|
I have been working on this paper for hours and hours (and for days previous to this as well). It's nearly 'done'-- as in nearly reached the minimum suggested page limit of 15 pages not including footnotes and illustrations. I am stressing THE FUCK OUT because I feel like it does not have enough depth. I don't have a broad topic:
I proposed that the canonization of point of view in 17th century biblical narrative paintings of Bathsheba and King David directly affects Bathsheba's relationship to the narrative, Bathsheba's relationship to the viewer, and the viewer's relationship to David, representing and perpetuating a contemporary male construct of female sexuality.
But it is broad because I could write a whole thesis paper on this. I worry because I don't have thorough enough of an understanding of the academic dialogue around all of these issues. I have done a ton of reading (as of now I have ~25 visual sources and have read 18 books plus some journal articles) but there is SO MUCH MORE.
It's not my senior thesis class or anything, but it is a senior and grad level class that mostly majors are taking (I'm not an Art History major though). Suggests on knowing how in depth to go on stuff? I don't want to get it back with a low grade because I was too general about everything. -.- I am really stressing about it. ARGH.
 
|
Ask your supervising professor.
Or is this for highschool?
|
Do some more research:D? Google Scholar go
|
Finish writing it, then go back and outline your argument. See if it makes sense and if it's traveling in the right direction. You can go in depth as long as you keep on track! As for participating in academic discourses/whatnot, try Google Scholar and see what gets cited the most in your field.
Ughhh also I know what you mean, I just finished a 10-pager and now I need to get cracking at a 20 page draft for a senior thesis lolol -_-
Fighting 
|
This is for university. I have been talking with my professor over the semester about the development of my thesis and argument. I feel confident it is appropriate for the class and good structurally as a paper. But for each point I could write 5 pages or 50. It just depends on how much I want to enter the academic dialogue.
But then again you could write a million books on judeo-christian patriarchy and sexism and still not cover everything so blargh.
|
What is the word limit of the paper? I suggest just having 3-4 main points and definitely don't make it too generic. Also, you won't be told this in uni, but formatting makes a huge difference on the quality of your paper. Make it look professional and it'll be worth at least 5% more.
Lastly, an interesting paper - I wonder how you handled the 17th century construct of female sexuality is different from the 21st century and during King David's time.
|
Do you have a link to a your work? I do this kind of this professionally so I might be some help.
And biblical text are a bit of my pleasure as well.
|
Btw I have some troubles on my own paper for this semester, maybe I'll ask for help in a blog as well.
Anyway, from my experience they won't judge you too hard if you over analyse something as much as if you go completely off topic. Unless ofc if you are studying philosophy or history.
|
On December 13 2011 12:12 hazelynut wrote:Finish writing it, then go back and outline your argument. See if it makes sense and if it's traveling in the right direction. You can go in depth as long as you keep on track! As for participating in academic discourses/whatnot, try Google Scholar and see what gets cited the most in your field. Ughhh also I know what you mean, I just finished a 10-pager and now I need to get cracking at a 20 page draft for a senior thesis lolol -_- Fighting
This is very important. I know the feeling about having too much to say and not enough words allowed. The most important thing is to have a strong central message. It can be hard to prune points that are relevant but don't necessarily drive your argument. However if you can, you will end up with an essay that is relentless in its pursuit of the main theme. That makes your view much harder to debate and much more powerful. Fluff in any form is detrimental.
I am no art historian so your topic is way over my head. I assume you have a narrow simple point you wish to portray, if not narrow it down. It is better to be powerful on a narrow topic than wishy-washy on a broad one.
|
There is no word limit. My professor said: It can be as long as you want. I expect it would be impossible to appropriately discuss any of the topics with less than 15 pages. If you are very concise and it is slightly less, that's ok.
My formatting is very good, don't worry.  I am following Chicago style to a T.
