On Monday night (April 16th), in the midst of watching the latest episode of Mad Men, I received an e-mail from Prof. Janet Bergstrom, one of the members of my Fantastic Four dissertation committee (which was rounded out by Profs. John Caldwell, Denise Mann, and Henry Jenkins). She had just finished reading the second draft of my dissertation and offered up a few general comments, some copy editing notes, and a flattering congratulations: "Looking forward to calling you Dr. Drew!!"
There weren't any trumpets or parties (UCLA does not have a dissertation defense; we are asked to spend a year drafting a lengthy dissertation prospectus that is reviewed both by the Cinema and Media Studies faculty and our dissertation committees before becoming ABD). I scooped out some ice cream and celebrated my newly acquired Doctorhood with my wife. After ten years of work from B.A. to Ph.D., the whole process ended in a pleasant whisper.
Now, I'm not necessarily lamenting the closure I was given Monday night, just reflecting on it. I'm not sure what I expected when I finished but - as John told me - the lack of a formal defense does make it a quiet affair. In terms of timeline, here's how it went down:
I turned in a first draft of my dissertation early last summer to my co-chairs John and Denise.
The project, which focuses on the interlinking industries and styles of the American comic book industry and the Hollywood studio system, had been a hobby of mine since 2007 as a student in Janet's course on visual essays so I found that my love of it and my already established knowledge of the field made for a fairly smooth research and writing process.
I got back some notes in May (this was after spending a year working out a finely tuned prospectus, so most of the major issues had already been addressed, expediting the revision process), spent the summer revising, and got their blessing to go ahead and send out the second draft to Henry and Janet in January. Henry finished up about a month ago and then Janet finished up this week. The four committee members were pleased and while suggestions were made, they were all made on the hopeful assumption that this would one day become a book.
C'est tout.
In the meantime, I've been getting a lot of questions about jobs and new projects. Unfortunately, I do not have a tenure-track job lined up. I'm currently an adjunct at California State University, Los Angeles and I'm really enjoying my time there teaching American Film History. The job market could be a whole other post in itself but I'll just note that it's the most humbling gauntlet I've ever run and I believe that has done wonders for my character (there's some truth to tearing something down only to build it back up). Yet, I'm looking at the bright side of that. My 9-5 is low-impact, which has opened the door to new projects. I'm looking forward to working through Adobe Creative Suite 5.5 - refining my Photoshop skills and working on some visual essays with Matthias Stork and Ben Sampson - and turning my dissertation into an article and a book proposal. The horizon is full of possibilities and while I am not typically a mind who handles uncertainty without anxiety, I realize I am beginning to get there.
In the meantime, I just want to thank a few people for making this possible. First off, my wife Nicole for all of her support and patience during the past ten years. Secondly, to my stellar, caring, critically constructive, committee. Working with John, Denise, Janet, and Henry was a tremendous experience and I still can't wait to learn more from the four of them. Third, my classmates at UCLA. David, Jen, Cliff, Julia, and Maya: I owe much of this accomplishment to you for honing my prospectus in. Also, a hearty thanks is due to Nick Browne, Steve Mamber, and Vivian Sobchack for pushing me to refine that very same document in their research design courses. Finally, I owe this to my friends and family. Mom, Dad, Tyler, Neal, the community of Comics Studies folks (Mike, Matt, Scott, Andrei, Jim, Suzanne). Thank you all so much. I look forward to making you all proud as my life path takes on new directions.
Edit: I guess I can finally claim ownership of the blog title now.
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