S. Worthen | Weblog

I need to think through my dissertation focus. It's been very productive to have one for the past month, and I've come to some useful conclusions because of it. It's given me good grounding in the subject because the whole project suddenly felt managable, once I'd limited my examples to a mere two.

My advisor, however, is unconvinced, and I can see the reasoning. My initial project was to revise Lynn White's scholarship on a few late Medieval illuminations of personifications of Temperance, and to give up any of the set of inventions contained therein compromises the fundamdental concept of the projects. On the other hand, he fully agrees that including bridles will greatly complicate the project and perhaps render it unfinishable given the time I have to work in. I agree that clocks need to go back in. The question is, what about windmills?

(If you really are curious what this is all about, I can refer you to the article which started the whole process for me.)