Chris Brady has made several of his publications on Targum Lamentations (including his dissertation) available as PDFs on his blog. Analyzing ancient Bible versions is another of my many interests, and studying the Targums is additionally attractive to me because it also covers my interests in early biblical interpretation, early Judaism, religion in Late Antiquity, and translation studies.
Decisions, decisions. How am I ever going to come up with a dissertation proposal with interests ranging from the Ba'al epic in Ugaritic (pre-1200 BCE) to the Pesiqta Rabbati (midrashic text likely post-650 CE)? I guess I am limited by what my potential advisors will allow, but I fear they will let me start out too broad and I'll spend too much time just trying to sift the secondary literature.
Decisions, decisions. How am I ever going to come up with a dissertation proposal with interests ranging from the Ba'al epic in Ugaritic (pre-1200 BCE) to the Pesiqta Rabbati (midrashic text likely post-650 CE)? I guess I am limited by what my potential advisors will allow, but I fear they will let me start out too broad and I'll spend too much time just trying to sift the secondary literature.
Maybe this is an ignorant statement, but why not just choose one of your interests and stick to that area--or is that the problem, you can't decide which interest to pick?
ReplyDeleteCalvin, that's the problem. I tend to be a big picture, broad strokes kind of guy. Our program at UW-Madison is good for that because you can get exposure to a broad range of topics. My main problem right now is that I'm afraid my topics are too big and I'm not sure how to narrow it down. Good advice though - choose one and stick with it. (I'm also weighing the choice of advisor. One is retiring soon, so I'd have to switch midstream, likely to a new faculty member who wouldn't know me or my work.)
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