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January 31, 2006
Ramblings
Joanna: I've started on my second chapter of my dissertation. I'm discovering that there's an ebb and flow in the dissertation process that helps keep it interesting (at least so far!). There are the stressful "I have to meet a deadline" or "I have so many revisions I don't even know where to start" or "I'm so completely stuck that maybe I should just throw everything out so far and start over times."
But there are also the reading and research and "I just discovered something new" or "I just made a connection between several ideas that illuminates many other things I've observed" or "I just got in touch with someone who got in touch with someone else who's mother knew this composer's best friend, and is able to give me an obscure piece of information I couldn't find anywhere else" (really happened!) times as well. I'm in the reading/research process at the moment, for my second chapter.
In a nut-shell, my dissertation examines the ways that 20th century American composers have reused American folk hymns in their "classical" music, specifically a kind known as shape-note hymns http://www.fasola.org
Within the historical context of the new compositions, the hymns become cultural symbols (nationalism, regionalism, pluralism, historical recreation, etc.).
dissertation | By Tim and Jo | 1:20 PM