Well-Read Wednesdays: Lessons I Learned from Finishing a Dissertation

I am back once again after yet another lengthy absence! And while I considered jumping back into my Simpsons Spooktacular Ranking (There is just one more left!), I thought it might be a good idea to stop and reflect on the changes in my life during that time. The biggest change is that I am now officially Dr. Emma Probst! On May 9th, I defended my dissertation, which was titled: The Social Bible: Scriptural Exchange and Interracial Fellowship in Nineteenth-Century American Literature. After I passed my defense, I celebrated my graduation and hooding ceremony on May 20th, where I was officially awarded the title. I had a lot of different celebrations during the month of May, but there is also something surreal when you work toward something for so long, and it finally happens. I have been in one college or another for the past 11 years. It's hard to believe that when I come back to college in the Fall, I will be teaching there, but I won't have classes or a dissertation that I need to complete in order to stay on track with my studies. I still have projects on the burner, and those projects will have deadlines, but I will be officially in a new stage as a professional scholar! This summer is the freest I've been since 2018. There are some preparations I can do for the Fall, but other than that, I have the whole summer free. I brought several fun books this summer, and I am looking forward to reading and discussing them here! 

Wednesdays are usually my day dedicated to discussing literary works. So I thought it would be a great day to discuss the lessons I learned while writing my own book-length project. All told, my final dissertation was 404 double-spaced pages, 202 traditional pages long. While some of this space is dedicated to acknowledgments, citations, and images, there is still a book-length amount of writing that I hope to publish as an academic book someday soon. I remember on one of the last days of my undergraduate program, I took an evening bus ride to meet up with my dad. Since the bus driver and I were the only ones on the bus, we got to talking, and he asked me what I had learned from my four years at MSU Denver. I can't remember what I told him, but as I wrapped everything up for my Ph.D., I thought about his question a lot. What did I learn from writing this dissertation and overcoming the many obstacles that stood in the way? Here are some of the biggest things I have learned over the past few years. There is so much more that I could say, but here is a start!

1. You get a better idea of what your chapters should be as you go along

During the lead-up to my project, I had a plan for what I was going to look at. While the basic underlying idea remained the same as I explored how the Bible established and defined relationships between different groups, as I went along, I realized that it worked better to see how the Bible commented on different political issues surrounding race in the nineteenth century. In addition to clarifying my approach, I also found that each chapter was a little bit easier to write. My first draft of my first chapter had so much research that I didn't wind up using in the end because I didn't know at the time how to narrow my research to the most useful information. Also, I knew that writing a dissertation chapter was a different task than writing a regular essay, but I over-gauged how different it would be and wound up writing a chapter that relied too heavily on historical documentation without really analyzing the sources the way I needed to. I also didn't have an argument that was as strong as it should be. It took the Summer and a bit of the Fall to write and research it. The next draft was much stronger, but the new research and direction took a lot of the Spring too. I worried that if each chapter took that long to complete, I would never finish on time. But I wrote each chapter faster and more efficiently than the one before it! The next chapter came together with a stronger idea of my structure and argument, so I was able to finish everything by September. The third chapter I wrote was done by the end of December, and I finished all the research and writing on my final chapter in a little over a month. From there, I was able to refine and finish my intro, conclusion, and edits in the last few weeks before the deadline. As I wrote each chapter, I grew more confident about what it needed and how it should look. Because I was more confident about what I wanted the chapter to be, I also found that I had fewer edits and could make the changes quickly. Ultimately, the best teacher on how to write a dissertation was the gradual experience of writing it, as I learned what worked and what didn't. 

2. Keep your audience in mind while you are writing 

When writing anything, it is important to know what your ideal audience is because that impacts how and what you write. This understanding of audience is one of the first things I teach my students in English 101. But after years of writing, it can be easy to assume the same generic academic audience without considering the nuances and slight differences in what your readers know and understand. While writing, I often assumed that my readers had the same love for the Bible that I did or that they at least respected how important the Bible was to nineteenth-century readers. My advisor reminded me that members of my committee (My basic audience for this project) had studied literature under different contexts that often did not come with the religious analysis of scripture that I was doing. Because of this, I needed to give a little more explanation about how my approach worked and why it was valuable to examine these scriptural links, even if you are not Christian or interested in reading literature with an eye toward these references. I also needed to address the ways that people warped and twisted the Bible during the 1800s, the best example being the people who used scriptural passages to endorse slavery. I found so many cases of people who used the Bible to fight oppression, and these come into sharper focus once you see what these interpreters were up against in their day. I think offering more explanation of the value and power behind my examples helped me to better understand why I valued these references so much and also allowed me to highlight the Bible's social and political importance during my study.  

