Ten thousand words
Feb. 4th, 2012 03:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI'm having a total mood crash and mass second thoughts about writing about Doctor Who.
I mean it's literally the only thing I ever planned to do my dissertation on, but, but, but...
Kind of like, but I'm not sure I even like my subject any more, why am I even doing the dissertation?
Well because it's daft doing the whole rest of the degree then skipping the part that lets me do exactly as I please all year.
And ten thousand words is nothing. I can do that. I do a couple of thousand for every class.
I can just go through the different modules and see how the key ideas apply to Doctor Who.
Or I could just go through my journals and pull at least that many words of meta and review. Easily.
... actually I should probably do both, just to knock the plan into shape. Like, read the learning outcomes and what the big words we learned were that semester, and make a big list, and plan how much of it I can use in my big essays. The specific bits of history aren't so likely to apply (though I can related Doctor Who to all of them, since it went and played there at least once), but the relating cultural context at time of production and consumption to the text is like one of assessment criteria I set myself.
So I'm stuck wondering if I can get enough words, at the same time as wondering how I'll get that few words.
I was going to compare episodes / stories from 11 and 5, because there's a full TARDIS, two eras of two girls and two guys. But obviously the first team TARDIS had the same composition. So maybe three stories! But that's a lot of stories. And what am I going to say about htem anyway? And also I don't exactly own much first Doctor and I'm not writing my dissertation on The Web Planet.
... I can see my next academic themed nightmare now.
Writing about gender on the TARDIS doesn't mean just writing about women on the TARDIS. I think it was great that so long on Doctor Who masculinity wasn't constructed around getting the girl. Not in a romantic sense. There were guys, they had adventures, they didn't do it to rescue the princess, at least not with the plan of that meaning they get to marry her. The Doctor does things because they're interesting. It doesn't involve him constructing himself in opposition to femininity at all.
New series involves more kissing. And marrying. But also involves kissing same sex people, so it still doesn't slot people into boring boxes. Not as much as most texts.
There is quite a lot of moping around after a guy, but also quite a lot of guys chasing unattainable girls, or unattainable guys. Mixes things up a bit.
Gender is the most obvious thing to write about with Doctor Who, and it seems like a good place to start.
Okay, I don't have to start right this minute, I just have to spend time collecting texts.
We are supposed to use JSTOR and COPAC. JSTOR has the known problem of not actually giving us articles. The teacher version does but she has to tick a box to say she can't share them. How do we get the version that's any use at all? And why when we pay for among other things decent library access do we not have it already? These and other mysteries. Rules set up to make things not work are daft.
COPAC has tons of books but if I just search for Doctor Who I'm not going to find things I don't already know about on account of fandom.
I shall have to think of other things to research, like getting books on Science Fiction and Cult Television and Gender to go on the lists. I know bunches of those too. Even just counting the ones I read already.
COPAC does show just how many university libraries have books on Doctor Who. Quite encouraging really.
Right. Freakout over.
I shall go back to treating today as a day of rest and... er, probably watch more Doctor Who while counting people... or maybe watch Nosferatu and that Caligari film... or read more short stories. Okay, texts for this semester could be kind of cool.
I mean it's literally the only thing I ever planned to do my dissertation on, but, but, but...
Kind of like, but I'm not sure I even like my subject any more, why am I even doing the dissertation?
Well because it's daft doing the whole rest of the degree then skipping the part that lets me do exactly as I please all year.
And ten thousand words is nothing. I can do that. I do a couple of thousand for every class.
I can just go through the different modules and see how the key ideas apply to Doctor Who.
Or I could just go through my journals and pull at least that many words of meta and review. Easily.
... actually I should probably do both, just to knock the plan into shape. Like, read the learning outcomes and what the big words we learned were that semester, and make a big list, and plan how much of it I can use in my big essays. The specific bits of history aren't so likely to apply (though I can related Doctor Who to all of them, since it went and played there at least once), but the relating cultural context at time of production and consumption to the text is like one of assessment criteria I set myself.
So I'm stuck wondering if I can get enough words, at the same time as wondering how I'll get that few words.
I was going to compare episodes / stories from 11 and 5, because there's a full TARDIS, two eras of two girls and two guys. But obviously the first team TARDIS had the same composition. So maybe three stories! But that's a lot of stories. And what am I going to say about htem anyway? And also I don't exactly own much first Doctor and I'm not writing my dissertation on The Web Planet.
... I can see my next academic themed nightmare now.
Writing about gender on the TARDIS doesn't mean just writing about women on the TARDIS. I think it was great that so long on Doctor Who masculinity wasn't constructed around getting the girl. Not in a romantic sense. There were guys, they had adventures, they didn't do it to rescue the princess, at least not with the plan of that meaning they get to marry her. The Doctor does things because they're interesting. It doesn't involve him constructing himself in opposition to femininity at all.
New series involves more kissing. And marrying. But also involves kissing same sex people, so it still doesn't slot people into boring boxes. Not as much as most texts.
There is quite a lot of moping around after a guy, but also quite a lot of guys chasing unattainable girls, or unattainable guys. Mixes things up a bit.
Gender is the most obvious thing to write about with Doctor Who, and it seems like a good place to start.
Okay, I don't have to start right this minute, I just have to spend time collecting texts.
We are supposed to use JSTOR and COPAC. JSTOR has the known problem of not actually giving us articles. The teacher version does but she has to tick a box to say she can't share them. How do we get the version that's any use at all? And why when we pay for among other things decent library access do we not have it already? These and other mysteries. Rules set up to make things not work are daft.
COPAC has tons of books but if I just search for Doctor Who I'm not going to find things I don't already know about on account of fandom.
I shall have to think of other things to research, like getting books on Science Fiction and Cult Television and Gender to go on the lists. I know bunches of those too. Even just counting the ones I read already.
COPAC does show just how many university libraries have books on Doctor Who. Quite encouraging really.
Right. Freakout over.
I shall go back to treating today as a day of rest and... er, probably watch more Doctor Who while counting people... or maybe watch Nosferatu and that Caligari film... or read more short stories. Okay, texts for this semester could be kind of cool.