Originally Posted July, 2013
Dissertation Reflections
My recent lack of posts has been due to the decision to focus on writing and editing my dissertation. However, I have been jotting down reflective thoughts throughout the process, and in response to the many tutorials I had along the way.
Subtitles:
Prior to this dissertation, I had never really made use of subtitles in writing projects. During my undergraduate degree, it was generally preferred that students write in a flowing manner uninterrupted by headings, since the majority of papers were comparatively short.
I knew that this dissertation, due to its length, would need the structure provided by subtitles. I began by copying the descriptive points I had included in my initial outline, and over several tutorials, it became clear that they needed to change to better reflect the content and my aims. Rather than being descriptors of each section, I attempted to sum-up or highlight the main idea while piquing the interest of the reader with interesting phrases and juxtapositions.
Research Questions:
I struggled slightly with the formulation of research questions, as I generally tend to begin thinking about papers with a concrete idea already in mind. However, as the topic of curation within the context of contemporary Holocaust art had not really been studied previously, I was forced to develop my own starting point. I began simply with the question: “What defines the role of the curator in exhibitions of Holocaust art?"
From there, and as I began reading around the subject, other questions emerged that formed the basis of what my paper explored.
What differentiates curation here from other contexts? What does the curator do to disseminate the ideas behind Holocaust-based works? How do they contribute to scholarship and artistic dialogue within the subject? General thoughts:
I attempted to balance scholarship and viewpoints from the curatorial field as a whole, with examples from contemporary Holocaust-art exhibitions and theory specific to Holocaust representation. Again, I used first-person interviewing as a method of research that moved beyond existing literature, and had fairly good success with gathering responses from a variety of curators (and one artist). Unfortunately, I did not hear back from several curators who initially responded positively to my requests for interviews.
I think I’ve done a pretty good job delving into an unexplored research area, but of course there is room for improvement. Greater differentiation between curatorial intent and reception would have been great, but I found that I just did not have the space required to cover it fully. Having the benefit of the additional interviews that did not pan out would have been useful here as well. A complete overview of the sub-field would require book-length, but perhaps the work I’ve done on this paper will develop further in the future.