Really Done!

I just received word that my manuscript has been accepted by Clemson. That officially ends the process of writing my masters thesis. My degree will be awarded on December 18 and I'll go down on the 19th to pick it up. This has been a very long and tiresome project, but looking back on it, it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. There were some late nights and a few personal days from work, but nothing that really killed me.
Now I get to pay more attention to my classes at school and read what I want to read. Which is not to say I won't be reading Donald Davidson any more. I have some of his stuff still that I'd like to pay more attention to than I could during the thesis writing phase. Not to mention the other Agrarians that I hardly touched at all.
I'll post a picture of my diploma when I get it.

I Passed!

I defended my thesis on Donald Davidson on Nov. 19. There were some pretty tough questions but I managed to answer them to the satisfaction of my committee members. I now have to submit my revised thesis to my adviser and then, once he signs off on it, to the Graduate School for publication. All this has to be done before Dec. 5. After that I just wait until Dec. 19 to go down and pick up my diploma and drop off several milk crates full of books to the Library.
I can't believe I'm done. It has been a very interesting experience to put this much energy into a project of this size and get it done well.

Thesis Defense

My thesis defense has been scheduled for Wednesday (Nov. 19). I was incorrect in that I am not defending the new draft of my thesis, but rather the draft I sent my committee. I also have to defend coursework I took with these men. For the three men on my committee that means I have to answer questions on General Historiography, American Historiography, and the American South. All of those were fun classes, but I did take them a while ago.
I am nervous, but anxious to be done with this phase of my life. It doesn't mean anything immediately (compensation-wise) nor am I looking to immediately begin working towards a doctorate, but it represents a lot of time and energy on my part and it is exciting to see it coming to a close.
By the end of the day on Wednesday, I should know whether I get to put M.A. on my stuff or not.
Until then, I am reading stuff they have told me they want me thinking about and working on the revisions for my thesis.

Step Two

Well, my thesis has been accepted by my adviser. That means that I now send it to the other two members of my committee and they tell me what they think about it. My adviser made lots of comments and suggestions, as the other members will, I'm sure. Once I get all their feedback, I'll make changes and then defend the corrected version of my thesis. This will all need to happen before Thanksgiving. If all goes well, I will graduate with an M.A. in History.
I am very excited about this, and very appreciative of my adviser. He really went out of his way to help me when I came to him saying I needed to graduate this semester. The other members of my committee are all men I respect as well, so I am sure their comments are going to be valuable.
I'll keep the blog posted as to what happens and how it happens.

Guess what???

Guess what this is...










It is the first completed draft of my thesis. I still don't have a title for it, but I guess I don't have to for my first draft. It ended up about 109 pages long, with the bibliography.
Now it is time to do the editing process. I have two friends looking into the grammar, which I know will be awful. My wife and I have agonized over the arrangement, and probably are not done with that yet. I am still not satisfied with my introduction.
Nonetheless, the first draft is complete.
Oh, yeah, it has to be turned in Wednesday.

Knee Deep in Research

I haven't posted anything recently because I am knee deep in research. Every once in a while, until I get a draft of my thesis, I may post something I find interesting from my research.
Here is an interesting quote from Donald Davidson...
"A civilization cannot feed and flourish upon perishable things. Only imperishable at its center can give it life. Nothing is more imperishable than poetry. In comparison, the material works of science and industry are but fleeting trifles. No civilization of the past has ever lived without poetry. Our civilization can hardly be an exception."

Agrarianism

The more I read of Davidson, the more I get the impression that to him, Agrarianism meant a balance life. He didn't say it very well, all the time, but as I read more and more of what he wrote, he doesn't have a beef with machines per se. He has a problem with a messianic faith in machines. He doesn't have a problem with industry per se, he has a problem with a messianic faith in industrialism to relieve all our woes.
Davidson seems to hold on to Agrarianism as the best way to bring everything back into balance. A clear harmony between the life of the land and the life of the city seems to be in view with him. Now if I can just prove it.

Home ... where you least expect it

In researching the life and career of Donald Davidson and the Agrarians I have found many interesting notes about my own home, Middle Tennessee. For instance, Donald Davidson great-great-grandfather, Andrew Davidson put down roots near Shelbyville, TN after his first family was murdered by Shawnee Indians in Virginia. Donald's father spent some time in Winchester, TN (my hometown) at a teacher preparatory school I never knew existed.
Allen Tate's family often came down to Estill Springs for a family vacation. Apparently it used to be quite the wealthy Nashvillian hang out. Several of these men spent time in or around Sewanee and the University of the South. Tate edited the Sewanee Review for a while, as did Andrew Nelson Lytle. Lytle actually retired to Monteagle and died there in 1995.
This has been one of the interesting and exciting things about this research. It has given me a new glimpse of the home I grew up in and yet never really appreciated.

