Dissertation handed in

I handed in my dissertation on 1 September. It came out to be about 14,000 words, and about 39 pages total (with cover). I will post the final version online as soon as I find a computer that supports Microsoft Frontpage, in order to upload it to Villanova's server. I'm fairly happy with how it turned out, my writing has come a long way since first term--it's gotten more crisp and clear in terms of writings, and more refined in it's content. After I post the final copy, there will more no more updates to this blog, it will be archived. I will, however, be starting up a general art blog, called art rhizome (borrowing Gilles Deleuze's term for the title). This new blog will be a continuation in my interest to keep blogging about art events, news, and so on; which I also did in the dissertation blog, as a sort of side interest. However, the dissertation blog was very useful in regards to helping me pinpoint where my interests in art are; which was a major problem for me during the course. But I think this blog helped with that, and in hindsight I can see what themes in art really seem to interest me. Here is something I wrote about the blog, albeit it was removed from the final version of the dissertation (it was originally a footnote): "The blog has its pragmatic advantages, a way for me to keep track of gallery websites, online articles, etc. It also allowed me to share this information in real-time with a wider audience, such as my fellow postgraduate students at Leeds. Furthermore, it has its theoretical assets, as documentation of the dissertation writing process; process itself being a significant theme in twentieth-century artistic practices. Also, the blog is quite rhizomatic (see Deleuze and Guattari); it illustrates a day-by-day account and the varied, seemingly random, angles one draws from throughout the research process. The blog was created using Blogger.com and is now closed (no more updates or entries) and is archived, as of September 2005, but can still be found at the website mentioned above. However, the purpose of the blog was my own personal prerogative and is not a necessary element of the final dissertation. By blogging my interests in art and my dissertation progress and resources, I began to become more conscious of where my interests in art lie."