a sibilant intake of breath

I haven’t done much of anything lately, aside from the bare necessities of life, other than work toward a version of my dissertation that will be ready for the external examiners.

It has been very hard for me not to have final control over the document, which I have had in every other context since leaving the government.

I suppose the PhD dissertation is the pinacle of scrutiny for a piece of writing — totally different from all the research papers I have written during the program, which just get a grade and some comments from one person. It’s weird for me to have authorship and responsibility for the content of a document, but not the final say about what I can actually put in it and how. I know this is all to make it conform to the norms and standards of a particular and esoteric style of writing, but it’s still a command structure that I keep grating against.

No doubt, the way I keep bumping up against this approach partly explains the delays and frustration on all sides.

I am still fighting toward a complete draft of my dissertation, to go to the external examiners by the end of the month.

The three central chapters — political opportunity, mobilizing structures, and repertoires — have gone to my 3rd committee member, but the other two don’t want to share his comments until we have finished going back and forth on the introduction and conclusion.

I sent a revised conclusion on Monday and am working on the latest comments on the introduction before I switch back. Today I went to the libraries on campus to have another look at Jennifer Hadden’s Networks in Contention, which we are using to situate the project in the scholarly literature.

The next version of the introduction is due at the end of the day tomorrow.