Yesterday I managed to get some work done on my dissertation. I installed the update to OmniOutliner and used it to begin making an outline. OK, so this was just me listing the chapters I think I want in my dissertation. And really that was only a matter of me copying the notes I had scribbled on a scratch paper the day before, inputting them electronically so they look spiffier.
But to my credit, I did devise working titles for the chapter and the dissertation.
Socialism with a Slovak Face: The Slovak Question in the 1960s
• Chapter 1: Introduction: The Problem of the Slovak Question
• Chapter 2: Slovakia with a Socialist Face: Slovakia at the Turn of the Decade
• Chapter 3: 1963: A Turning Point?
• Chapter 4: Thaw before the Spring: The Revival of Slovak Nationalism, 1964-1967
• Chapter 5: Springtime in Slovakia: Federalization and Democratization, 1968
• Chapter 6: Prague Spring, Slovak Winter? Federalization without Democratization
• Chapter 7: Conclusion: The Prague Spring and the Velvet Divorce
See, doesn’t that look impressive? Nevermind that this took all of fifteen, maybe twenty minutes on my part, most of which was spent trying to think up good chapter titles, and perhaps two minutes of which was spent debating with my wife C whether I could get away with titling the chapter on the Prague Spring in 1968 “Springtime for Dubcek and Slovakia.” She said no, I agreed (with great disappointment), and I’m leaving it out of the dissertation, even though it’s been the unofficial working title of my dissertation for a year or more, and I’ll continue to refer to it as such. (I figured I could get away with it for the title of a blog about the dissertation, though, since it’s too good not to use somewhere.)
It’s not that I think there’s no place for humor and references to pop culture in an academic work. Most academic histories would benefit from any little morsel that suggests the author has the tiniest sense of humor and is familiar with the wider world. But ultimately, the reason I knew I must reject it, even way back when, was more because I didn’t really want to liken Dubcek to Hitler or Communist Slovakia to Nazi Germany, since the parallels aren’t there. I just thought it was a funny reference to The Producers. And I was also inspired by a college friend’s hilarious send-up of Northwestern University’s president, Henry “Hammerin’ Hank” Bienen, “Springtime for Bienen.”
As for today’s progress on the dissertation … well, I made some progress starting this site, didn’t I?