It's interesting that Bathsheba in the text is different from her role in the visual narrative. She is a secondary character (in the context of 2 Samuel 11 and 12), and there is a very strong case that she is a victim in every way of David's sin. In the art, David plays the secondary role and also the victim. Bathsheba is the seductress who forced/caused David to sin. The shift of point of view is really the shift of blame. (which is still a problem)
Basically my paper goes like this:
The point of view changes how
Bathsheba relates to the narrative
- Bathsheba's biblical role as a victim on the receiving end of David's actions vs
- Bathsheba's artistic role as the initiator and active main character
Bathsheba relates to the viewer
- Bathsheba as the initiator becomes the evil 'seductress' who is the downfall of innocent men (pov allows her to entice the viewer)
- The result is Bathsheba additionally becomes a victim of the viewer/artist who have constructed her this way (this pov) for their own purposes (the desire to view and enjoy her with out guilt). Her character is defamed and she is helpless to defend herself.
Viewer relates to David
- Since Bathsheba is at fault in the visual narrative, David's actions can be excused. He can be upheld as a kingly role model. Similarly the objectification and 'taking' and 'exchanging' of women becomes ok because it's the woman's fault.
|
... Just ask your prof to meet with you and give suggestions if he or she thinks you're not on track. Or if it's due tomorrow stop stressing out about it cause there's nothing more you can do.
I dunno, I've written probably about 100 essays over the course of my degree by now and honestly they're pretty much all the same so I don't see the reason to stress. You've got the bare minimum number of pages, if you don't think you've talked enough then write some more. Honestly I think your thesis is kind of weak tho. I had a professor explain the 15 page essay pretty usefully once: It's basically three essays combined into one. Aka your introduction is probably going to span 1-2 pages. You have your major over arching argument that you're trying to make, then you have 3 general themes which prove that argument, and then within each of those themes you have your regular derpy der short essays (which of course have their own major points to prove them). aka 3 essays that your string together to prove one big point. When you've proved you're right and that you know what you're talking about, that's when you've written enough.
gl noob.
|
On December 13 2011 12:28 RedJustice wrote:There is no word limit. My professor said: It can be as long as you want. I expect it would be impossible to appropriately discuss any of the topics with less than 15 pages. If you are very concise and it is slightly less, that's ok. My formatting is very good, don't worry. I am following Chicago style to a T. It's interesting that Bathsheba in the text is different from her role in the visual narrative. She is a secondary character (in the context of 2 Samuel 11 and 12), and there is a very strong case that she is a victim in every way of David's sin. In the art, David plays the secondary role and also the victim. Bathsheba is the seductress who forced/caused David to sin. The shift of point of view is really the shift of blame. (which is still a problem)
Heh, actually, in the Bible passage, I read it quite differently - I felt that she had a strong part to play in seducing David. I don't believe she wasn't aware that he was looking at her and that she wasn't aware of her beauty and that her bathing place was visible from the palace roof.
Anyways, it's true as well - the Bible passage does paint her as a sort of victim. Maybe it was too R-rated to suggest otherwise.
|
On December 13 2011 12:36 Azzur wrote:Show nested quote +On December 13 2011 12:28 RedJustice wrote:There is no word limit. My professor said: It can be as long as you want. I expect it would be impossible to appropriately discuss any of the topics with less than 15 pages. If you are very concise and it is slightly less, that's ok. My formatting is very good, don't worry. I am following Chicago style to a T. It's interesting that Bathsheba in the text is different from her role in the visual narrative. She is a secondary character (in the context of 2 Samuel 11 and 12), and there is a very strong case that she is a victim in every way of David's sin. In the art, David plays the secondary role and also the victim. Bathsheba is the seductress who forced/caused David to sin. The shift of point of view is really the shift of blame. (which is still a problem) Heh, actually, in the Bible passage, I read it quite differently - I felt that she had a strong part to play in seducing David. I don't believe she wasn't aware that he was looking at her and that she wasn't aware of her beauty and that her bathing place was visible from the palace roof. Anyways, it's true as well - the Bible passage does paint her as a sort of victim. Maybe it was too R-rated to suggest otherwise.
In the Biblical passage, we see that David got up from his bed in the evening and is walking around on his roof.
So he was sleeping (possible laziness suggested by the fact that he also did not go to war 'in the spring when kings go off to war'), perhaps it was already getting dark but definitely in the evening.
He is on his roof-- the highest point because it's the king's palace, and he can see the city from there. It's likely Bathsheba was bathing on her roof since he could see her. This is an appropriate and private part of the home for the time, and since it was getting darker probably she felt it was more private, and it would have made it more difficult to realize someone was watching her.
