Day 13: Met w/ Advisor, Got New Direction

Is it a co-incident that I happened to have an appointment with my chief advisor on Day 13?

Well, depends how you look at it. There are both good news and bad news.

Bad news first. After an hour of a very fruitful discussion, he gave me a new direction again! In other words, I would not be doing what I have been painstakingly putting together during these past few weeks anymore. But that's normal for Ph.D. students. We do change our topics or directions for thousands of times before it sort of comes together.

But it was not so bad as Apollo 13! What I mean is that, my proposal was not completely shot down. We did not really take it apart. My advisor quite liked it, actually. And he also believed and said, perhaps for the first time, that looks like I'm going to make it this time (!). He told me to keep the Bushido part (which is exactly what I had in mind!), and ditch the Budo practice. That could take the role of background support info.

Now comes the big announcement. He wants me to take the SOCIOLOGY OF LITERATURE's approach! Basically, I'm going to do a content analysis of Bushido literature from Tokugawa period! And may be some other literature by samurais during that time. I have the list of books I want to do already! It is in the Table of Content of the Introduction Chapter I gave him today. But may be I have to do some more research on Japanese literature, just in case that question comes up during my defense...

In fact, it's back to square one. Because this is what I originally proposed to JSPS and got my research grant for: looking for mindfulness elements in Bushido literature from Tokugawa period and analyze it in the social context of Tokugawa society in order to understand it better!

So, I think my advisor purposedly let me trying to find my way around for 3 years, reading everything I could relating to sociology, only to find out that my initial hunch was right in the first place! Gosh, what a clever way to teach! He has been very patient for 3 years, watching me growing up academically. Or have I? hmmm...May be not, because I guess I have forgotten what I read in the first year already! Darned!

Anyway, his approach is similar to my sword sensei, though. He waits until he sees that I'm ready. Then he told me what to do next. Sort of. He did not really tell me what to do, just give me more list of books to read (as usual) and told me to write. However, this time I really have to catch up fast with the reading list which I normally was too lazy to do. Big mistake! The list piles up fast, man! And before you know it, you feel you are never going to make it!

So, the first thing I did after coming back home after seeing him was Googling "Sociology of Literature." I groaned soon after the result came up? Why? First, the field was not covered in Wiki. And for me, if it is not in Wiki, then, something must be really, really wrong!

And, boy, was I right! Gosh, how come my advisor always send me on to the most difficult path? Why is that? Consider this:

The sociological interpretation Of literature is not a favorite son of organized social science. Since the emancipation of the study of literature from the rigid research dicta and historically cogent laws of philology, almost everybody with a fair access to reading and writing feels entitled to offer historical, aesthetic, and sociological criticism and generalization. The academic disciplines which have been traditionally charged with the history and analysis of literature have been caught unaware by the impact of mass literature, the best seller, the popular magazine, the comics and the like, and they have maintained an attitude of haughty indifference to the lower depths of imagination in print. A field and a challenge have thus been left open and the sociologist will have to do something about them.

Frankfurt School: On Sociology of Literature by Leo Lowenthal 1948

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/lowenthal/1948/literature.htm

If I have more time and energy, I'll update some more about my revised proposal. But I have to do the actual revision first!

Like John Lennon once said, you win some, you lose some. You can't really have it all, I guess. But if you ask me how I felt after my first meeting with my chief advisor for the first time in what seems like aeons, I guess it's pretty ok. At least I got the answers I wanted for today. And I could work with more focus, although it seems I'm going to have even more work load than ever before with the new area I have to cover (soc of lit) and also some other books he mentioned today.

Again, the takeaway from this meeting is

• Keep Bushido, drop Budo.

• Drop Leadership Theory, develop own Operational Term for "Mindfulness" to use in Content Analysis.

• Methodology = Content Analysis.

• Content to be Analyzed = Bushido Literature from Tokugawa Period.

• Analytical Framework to make it Soc of Lit instead of just literature review = "Social Millieux" (or should it be Millieure?)

He also mentioned about Great Tradition and Little Tradition. Oh, there are still many more to read and understand. He emphasized the use of language and its symbolic interpretation. He also listened with interest and expressed agreement when I explained the changing meaning of the word "Nen" in Japanese to him. He said I could include that in my dissertation also.

So, what theories are we looking for now? Social exchange theory? Symbolic theory? Gee, I start to sound more and more like the professor in the Davinci Code who interprets the meaning of stuff in history. But that's what I'm about to set to do, to "decode" Bushido, the code of conduct for the legendary Tokugawa Samurai.

There you go, another title for my dissertation. I should start keeping tab of the ever-changing title of my dissertation, actually. May be that would be the last finishing touch of the whole work even! Don't you think?

Ok, as of today, let it be recorded as:

"Bushido Decoded: Unlocking the Mindfulness Elements in
Tokugawa Samurai's Code of Conduct"

Hmm...I like it. Sounds like "Matrix Reloaded" and "Da Vinci Code" reel into one! hee hee hee Well, we'll see if I could really reload it from the past decode it and deliver what this title promises!