PhD Advice: A test case in finding a dissertation topic – Part 2

Introduction

Now where was that dissertation topic...

In my previous post in this series on finding a dissertation topic: a test case,  I talked about the importance of having an avid interest in the subject you were studying.  (Perhaps those of you who are slogging your way through a boring topic at the moment might disagree… 🙂 But for the rest of you who still have a choice, read on!)

In my particular situation, I was driven to the broad topic of Christian leadership because of my experience of teaching pastors in a bible institute in Latin America.  Thus, I was interested in learning for myself what the Scriptures had to say about this topic.

In this post I want to share the intermediary step that I took between having a broad subject and a potential original thesis.  Essentially it involves working through the various disciplines in my field (theology) and marrying that to even more of my interests, academic strengths and professional goals.

Got academic discipline?

After settling on the broad topic of leadership, I was now left with the enormous task of determining which field of study or academic discipline I would use: theology, historical theology, biblical studies, church history, etc.

Frankly, I was interested in every one of these disciplines, so the choice seemed to be much harder. (For some folks, this is never really an issue; they know they want to do a textual study in the gospels, and therefore begin from there.)

Critical decision factors

Again, using myself as an example, there were many things I needed to consider in winnowing down my topic:

Professional goals – Since I was going back to be teaching in a seminary context in Latin America, I simply imagined which classes I thought I would enjoy teaching.  I also thought back to those classes I most relished in my seminary experience.  The winner? Bible interpretation or bible classes in general, like survey courses in Old or New Testament.

Furthermore, a friend who returned to the mission field after completing his PhD in historical theology stated that if he could have a “do over” he would have chosen biblical studies because of the critical need for bible training in many majority world countries.

Academic strengths – A historical theology degree in the Church Fathers for example would require knowing some serious Latin.  Hebrew and perhaps Aramaic (for some parts of the OT) would be required for the Old Testament.  The same for anything in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

I did not relish the thought of having to come up to speed in any of those languages, not the least because I had a terrible time in my Hebrew language class and using it thereafter.  The truth was I had become a bit rusty.

But Greek, aaaahhhh, now there was something I had been regularly using, and at least when you wrote it down it looked like English.  Though I could still choose to do something in the Septuagint, I would still be forced into more Hebrew than I wanted if I chose something in the Old Testament. I was beginning to gravitate to doing a degree in New Testament.

As you can see here,  I am just speaking about languages and the thought of working in one or the other as a deciding factor.  For your particular case it can be whatever academic strength you might possess, which can help you choose a direction for your topic.

General interests – The final deciding factor on narrowing down my dissertation topic  came back once again to the subjects, figures, books that captured my interest. If I was going to take on a subject in the New Testament, where would that be?

While lots of folks were in love with Pauline theology or ethics, and some people were fascinated by eschatology (thus Revelation was a possible choice), upon further reflection I knew that my topic would have to focus either on the gospels or the Book of Acts.

Both genres held special attraction for me, and the thought of dedicating a serious amount of time to a subject or text within one of these books was very exciting for me (until I actually started to do the work (Just kidding!)) (See my previous post on having a passion for your subject).   

It was only a very small step before I landed in Luke-Acts.  But that will have to wait for another post.  This one has already become quite lengthy.

NOTE: Readers may be surprised that the choice of school and supervisor didn’t enter into the equation for choosing a dissertation topic.  These are critical as well.  However, since I had already decided that my only option for my stage in life was a semi-residential program through the London School of Theology, these played a less crucial role in the choice of my topic.

Conclusion

As you can see, there are many variables that factored  into the winnowing down of my broad topic of leadership.  Professional goals, academic strengths and personal interests were all important.

In my next post, I hope to complete my test case for how I arrived at that elusive, hard to find, (and original) dissertation topic. Please come back at a later date.

As always, your comments are appreciated.  Please feel free to share some of the other factors you may have used in finding your topic.

Happy researching!