Image by senivpetro on Freepik

3. Keep an eye out for things people have overlooked so that you can add something new

Another reminder that my advisor would give me as I wrote was that I should clarify how I am bringing something new to the table. This is not unique to academic writing. If you're writing a fantasy novel, you need to show how your story brings a new narrative or a unique world that you have developed. I worried at first that the previous scholars had said everything that can be said about the text or that during my research, I would uncover an essay that said exactly what I was planning to say. What I found is that there is always something that you can add, some overlooked thing or a moment when scholars denigrate an author unfairly. In each chapter, I found the space to write something new. For Herman Melville, people have studied his use of biblical names but never really studied what Peter and Paul meant to him as biblical figures. For Harriet Beecher Stowe, I found that people had looked at Bible reading but had not considered one of her characters an authoritative interpreter with a unique approach. Hannah Crafts had other biblical references, but no one considered her allusions to Psalms as important to her novel. S. Alice Callahan is considered the first female Native American novelist, but many scholars dismissed her as an assimilationist instead of recognizing her political edge. And Pauline Hopkins' discussion of biblical Ethiopia has been linked to a larger focus on Ethiopia in African American writing from the turn-of-the-century, but there was still space to explore how she includes the threat of judgment and the opportunity for people to step into the past, much like the Cycloramas of the time. Sometimes it takes time to figure out what you want to add to the developing painting of human writing, but the easel isn't full yet. There is still a space for your ideas! 

Image by jcomp on Freepik

4. Hold onto what helps you to keep going when things get difficult

I went through several times when I worried about whether I could finish writing this dissertation. I would get stuck and worry about my pace as I struggled to complete the early chapters. What got me through these challenging times was holding onto the things that maintained my peace, motivation, and focus. For peace, I found that it was incredibly helpful for me to read my Bible each day. The passages spoke to me and often gave me the wisdom to respond to criticism and work towards completing each chapter. To give me focus, I would listen to music. I had certain songs that I leaned on throughout my education, including the song "Building the Crate" from Chicken Run, which has been my focusing song ever since my first year of undergrad (I hope to make a post about this song someday soon!). Each chapter also gave me a specific song that I would play on repeat while I was writing in order to get myself in the right headspace. For some tasks, especially research, I would watch certain TV shows that gave me some background entertainment while I was working. The shows that worked best for me were either crime shows or Sci-Fi shows. The space that makes someone most productive looks very different for each person, but make sure to give yourself the time and space to find what works for you! Alongside finding the space that makes you most productive, you also should give time to get rest, fun, and fellowship. I continued to join Bible studies, play computer games with my sister, and watch YouTube with one of my other sisters. Those breaks gave me the chance to think about my project and come back with a fresh perspective. 

Free Stock photos by Vecteezy

5. Learn when to let things go or put them to rest  

When I first thought of this project, I had several books in mind that I had to cut before my committee approved the final project. I went forward with a plan for a Civil War chapter that ultimately didn't make it. In my final chapter, I planned to write about both Melville and Hopkins, but I realized as the research progressed that I would not have space for both authors. I could write a whole other dissertation on the books I cut from this dissertation, and I hope that someday I will be able to write on these texts as well. I think it takes strength to let texts go when you don't have the space to address them. Another form of letting go, and one that is much harder for me, is learning when to stop the research on an idea. The amount you could learn about a topic is so expansive that you could spend your whole life on it. But there is ultimately only so much space in the text you are writing, so you need to focus on what is most beneficial and important. I think I will always struggle with a desire to learn that may challenge my ability to stop researching and start writing. It's good to know that I love what I do, and Socrates emphasizes the importance of knowing yourself. Knowing this about myself, I have learned to give myself extra research time and cut-off dates when I should move on to the next stage.

Free Stock photos by Vecteezy

6. Be ready for the unexpected

A big project like this will change in ways that you don't always expect. Going into this project, I thought I was going to write a chapter on the Civil War, but I had to cut that when it wasn't coming together. I also never would have expected that I would write a chapter on Native American writers. I had some exposure to Native American writing in college, but this exposure was limited, and the texts I read did not cover issues and ideas that interested me in my research. When my advisor suggested that a Native American chapter would offer a valuable perspective on the issues I explored in this dissertation, I began looking for potential texts, but I kept hitting dead ends until I discovered Callahan's book. From there, I learned some really interesting things about the Ghost Dance of 1890 and how this connected to biblical imagery and influenced Native American writers who followed. It wound up being an unexpected chapter, but it was so interesting to research and write. In my conclusion, I was able to explore Amanda Gorman's poem from Biden's inauguration. And in addition to the big authors in my chapter, I also was able to study some lesser-read fiction writing from W.E.B. DuBois. If I had rigidly held to the dissertation I thought I was writing instead of embracing the unexpected, I would have missed out on some valuable perspectives and sources that really helped the whole thing to come together.

