Okay! "Narrative and Motivation"

Finally, after about a year of working on it, I have sent my prelim paper to my committee members. Next they’ll wade through it, and then I do an oral defense. It’s about three times longer than they usually are - apparently I was overly ambitious when picking my topic. After this thing's approved, I’ll do a dissertation proposal, and then I can finally get that last big project under way.

( If you’re curious, here’s what’s in my paper (table of contents) )

As I’m sure you can guess, this was a very interdisciplinary project. My sources include, let’s see, anthropologists, historians, literary theorists, philosophers, sociologists, political scientists, novelists, environmentalists, a playwright, a Zen teacher, a travel writer, and great hordes of psychologists.