The Process

I have been down to Clemson University several times in the past two weeks. I have registered for my final class, a Master's Research class. I have paid for said class (Thanks, Dad!). I have spoken to advisors in the department and managed to get all the appropriate forms signed and turned in. I have raided the library more times than I'd like to think. My limit on books is 200. I'm not sure how close I am on that.

This is just one part of a bookcase. The stuff you can see is in front of my books.











I have photocopied, scanned, and printed more articles than I ever thought I would. Here are some of them on my
desk

and floor












The process is to begin to read as much as I can about Davidson and figure out what exactly I can say about him or ideas that he had that hasn't been said before. With my Senior Thesis at UTC, I did this by looking at how B.B. Warfield and Charles Hodge both used the philosophy of Thomas Reid, called Common Sense Realism. Stuff had been written on Reid, Warfield, and Hodge, but no one brought it together and said what I tried to say.
At this point I have read two biographies of Davidson, several books on the Agrarian movement, and a ton of Davidson's own writings. I am coming close to something. I can feel it. I just hope it happens before school starts. My ability to read for seven hours at a time reduces severely at that point. If I have a thesis statement by that point, however, then I have about 45 days to write at least 90 pages on my topic. If I make it to October 15 with a draft, I should be home free from there.

Paternalism in Southern History

I find it very interesting that, in Southern historiography, no white southerner can have any concern for an African-American without it being paternalistic. There is no room for generosity, love, compassion, or genuine fellowship. Every attempt by a white southerner to reach out to the African-American is dubbed "paternalism" which means that they are reaching down, not out.
To a large degree I suppose we have brought this on ourselves, but it ticks me off.

Going for the Gold, or the hat, or the paper, or something...

I just found out I am about 90 some-odd pages away from my M.A. in History. I thought I had a language requirement hanging over my head but I talked to the director of the Language department and they said I was clear. So now, with all my coursework done I just have to write my thesis.
I met with my advisor yesterday about this and we talked through the timetable. Unless I can graduate this semester (Fall 2008) I will have to wait until August 2009. But my advisor is going on a sabbatical beginning this Spring and will be gone until August 2009. To graduate this semester I have to have a draft of the thing on his desk in September (i.e. 30 days).
I'd like to be done. But I'm not sure I can do this whole thing in 30 days. I think I'm going to give it a try though.
So the saga of the M.A. for Mr. Sisk continues. Mr. Sisk, who is writing a masters thesis on Donald Davidson's attempt to counter modernity through Agrarianism, Distributism, and Regionalism. Donald Davidson who was hopelessly modern but hated modernity (which he identified with nothing more than industrialism).
I have typed a single page with "90 Pages" written on it and taped it above my monitor. That way I will remember for the next 30 days that I have nothing more important (in my spare time) than an essay of 90 pages on Modernism and the futile reaction of one little man from Vanderbilt University.
Follow the continuing saga here, if you wish. Maybe even support me if you can.

Lost Causes

As I continue to work through the life of Donald Davidson for my thesis, I am amazed at how easy it is to get mixed up in lost causes. The idea of the lost cause is a favorite of historians, especially those of the Civil War era. Davidson backed the agrarian movement, the regionalism movement, and the distributist movement. All of these failed completely to make any changes in national policy about anything.
What is a lost cause? My first year of post-baccalaureate work required me to take a senior level history class called Great Losers. Each week we had to write a presentation that presented some person or civilization as a great loser in history. The genius of this class was, of course, you had to really know about history in order to argue that someone was a great loser. The idea of losing is really significant to us, I think. It goes right along with the idea of martyrdom. We are drawn to ideas and movements that create martyrs because we are mystified by the fact that anybody would die for anything. How can someone believe something so much that he or she would be willing to die for it. Davidson was not a martyr, at least not in the traditional sense, but he did latch onto several movements that were destined to fail.
The draw of the lost cause, I think, is the notion that you stood with something when there was little to no evidence that you ought to do so. The decision to remain on the sinking ship has a heroism about it that we relish in, if even vicariously. Tennyson wrote about the lost cause in the Charge of the Light Brigade.

