Dissertation Proposal at Saint Louis University: Done!!!

Well, yesterday was one of those days I don't care to relive. At 10:00 I had to present my Dissertation Proposal to the students and faculty of the Saint Louis University Department of American Studies. I knew my Dissertation Topic was too broad. I called my topic A Consuming View: The Northern California Cultural Landscape As Viewed Through Literature 1845-2000. I knew that it was too broad, but I had hoped that by limiting my research to how literature describes the landscape would focus the topic more. I guess I didn't fool anyone. The faculty caught right on and wants me to focus on a smaller time period. The periods I think that are the most interesting are the Gold Rush (1849-1860), the turn of the century (1900-1910), the Dustbowl years (1930-1940), the turbulent 1960s, or the Dotcom Boom of the (1990-2000). I will probably decide between a focus on the 1930s and analyze Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath and In Dubious Battle, which is probably an overdone time period, or concentrate on the turn of the century and analyze Frank Norris' The Octopus. The turn of the century hasn't been researched nearly as much and is probably a little bit more of an open field, but doesn't have quite as much color and glamour as the 1930s. Either way I have my work cut out for me over the next year.

The SLU faculty, unbelievably, approved my Dissertation Proposal with some modifications (narrowing the focus) and thinks my subject is worthwhile and will bring new knowledge to light. One of the questions that puzzled me a little though is the one that went like this, "When most people study landscape they study physical landscape, why do you want to study landscapes created in an author's mind?" Well, research is supposed to be original! No one is doing research on mentally created landscapes (what I call cognitive landscape). Maybe it is because it is too hard, but it is sure a wide open field.

Anyhow, we'll see how this all pans out. I still have to complete the language requirement (I'll be taking a Spanish translation test next month) and finish the Dissertation. Then it will be Doc Rick!

It was a really cold and windy, but beautiful day at SLU, so I took some pictures of campus and put them in our family fotopage here.

After presenting my Dissertation Proposal I hopped back to work to finish out the day. Last night we had two events going on at The College Church at the Gate. The David Crowder Band (David Crowder is an awesome praise and worship leader from Waco, Texas) was playing in Lincoln, Illinois and most of our church went up there for the concert. I stayed behind incase anyone showed up that didn't go to the concert. No one came, so I went home and turned in early. It was a long, but productive day! Thank you Lord.