Dissertation Changes

In the past week I have been experiencing a lot of anxiety over my dissertation. I've become really concerned that one of the chapters I planned to write just wasn't going to work. On top of that, I'm having a hard time getting resources in CU Land (for some reason, CU has a relatively limited selection of critical sources on 19th-century American literature), necessitating that I spend some money on books I access regularly. I've also started to wonder if I could, in fact, finish 2 whole chapters, an introduction, and revisions by late May. Last week, I used C as a sounding board for some changes I wanted to make, namely reorganizing the dissertation, dropping an author and a chapter, combining two authors that were previously not linked, and changing the focus of that chapter a bit. C was for some of the changes, but he thought dropping one author was a bad idea. He argued that this author made my project more rounded and articulated the point that the spatial constructions I'm considering aren't limited to America. I think his points were valid, but they didn't ease any of my frustrations. So I scheduled a phone date with my advisor, which I just finished.

The result of the conversation is 100% positive as far as I'm concerned. I articulated my concerns about two of the five authors I'm dealing with as well as my concerns about organization. First, we tackled organization. I had planned to organize chronologically, but ultimately that doesn't make sense since I'm not making a chronological argument, i.e. arguing that history affects the way these women view the types of spaces I'm talking about. In turns out I'm making a thematic argument, and so now my project is organized to reflect that. I move from actual physical spaces to a discussion of metaphoric spaces, concluding with a chapter and a novel that deals with both. Then, we considered my concerns about Harriet Wilson and Fanny Kemble. Now, combining these two women in one chapter has always been sort of odd to everyone on my committee, but they all gave me the opportunity to work through this myself. In fact, Kemble's presence in the project has always presented complications--she's British, she comes from a position of privilege, and her work is published 30 years after she writes it. But I still think my points about Kemble are valid. So I explained that I wanted to keep Kemble, but not discuss her in conjunction with Wilson. I then would combine Wilson with Harriet Jacobs. My advisor's response: cut Kemble altogether. I was surprised, but on some level, I was hoping she'd say this. Her reasoning: I no longer have to argue why Kemble is in the project in the first place, and a comparison of Jacobs and Wilson just makes more sense.

So I now have a 4 chapter dissertation, including the introduction. I will, obviously, have a conclusion, but I'm not yet sure if that will be a chapter unto itself or if it will be at the end of the 3rd chapter. This means that I only have 1 chapter to draft in its entirety. I still have to revise Wharton signficantly and write the introduction, but somehow that all seems manageable. A late-May defense is looking more and more possible.