When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wondered.
Honor the charge they made,
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

So many events come to mind when we consider the idea of lost cause. The Song of Roland captures the imagery of such an event, as Roland makes the decision to remain an fight, knowing death waits, to give the rest of the army time to get away. The Battle of Dunkirk is another moment when the idea of the lost cause rears its head, though in point of fact, not much was really lost then; maybe dignity. This brings us to one of the underlying roots of the lost cause and its attraction. Who could not have respect for someone who stood for a lost cause? Well, that depends on the cause I guess. It depends on whether your lost cause was the rescue of British soldiers from the beach of Dunkirk or racial segregation. They would, and should, be perceived very differently by most people. But in a majority of cases, someone who stood for a lost cause is going to get a lot of respect for having stood firm. That is because we are intoxicated with the desire for perseverance. We show so little of it, yet it permeates our human emotions. We persevere at so little that we are drawn to those who do, for whatever reason. I suspect that most people even have a minuscule amount of admiration for religious extremists simply because they believed what they believed so much that they were willing to die or blow themselves up for it. Most of us would not admit that in public, but I'll bet its there.
Sadly, this devotion to the lost cause because of the lack of evidence is where many people get stuck with religion. There are many people out there who are attracted to religious movements because they are the underdogs of society. Science and modernity are the big guys on the block these days and religion has been kicked to the corner. But along with religion has gone much of our social consciousness as well as those intangible things like manners, civility, honesty, integrity, and so forth. Many people cling to religion as a means to get those back and back the underdog at the same time. This is not right!
Rather we should consider the ways in which biblical, orthodox Christianity is like a lost cause to see why it isn't. First it certainly seems as though the reality of Christ's reign is disputed by every event of history. If Christ were ruling, how could cancer be so prevalent among us? If Christ were reigning, why would sexual predators get away with so much? It feels like a lost cause. But feelings can be deceiving. The objectivity of Christ's reign is not in the headlines, but in the Scriptures which declare, without compromise, that Christ reigns until His enemies are made His footstool. All the enemies of the gospel (not the established church, mind you) must be defeated through the spread of the gospel (Rev. 19:15).
Second, the social benefits of biblical Christianity are rooted in the faith of Christianity. Those who cling to religion for the social benefits usually do not really accept the faith. They are social Christians. Many people, especially in the South, have been reduced to this kind of faith. This is due to the fact that the modern world has tried its best to erase the antithesis from life. They are deceived into believing that they can synthesize Christianity and modernity into one seamless whole; that they can have their cake and eat it too. We want to be able to rebel against the law, to be antinomian, and have the benefits of the law at the same time. We want a religion that does not criticize our decisions to have pre-marital sex, view pornography, be deceptive for our own gain, or ignore the suffering of others. But at the same time we want the social benefits of the faith. We want people to get along, be civil , to each other. We want people to share of their good fortune with others. We want happiness.
Davidson, I think, understood that you can't have it both ways. That is why he chose to draw the line with the lost cuases. All of his lost causes were causes that stood in line with biblical Christianity, even if he didn't necessarily, against the failure and lies of modernity. Davidson understood the antithesis and stood firm, even if it meant ridicule or disdain, which it did.

Busy couple of weeks

In the last two weeks I have done quite a bit. I first went to Charleston, SC for the Society for Classical Learning conference. I had a wonderful time there listening to and learning from many in the classical school community. Charleston was, of course, fantastic. I made some new friends in schools I hadn't heard of before.
One of the most interesting folks I met was Andrew Kern. Andrew is director of CiRCE in Charlotte, NC and editor of the Quiddity blog on the blogroll. I highly recommend checking his blog out from time to time.
After the SCL conference I went over to my home state of Tennessee and visited family for about a week. While there I did the impossible, I read an entire book. R.J. Rushdoony's Foundations of Social Order made it into my bag because I have been trying to read through the Bannockburn reading list. I found it a fascinating read with much to contribute to my thinking and the church as well. I highly recommend it. Through commentary on the creeds and councils of the early church, Rushdoony points out four key concepts that must be understood to lie at the heart of any social order. 1) A Creed: Every society has one. Even not having one is having one. 2) The State: The State with either be a ministry of justice (its god-given role) or it will attempt to be messianic (its humanistic desire). 3) Sovereignty: This will either be immanent or transcendent. 4) Grace: This element puts every outworking of the social order in proper perspective. Social action only makes sense if done through grace, which must understand the nature of sin and corruption. If done without a proper understanding of grace social action is just humanistic and attempting to fix a problem by adjusting the environment of the sinner. This will never work.
I just got back from Tennessee and think I have found a starting place for my thesis. After finishing Rushdoony I picked up my Agrarianism reading again. Donald Davidson wrote a piece about the New Deal in which he talks about a Agrarian-Distributist view. Once I read that something began clicking into place.
It has been amazing to see that stuff I've been thinking about for years has begun making sense the more I read the agrarians. They have dealt with much of this before. Immigration, industrialism, social action, ancient history, Chesterton and Belloc. All of this has begun to coalesce while I have been reading these guys.
I will have to do some serious study of Davidson and Distributism, but I think I'm going to latch onto that idea (the idea of a Agrarian-Distributist view) and move with it.
I am still blogging about Angels in the Architecture, or rather intend to still blog about it. I already have some later chapters blogged out, but want to do them in order.