Introduction: A Dissertation Blog
Welcome to the daily journal of my struggle with the dissertation process. What? Why would anyone want to read about the travails of some lonely graduate student, working long hours in the dusty libraries of UC Berkeley? First off, the beauty of blogs is simply that no one ever has to justify an audience; blogs just -are-, for the reading and the writing.
Second, that lonely graduate student isn't me. I'm a human, have a great life, a fab husband, and generally have a lot of fun. (New hobby: www.velerosa.com.) Furthermore, after long years of the dusty-library kind of work, I've hit upon a field of research and a topic to work on which both involve meeting people, talking to them about the intimate details of their lives - often ideas, fantasies, or thoughts they would never tell their friends or partners - namely, sex.
Lots of people study sex, of course; but I'm talking about something that seems almost totally absent from academic literature: the daily experience of life as a sexual creature. Humans are, of course, sexual creatures - it seems intuitively obvious that our hard-wiring must influence, to varying degrees, our daily experiences. But almost no one has written much about the interaction between our sexual feelings, our rational lives, and (in my case), the world of work. In fact, there's kind of a void of literature directly relevant to the topic, even if it's not right on point.
It usually surprises people to hear that sociologists don't know very much about the way sexuality manifests itself in everyday life. But this is the only conclusion I can draw after a few years of reviewing the existing literatures in law, sociology, queer theory, organization management, etc. One of these days I'll get around to publishing my analysis - tentatively I call it the "shadow of sexual harassment" phenomenon, which basically means that social scientists and legal scholars, following their good intentions, tend to study the horrifying and all-too-common attacks and discrimination against (mostly) women.
For now, though, that's just the background for those of us reading, posting and commenting on this blog - it's the starting point. I've started this blog to help the creative juices flow and allow the communities I'm studying - that's you - to guide me in my analysis. Hope you enjoy reading, and I hope you enjoy commenting or posting even more!
Second, that lonely graduate student isn't me. I'm a human, have a great life, a fab husband, and generally have a lot of fun. (New hobby: www.velerosa.com.) Furthermore, after long years of the dusty-library kind of work, I've hit upon a field of research and a topic to work on which both involve meeting people, talking to them about the intimate details of their lives - often ideas, fantasies, or thoughts they would never tell their friends or partners - namely, sex.
Lots of people study sex, of course; but I'm talking about something that seems almost totally absent from academic literature: the daily experience of life as a sexual creature. Humans are, of course, sexual creatures - it seems intuitively obvious that our hard-wiring must influence, to varying degrees, our daily experiences. But almost no one has written much about the interaction between our sexual feelings, our rational lives, and (in my case), the world of work. In fact, there's kind of a void of literature directly relevant to the topic, even if it's not right on point.
It usually surprises people to hear that sociologists don't know very much about the way sexuality manifests itself in everyday life. But this is the only conclusion I can draw after a few years of reviewing the existing literatures in law, sociology, queer theory, organization management, etc. One of these days I'll get around to publishing my analysis - tentatively I call it the "shadow of sexual harassment" phenomenon, which basically means that social scientists and legal scholars, following their good intentions, tend to study the horrifying and all-too-common attacks and discrimination against (mostly) women.
For now, though, that's just the background for those of us reading, posting and commenting on this blog - it's the starting point. I've started this blog to help the creative juices flow and allow the communities I'm studying - that's you - to guide me in my analysis. Hope you enjoy reading, and I hope you enjoy commenting or posting even more!
posted by Mark H. at 9:56 AM
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