg. It would accomplish the goal which the Christian Reformed Synod at Grand Rapids had intended when it gave Vos permission to study in Europe so he could return and teach at the Seminary in Grand Rapids. But permit me to venture an explanation of this unremarkable choice for an unremarkable Ph. D. dissertation. Geerhardus Vos realized that he could not live in the critical world of Holtzmann, Wellhausen, even Dillmann and Weiss. He also realized that the Dutch pietistic world expected predictable things from him on his return to Grand Rapids. The Ph. D. was, for the Curators of the Christian Reformed Synod, only a necessary evil. He had been allowed to go abroad on the condition that he return to Calvin Seminary as the young poster boy. In fact, the Christian Reformed Synod guaranteed his return to the Seminary by appointing him Professor of Theology in the summer of 1886—during his transition from Berlin to Strassburg. Vos's two worlds—academic and pietistic—were again in collision. He chose the easy way out—a noncontroversial Ph. D. topic. Get the degree and go home, as expected.

In partial support of my suggestion that the Ph. D. topic was the easy way out, let me review the famous incident of the spring of 1886; the incident in which Vos, while still in Berlin, encountered Abraham Kuyper for the first time. Kuyper had launched the Free University of Amsterdam in 1880 in order to counter the meddling of a secular state and the liberalism of the church in Calvinistic higher education. Six years later, Kuyper needed a Professor of Old Testament Theology and he contacted Vos in Berlin. Vos's letters to Kuyper (May, June, October 1886), reveal the fragile state of his health (he confesses to a nervous condition which makes it very difficult for him to travel), his esteem for Kuyper and his University, and his affection for his parents and their wishes. The fundamental reason Vos gives for declining Kuyper's invitation to teach at the Free University is the wish of his parents that he return to Grand Rapids and the new world. I detect here an underscoring of his father's desire to quit the old world with its uncertainties. I do not detect here any latent hostility to Kuyper and his theology. And finally I detect here resignation—a resignation on Geerhardus's part to the path of duty—parental, institutional, new world. Geerhardus Vos went to Strassburg in the fall of 1886 because he could not go to Amsterdam—he was on his way home to Grand Rapids. And the Ph. D. was the academic means to that end.

Vos would later remark that he regretted the decision not to join Kuyper and the faculty at the Free. But God knew! God knew that Geerhardus Vos would have been a very different man if he had become part of Kuyper's political-ecclesiastical movement. And so God sent Geerhardus Vos to that backwater Grand Rapids in preparation for his real work—the supreme, Reformed, Biblical Theologian of the English-speaking world. Indeed, where would we be if all Vos's articles and books were in Dutch!
(end quote)

start before ellis starts putting paper in his mouth!

If you're totally unfamiliar with anything, you need to ask first a few questions from someone who knows better like this "diss"...I myself, when I decided to build my muscles, I consulted a book to learn in building muscle and weight gain but I first read some reviews about it just to be safe, physically and financially, you know what i mean...

I agree with Joanna

I’m curious … do you miss Mumbai?
The thought improvement workshop sounds very interesting.