The Dissertation.

So this weekend has been a dissertation slog. Everyone seems to have got 'the fear' a little bit over their dissertations. A friend and I decided over a much needed coffee break the other day that 'the fear' was definitely an appropriate name.

'The Dissertation' has always seemed something which was this terrifying and alien concept that only third years were ready to undertake and now that it has actually come to the task it really isn't as bad as expected. Well, it is and it isn't. Quelling the rising panic of having to write 15,000 on one subject that you've thought up yourself isn't always easy. Especially if when you explain your argument your supervisor he surveys you in this sort of 'I'm-not-quite-sure-where-you're-going-with-this' kind of look. But when you look as it as five 3,000 word essays then it's definitely not as bad, or not quite as bad anyway... Plus, you've chosen the title and thus the argument yourself so it's not a case of grappling with the ambiguous essay questions that lecturers have set.... So yes, I'm desperately trying to act like it's all under control...

Unfortunately I do seem to have set myself the challenge of a particularly challenging argument...it's a bit intangible...it's all about how knowledge is power... I'm focusing on the exchange of knowledge in the Shilluk District in Southern Sudan during the British Condominium in the first half of the 20th century. I promise it is more interesting than it sounds! For my first chapter I've been talking about how the traditional chiefs in the District traded their knowledge of tribal tradition and custom for a position in the state structure. And how effectively the British made knowledge into a currency that could be traded for power. Of course, as Wingate proclaimed in 1918: "Knowledge is power."

So I've done a couple of checks through and the chapter generally looks ok..but that means more that I've had enough of it for the moment and can't be bothered to trawl through it amazing myself at my lack of expression any longer.

Anyway...on to chapter 2: how the chiefs traded knowledge of the government for legitimacy among their people...