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Derek… I’ve made some use of parts of my dissertation–cutting it up like so many body parts to build a new monster. Last night’s reading was a lark, but I’ll keep it up to some extent because it amuses me. But, what else might it do for me (or an audience)? How else might I think about it? Hmmmmmm…interesting to think about. I haven’t a clue where to begin to answer these questions.

I can say this: I like my dissertation. I did not suffer the dissertation blues, i.e. get totally sick of it before finishing. I think part if this has to do with the freedom and interdisciplinarity of the UMKC program. I was allowed to write it how I pleased. The text is, from a certain academic perspective, a stylistic mess. Parts are pure first-person narrative. Parts are standard third-person exposition. Parts are essayistic. But each change of style and voice fits the moment and the message.

Diss-casting (I love that!) might actually help me understand the text in light of my new situation. I have been asking myself what the heck it means to be a rhetoric scholar teaching journalism. They hired me specifically because I was not the typical comm scholar (plus my diss topic fits the idea of the U’s public affairs mission and they liked Rhetorica). What does that mean? Well, it’s possible I may be able to find answers in my own text–read on my own blog in the context of dealing with rhetoric and journalism.