At any rate-- David sent messengers who took her (the Hebrew word translates to took/carry off/etc).
At the very end of chapter 11 it says the thing David had done displeased the lord. When Nathan comes to rebuke David in chapter 12 there is no mention of Bathsheba playing any active role in the entire series of events. She is only mentioned when Nathan says you took Uriah's wife (twice). Again the Hebrew word is took/carry off.
So there is no textual evidence of Bathsheba being blamed, and the use of the word took, in three instances implies that she had no consent. (Though it doesn't seem sexual violence occurs.)
|
Focus focus focus. It seems like you have 3 major relationships and potentially enough sources for each one alone to show that your thesis is arguable, so pick one (relationship to the narrative sounds easiest to do to me?) and go from there.
|
I'm an English Rhetoric Major, and I run into this problem a lot. However, I'm only in 2nd year, so my solutions may not work for you. But usually what I do is just try to focus down my topics as much as I can. I also cite the crap out of them with journal sources, J stor is my best friend (you uni should give you access to J stor or other online site like it). I find that by focusing on just a single topic I can go into more depth. I don't know much about art history though, but from what it sounds I would focus just on one of these things you mentioned, for example a characters relationship to the viewer. However, the most I've had to write is 10 pages, so you might be struggling for content.
In any-case, good luck man The semester is almost over!
|
On December 13 2011 12:11 Steveling wrote:
Ask your supervising professor.
Or is this for highschool?
Look at what he proposed to do.
That's not something that High Schoolers do.
|
On December 13 2011 12:28 RedJustice wrote:There is no word limit. My professor said: It can be as long as you want. I expect it would be impossible to appropriately discuss any of the topics with less than 15 pages. If you are very concise and it is slightly less, that's ok. My formatting is very good, don't worry. I am following Chicago style to a T. It's interesting that Bathsheba in the text is different from her role in the visual narrative. She is a secondary character (in the context of 2 Samuel 11 and 12), and there is a very strong case that she is a victim in every way of David's sin. In the art, David plays the secondary role and also the victim. Bathsheba is the seductress who forced/caused David to sin. The shift of point of view is really the shift of blame. (which is still a problem) Basically my paper goes like this: The point of view changes how Bathsheba relates to the narrative - Bathsheba's biblical role as a victim on the receiving end of David's actions vs - Bathsheba's artistic role as the initiator and active main character Bathsheba relates to the viewer - Bathsheba as the initiator becomes the evil 'seductress' who is the downfall of innocent men (pov allows her to entice the viewer) - The result is Bathsheba additionally becomes a victim of the viewer/artist who have constructed her this way (this pov) for their own purposes (the desire to view and enjoy her with out guilt). Her character is defamed and she is helpless to defend herself. Viewer relates to David - Since Bathsheba is at fault in the visual narrative, David's actions can be excused. He can be upheld as a kingly role model. Similarly the objectification and 'taking' and 'exchanging' of women becomes ok because it's the woman's fault.
Ok, looking from a completely outside perspective, you could probably write on a single one of these topics if you needed to. If you are trying to prove that The shift of point of view is really the shift of blame. then you need to prove - The point of view changes
- This shifts blame
You don't really need to do that for both characters. If the David shifts from being at fault to being a victim, clearly the opposite is true of Bathsheba.
So if you struggling to keep it tight, maybe just focus on one participant? Don't know if I am helping but whatevs.
|
see, this is one of the shitty things about being too fucking knowledgeable about a certain area. Judging by what you wrote I'm assuming you have a fair amount of knowledge and ideas about what you are writing (unlike other ppl who pull shit out of their ass, of course there is so much jibberish they can pull because they don't really know the stuff they write about). Anyways, it's like you can never finish writing everything down, but it's just too long. And yet, you don't want to miss out on anything.
I definitely know that feeling. 
Good luck though.
|
If it is due tomorrow, you can just refine. No need to change something structurally
|
the canonization of point of view in 17th century biblical narrative paintings of Bathsheba and King David directly affects Bathsheba's relationship to the narrative, Bathsheba's relationship to the viewer, and the viewer's relationship to David, representing and perpetuating a contemporary male construct of female sexuality.
what the fuck.
|
|
|
|
|
|
EPT
