Monday, November 13, 2006
(9:10 PM) | Adam Kotsko:
All Apologies
This is going to be one of those posts where I think out loud about the course of my studies. I apologize in advance to anyone who is bothered by such posts. (Yes, in addition to being other things, this blog is my personal LiveJournal. That's what makes it so awkward. It's important to me that it be awkward.)By the end of this semester, I will have completed ten out of my fourteen courses, with one incomplete (my medieval directed reading), which I will finish in January or so. That leaves me with three more to take, one of which is going to be a seminar on Judith Butler in the spring semester. I may only take the one -- I feel like I need to slow down somewhat. Also, I am serving as a TA for a course in Systematic Theology, which should be good experience.
Still, I'm thinking about taking a course at the Div School on Simmel and Weber, team-taught by Mendes-Flohr (about whom I've heard wonderful things) and Riesebrodt (about whom I've heard nothing). There are drawbacks to this because it's a winter quarter class, meaning that it starts in January -- a month I would otherwise have completely off. It would, however, end early compared to my semester course, meaning that I would functionally be taking only two classes at any one time -- during January, the second class would be the completion of the medieval reading course, and after the Div School course, the second class would be completing my stalled preparation for the infamous 20th Century exam, which I could hopefully take before the end of the academic year.
There is also another exam that I think I'm able to take outside of the "comprehensive exam clusterfuck," namely an exam on a "method" in the human sciences. It's presently unclear what exactly this exam would be. In my original course of study, its place was taken by a "Models and Methods" exam that was attached to a required course (similar to 20th Century), but they changed the program so that everyone has to choose their own specific methodological exam, rather than pretending that they're brilliant English professors who can effortlessly master psychoanalysis, phenomenology, anthropology, feminism, etc., etc., on top of their literary stuff. We theology people are lowly and humble of heart -- only one human science at a time for us.
I need to switch around my exams to a certain extent anyway, but I'm sure I can get all that straightened out by the summer. In any case, I could study for that all summer, since I won't have any open-ended incompletes to deal with, take it in the fall, then spend the rest of the year studying for my four "clusterfuck" exams, incidentally squeezing in one more course as the spirit guides me. Chances are, between CTS, the Div School, DePaul, and Northwestern, something cool will be available. I might also continue with more TA positions, if possible -- maybe try History of Christian Thought again, by which time I'd probably be able to teach the whole course myself.
Spring 2008, I'm a bright-eyed ABD, at which point I could try my hand at some adjunct teaching. Hopefully there would still be time to finish the dissertation by the time I'm 30 (Summer 2010). That was the timeframe I had in mind when I assumed I'd totally finish my coursework next semester, and this change basically doesn't affect that much at all. In fact, even if I spread two courses over next academic year, it wouldn't be that big a deal.
After that -- well, I've kind of bracketted that end of things for now. Right now I'm more concerned about where I'm going to fit in Greek.
