Wednesday, November 26, 2008

I have a super-ego supervisor!

To write a PhD dissertation, you need to a supervisor, someone who will tell you to finish that goddam chapter by next week I don't care if you're teaching a full course load. Or to put down the Derrida, it's great but you can't use it for this. As with any decision that will impact the next three years of your quotidian life and the first five years of your career, it is easy to let anxiety take over and defer... Well today I approached a professor in the department, and he told me he would be "honoured" because my performance in his seminar thus far had been "impressive." And then he read my prospectus and really liked it and offered me tea and we chitty chatted about Bakunin and laughed at how Zizek has become such a Leninist of late.

2 comments:

Kate and/or Mike said...

Do you realize that you're going to be that first generation where, instead of rifling through philosopher's letters to friends to catch a glimpse of their personal lives and contexts, future philosophy students will reference printed, bound editions of your blog? "How does her comment on microwave ovens echo her theory of binary exclusion?" (And I'm making stuff up 'cuz I don't know philosophy but you philosophers feel free to laugh at my attempt at an example.) References will be annotated: "Prosecco: a variety of white grape grown in the Veneto region of Italy; sparkling wine made from this grape." OMG, I'm going to be a footnote someday!

Phil said...

Neither my former supervisor, who just left our department to become my former supervisor, nor my new supervisor, with whom I have not yet met in that capacity, would ever say "goddamn," unfortunately. I think I've heard both of them say Derrida, though.