Frustration, Frustration, Frustration! It feels like I am going around circles with this…and the initial idea that I thought would be the “golden” ticket to a good thesis does not feel like that anymore.
Of course, I am exaggerating when I say “golden ticket”, but still, as any researcher, you want your ideas to be innovative and in a way challenge what already exists…
But first, maybe it might be easier to say a few things about me and why I am writing this…I am a Research Master’s student in the field of Performance studies, but I am also really, really interested in sciences. I always had this idea that arts and sciences are really not as different as my educational system presented them to be, and I have always tried to find ways to try and figure out different ways in which they can be interrelated. This is probably also one of the reasons why I was also really interested in philosophy, where this clear disciplinary separation was not as absolute…
Just to be clear, I have never published anything like this before, and it is still not entirely clear to me why I decided to do it…I am quite private with my thoughts, especially the… let’s say “frustrated” ones, but I felt that somehow it might be helpful to be able to articulate them and share them in a different context.
So, after two years of courses and several interdisciplinary seminars, I finally thought that I had found a research idea that could encompass the my two main interests…On the one hand, I became really interested in the practice of dramaturgy especially within the context of performance studies and dance and not so much theatre per say -although it is not so easy to make “clear” distinctions between the different artforms seeing how different media and even different disciples can now be part of the creative process of a performance….
In any case, I found really interesting the way that dramaturgs where talking about their work and how it is a field of study that is as analytical and conceptual as it is practical. What I also found really fascinating was that, at least in the literature that I have come across, that there is a consensus between dramaturgs, and that is that there are no standard methods or tools than can be followed exactly in order to ensure the “success” of each different performance. Nevertheless, their writings are far from presenting radically divergent ideas. They all seem to apply a specific way of thinking that is employed exactly to try to break the existing cliché’s that inevitably enter the creative space when making a performance. Characterizations like finding value in the process of erring, of accepting that you constantly need to deal with the unknown, while trying to figure out the right questions to ask in order to eventually figure out what it was that you didn’t know are an important part of the contemporary literature on dance dramaturgy.
You may say that, yes! of course, this is art, art is meant to be creative, to be unpredictable, not to follow any “rules”… it is not like scientific practices, where you have all these theories that you need to constantly confirm through experiments and to create rigorous processes to validate your findings. And, I would, of course, agree that if you compare these two practices from a distance, of course they are radically different. But what about the “voila” moments? The moments where groundbreaking ideas, methods and theories were introduced, like calculous, the theory of relativity, quantum physics. Weren’t those moments where theorems and theories were precisely challenged and/or twisted? And what I find an even more interesting example is that although quantum physics seems to be so far the best physical theory that we have developed so far, we are still far from reaching a consensus when it comes to a well-accepted interpretation of the experimental results, and even if you don’t think of these ground breaking moments, aren’t scientific practices full of errors, moments of being lost, of not knowing and trying to navigate in uncharted territory?….
…Again, I am aware that I am making some conceptual leaps and simplifying some of the issues that I present. So please, read this more like a free flow of ideas and an attempt to flesh out all the raw ideas that are guiding my reasoning when trying to come up with a proposal for my thesis….
So here comes the second part of my research interest, philosophy of science… I have taken several courses in philosophy of science and what I found to be very interesting was that although both fields of research are focusing on similar concepts and “problems”, like how to understand and conceptualize space and time, there seems to be very small interaction between the two. So, I was very intrigued by the idea of developing further these observations in within a research project…
In the theories that we are developing there are always some initial assumptions, some primary hypotheses that can be either verified through experiment or practice or disqualified based on experimental evidence. And this is the same in the way that we use the concepts of spacetime. But, of course, over time, the way we understand space time has changed significantly, starting from Aristotle, to Newton, Einstein, and so on. But then the question is: what generated these changes in thinking about spacetime in a different way? This is of course a very broad question, but you might argue that what happened was that the previous theories proved to be unable to explain some inconsistences that emerged when technological developments developed more precise tools of measurement. So new models of thought needed to be created in order to account for these inconsistencies….
…And…. unfortunately, this is how far my free flow of writing was able to take me without trying to force myself to produce something “meaningful”… which already suggests that there is definitely a lot more context that I would need to cover to make sense of my initial idea to combine these two fields of research in such a way…
So, of course such a reasoning process this is not enough justification to ensure the “success” and value of my research…How is it possible to balance my personal interests and my assumptions based on my (rather) limited experience on these two subjects, as a research master’s student and create an academic piece of writing?
Based on my experience from my bachelor’s degree, and from discussion with my fellow master’s students, I know that writing a master’s thesis is a challenging task to undertake, but you never fully realize this until it actually happens to you…And exactly because it is challenging, I would like to focus on something that I feel passionate about, something that sparks my interest and I feel like I am learning more not only within an academic context, but also it helps me to improve as a person. At the same time, it is a process that requires you to stay many hours reading texts and books, and then try to create a piece of writing that is consistent, precise, contributes to the ongoing research of your theme, rigorous in its argumentation, clear in the way it is positioned within the existing literature, just to name a few.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand and value the importance of all these requirements, and I admire and respect the authors behind these pieces of writing, because now more than even, I understand the complexity of such a process.
But at the same time, I feel that it is something that is not really discussed, and writing a good thesis requires way more than just being a good academic writer. I have heard radically different stories from my fellow master’s students when it comes to the process of writing their thesis, and for some it has turned out to be a very rough experience and a big struggle while for others everything has worked according to plan and very successfully if I may add. There are so many questions that come up while trying to work on such a piece of writing…
- You might think you have an interesting idea, but how can you contextualize it within the existing literature?
- When would I know that I have read a satisfactory amount of literature to qualify me as “knowledgeable” on the subject?
- What methodology shall I use?
- How can I ensure that my arguments are rigorous enough? What if I miss a critical perspective that could disqualify my approach?
- How can you be sure that you are not imposing your own perspective on what you are reading?
So, I read and I make notes, and I read again, trying to answer all the above questions, or at least trying to be satisfied with the answers that I try to give to myself. But, I still have this sense of feeling lost and frustrated… and them more questions and doubts arise…
- Is what I am trying to do even possible?
- Or is it a matter of figuring out the proper way of framing the context and my research questions?
- I know that as you try to refine your research topic, it is essential to start narrowing down themes and topics that you originally felt are relevant, but which ones shall I remove and which ones to keep?
I find it also a bit frustrating, after having read several books to realize afterwards, that they might not be as useful as you initially thought they would… it feels hard to let go of something that you took for granted…
….after writing this last sentence, I realized it was actually really ironic since, one of the main assumptions of my research is that both mathematical thinking and dramaturgical thinking are concerned exactly with idea to try to not get fixated on specific patterns of thinking and certain ideas that might inhibit developing new theories or content further. These types of thinking that I am trying to elaborate on are practicing exactly the skill of understanding when it is needed to let some ways of thinking go, or to rethink the way you approach some ideas…
Well, I guess I did an extra step today….
A Student's Journal 