Huzzah! I passed my major field exam! Aka “comps” in other departments. I am now considered a doctoral candidate, having accomplished All But Dissertation.
The exam was far too much fun. My field of interest (medieval liturgical commentaries) is perhaps one of the least sexy areas in the world of Medieval Studies, and unless you hang out with a select group of people, liturgy itself is at best unknown and at worst thought boring. Thus, having the rapt attention of four professors for two hours while I talked about my academic passion was unprecedentedly thrilling.
As one of my good friends predicted, I think it’s my passion and enthusiasm that got me through. It certainly wasn’t my articulateness, as I jumped from one tangent to another and left thought dangling in the air uncompleted as I went onto a related thought. Wild gesticulations there were plenty of, and I’m glad it wasn’t video recorded so I will never have to face my flailing. I look forward to age, experience, and maturity bringing me a bit more gravity and certainly a greater clarity and order to my thoughts.
Medieval liturgy is such a vast field, though! It can be approached from innumerable angles, and I am trying to take scholarship on the commentaries on a new direction (which isn’t saying much, seeing as there are about 1.5 scholars who have specialized in medieval liturgical commentaries since the beginning of the twentieth century). I must grapple with questions of medieval worldview, Scriptural knowledge and education, legal studies, dialectic, the progression of schools from monastic/courtly/cathedral institutions to independent masters to universities, the tension between secular and sacred powers and the development of the articulation of their various duties, the relationship between clergy and laity, participation of the laity in liturgy (perhaps traces in vernacular literature, in pious female literature, in sermons directed to laity), Mass, Divine Office, vestments, liturgical time, the influence of Plato and Aristotle, the Church Fathers……… essentially, I feel, I must know the entire Middle Ages inside and out: intellectually, culturally, ecclesiastically, politically, artistically, etc. I think I’ve hit a jackpot of an area of specialization.
Enough gushing. I must try to assemble a review of what we covered in the exam (seeing as my advisors had some good leads to recommend) and list what sorts of steps of action I must take next. And I think I may need to grab a bite to eat. And I can’t forget the 39 Renaissance History exams I have waiting eagerly for me to mark them….
Reluctant Scholar 