it started out as a feeling

Choosing a dissertation topic is a tricky business. Ideally you should find something that's interesting for you personally as well as academically. It can't be too wide of an area, nor too narrow. You need to be able to fit within your department's length without having to cut vital parts out or using elaborate sentences to get to the word limit. Oh, and of course the topic should be somehow connected to your degree. It does help a lot, especially while finding a thesis supervisor. These guys are usually better when they actually know anything on the subject.

How did I go about it? As a known procrastinator and TV series addict I wanted to come up with a topic that would make both me and my potential supervisor happy. For my own joy I needed pop culture to be involved, for the supervisor - some scholarly bits. What's more - as a joint degree student I had to decide which department I wanted to write the dissertation in. I chose Religious Studies for several reasons (the supervisor I wanted, the fact that I could take other classes in Sociology, etc.) and so far my topic is shaping up to be people's responses to religious motifs in Supernatural. Peachy :)

I have 10 weeks to write it - the countdown you can see on the right is set for the submission day, but I need to finish everything (except for proofreading, minor adjustments, etc.) before I leave for Christmas break. I will try to post stuff as I go through the process, I think it will be funny to read it years from now. I might whine from time to time, as I am sure my enthusiasm for the task will not be uninterrupted. On the bar above you can see a tab called Motivation, I will be putting some funny dissertation-related stuff over there, so be sure to check it out from time to time.

This week I'll be working on two things: first and foremost I need to design the questionnaires for the Interwebz People to answer, the other thing is refreshing and/or catching up with the series (just to be sure I know what I'm asking people about). I guess you can expect an entry about that in the nearest future. 

Until then,

Joanna