Image by XKCD

7. Once you have your idea, fight for it!

Throughout this writing project, my advisor was there to give me feedback and guidance. She was always in my corner, supporting my argument and helping me to find the best way to bring it to light. That said, at the end of the day, it is important that you believe in your project and are ready to defend it in writing and in conversation. If you are confident that your ideas are valid and compelling and that you have written something that matters, you can overcome those moments of self-doubt. I'm not suggesting that I wrote something perfect or above criticism. This isn't pride or false confidence but rather the conviction that you are adding to the knowledge in this world and that you are doing so in a manner that only you can. When I was preparing to defend my ideas in front of my committee, I worried that I hadn't really said anything all that groundbreaking. I had to remind myself that no one has written the things I have written in the way that I have written them and that they say something valuable. Not everyone will immediately see the merit of your ideas, but if you are confident in defending your ideas, you will be able to explain why your perspective adds something interesting and valuable to the conversation. 

8. Write with your greatest strengths 

This kinda builds on the previous point, but each scholar, each writer, has different areas where they excel. J.R.R. Tolkien created compelling worlds with a rich history, Melville merged the philosophically profound with the humorous, and Nathaniel Hawthorne created psychologically complex characters. Each author was able to take what he was best at and fully utilize it in his writing. While academic writing is different from fiction writing, it still reflects so much about the personality and values of the person who wrote it. I decided to look at Christianity in literature because one of my professors in undergrad noticed that I was particularly good at examining those themes and finding something new to say. My Christian background gave me a greater strength in recognizing biblical references, even when the author is more subtle about them. Melville includes so many references to the Bible, but he rarely would write the chapter and verse. Instead, he would write a phrase from a verse, and when you get that context, you understand his writing on a whole other level. I also brought in my strength and love for finding historical sources and other books the author was reading. Other scholars may use a specific theoretical approach, but what I wrote expresses my love for history and the Bible. I think discovering where you most thrive and where you can contribute the most interesting ideas is what allows you to write something vibrant and fascinating in the process, 

9. It takes a lot of people to help you on your journey

This might seem to contradict my last few more individualistic points, but even in a project where you do a lot of the writing in solitude, you aren't accomplishing it alone. There are people like my advisor or committee who helped me to clarify and refine my ideas. These people helped me to see places where I could express myself more clearly or saw a connection that could bring my project together that much better. There are the people who helped me as an undergraduate or in my M.A. program who allowed me to develop my skills and approach. These mentors all have their fingerprints on my methods, word choices, and how I express my ideas. There are the people who helped me to access the materials I needed, like the library staff and the reference librarian. There are also the people who encouraged me, prayed for me, and offered emotional support. This includes people like my family, my friends, people in my church, my pastor, and other people I have met along the way. These people didn't write the words for me, but they helped me feel like I could. They gave me the courage to write and to persevere. When I was finishing up my dissertation, I wrote three pages acknowledging and thanking all the people that I remembered helping me in one way or another. I tried to write down everyone who came to mind, but I know that there are people I missed among all those I thanked. You gain courage when you know that you aren't in it alone, even if it is your project. It reminds me of Sam's words to Frodo at the end of Return of the King: "I can't carry it for you, but I can carry you!" There are people that carried me so that I could carry on with this project, and I am eternally grateful! 

10. It is beautiful to see everything come together 

While I was finishing up my dissertation, I also had to put everything in the proper template for a dissertation at the University of Tennessee. This was the first time I saw all my chapters come together since I wrote each draft in its own Word Document. It was painstaking to make sure that my document was following all the guidelines and maintaining a consistent style throughout, but seeing it all there together in one place gave me this supreme sense of satisfaction for what I had done. It all looked so crisp and so beautiful! I had written all those sections and brought it all together! It makes me think about the idea of Sub-Creation. Tolkien explains in his academic writing that because humanity is made in the image of God, we share God's love for creating something new and bringing it all together. As Tolkien writes in his poem "Mythopoeia":

man, sub-creator, the refracted light 

through whom is splintered from a single White 

to many hues, and endlessly combined

in living shapes that move from mind to mind. 

Though all the crannies of the world we filled 

with elves and goblins, though we dared to build 

gods and their houses out of dark and light, 

and sow the seed of dragons, 'twas our right (used or misused). 

The right has not decayed. 

We make still by the law in which were made.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge writes about a similar idea, and I think both authors explain the sense of satisfaction that comes from creating something new. After God created the world, the Bible tells us that he "saw that it was Good." I would say that I felt a similar thing, though in a much smaller capacity, when I saw that the final dissertation formatted and ready to go. There is a lot of sacrifice in big projects like these, so it is important to remember that there is great satisfaction as well. 

These are the big lessons I was learning from the time I restarted this Blog in 2021, when my project was still in its early stages, to now, when it is finished and officially submitted. While I know that many of you are not setting out to write a dissertation, I think my words hold true for many large endeavors of this nature, whether you are writing a book, finishing college, organizing a database, or creating something new. My hope is that I can continue using this blog as a space to voice my thoughts, whether those thoughts are about The Simpsons, movies, books, or other larger themes in our world today. My life has changed a great deal since I started this Blog when I was in High School, and this Blog has changed right along with it. But I hope that you will continue to join me on the journey!