I, Curtis

Category: Thesis Thoughts

  • Thesis: Outline for a Literature Review

    My central question for my thesis still eludes me, but I have at least assembled an outline of the technical part of the literature review:

    • An Introduction to the Domain Naming System
      • Reference to initial RFCs
      • Classic gTLDs
      • 2003 Additional TLDs
    • The new gTLD Process
    • Price Differences Between new gTLDs and classic gTLDs
    • Price Differences Within the new gTLD Space
    • Distribution of gTLD Ownership
    • Dot Brand
      • Intellectual Property Defense vs. Corporate Use
      • No Dotless Domains
    • Community Representation for Specialized gTLDs
    • Stakeholders: Registrants and Consumers
    • New gTLDs with Similar or Related Strings
    • Change in Types of Internet Use Since 1985

    There is still a lot to do, including pulling in sociology of culture materials and gradually fleshing out the sociology of the Internet stuff, but this at least puts me on track to begin writing about the topic and thinking about it sociologically.

  • Entering “Thesis Summer”

    At this point in my graduate school career I should have narrowed down a thesis topic and be prepared to engage in a detailed literature review of that topic over the next several months. Unfortunately I have yet to isolate my thoughts that closely and feel like I am not ready to begin my literature review or engage in the types of preliminary research that is typically considered prudent during this time of my academic career. Of the 6 people in my cohort, all have isolated their topics to at least one particular category of interest and seem to have a strong direction in which they seem to want to go, except me.

    I have a wide range of interests in Sociology, but I’m finding it difficult to narrow any of them down to a specific topic I wish to engage in a long-term, in-depth way.

    Currently my scopes are:

    • Sociology of the Internet
    • Deviance (Social Construction of Deviance)
    • Sociology of Sexuality (and the intersection of sexuality and gender)
    • Sociology of Culture (Sub-cultures)
    • Social Complexity (Complex Systems approach to Social Science, which is more of a method than an area of study)

    I have very broad interests in sociology (as well as other fields such as philosophy and information technology), so for me to narrow them down will be a huge struggle, but somehow I have to manage to get through it if I want to graduate next spring. I suppose the key to doing this will be to start a brief review of the literature of each of my major areas of interest and determining if there is any concentration area where I feel like I can dive in and make a difference.

  • Formulating a Thesis Topic

    Last semester there was a faculty member who strongly suggested that I avoid using anything involving sadomasochism or fetishism as a thesis topic. As a result I began secondary topic searches on the topics of the digital divide and gaps in digital literacy. While the topic interested me some, it was not as interesting or as personal as my work on paraphilia communities.

    I presented my interest areas to my actual thesis advisor as well as my research methods professor and they both seem very receptive and willing to help me transform my interest areas into a workable thesis idea. Somehow just having their support in this area has resolved my concerns about feeling like there is no point in me being a part of the sociology program. I feel as enthusiastic now about sociology as I did when I first applied.

    My current thoughts toward a thesis topic involve seeking to what extent people with paraphiliac sexualities will hide their sexuality from others around them and also compare that with the opinions of “normative” individuals regarding paraphiliac sexual identities to see if there is a correlation or if there are other explanations for the levels of secrecy and presentation of a differently constructed “public self”. I have already given some thought to some research designs that will allow me to accomplish this particular project.

    As it stands, I will likely be going with my “deviant” topic for my thesis.

  • Assembling My Committee

    Very soon it will be time for me to form my thesis committee. In some ways the process has already started by me selecting Vaughn as my thesis chair, faculty mentor and academic advisor. As I get closer to my final topic I must work to form my committee. I am having trouble deciding how I will select faculty for the remaining 2 positions on the committee. Oddly the members of my committee will help shape my topic and my topic will help me select members. I have several people in mind for the two positions that are open. The biggest problem I’m having is that I have 4 people in mind for my open interdisciplinary seat, but I have no one in mind for the sociology seat. I’m really not sure what that means, if it means I’m really in the wrong department or if it means that I just have not spent enough time getting to know faculty in my department. The committee will steer my thesis and help me decide how to execute it. I have three options for completing my thesis: qualitative, quantitative or theoretical. I want to ensure that none of my faculty will attempt to close any doors on me. I want the option of having a theoretical thesis and all of the challenge that comes with that, and I want faculty that will not try very hard to pressure me into some sort of quantitative data gathering mission. I am not a believer in the importance of qualitative data.

    Due to my recent admission to the Master of Arts in information technology I am very much leaning toward sociology of culture as my primary area and digital communities as the broad topic area I would like to use for my thesis. There is so much that I feel like I can do with the topic at this point. I know that there is a lot of active research, but it is all from a mainstream perspective and through an outside view. I feel like I have a little advantage in that I am familiar with some of the technical background and have a knowledge of the history of many of the technologies used in forming and maintaining digital communities.

    I don’t know where things will end up with my thesis or my program, but at the very least I want to make sure I get the right people in the right positions to make things work out the best that thy possibly can.

  • Considering My Academic Work

    Beginning with my entry into the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies certificate program last year my research interests have been somewhat narrow, focusing on homosexuality and alternative sexualities. These are are areas that are very special to me, but yet an exclusive focus on these areas do not fully represent me as an academic. After a brief discussion on Tuesday in Pro-Seminar I find myself questioning the depth at which I have been investing myself in this one particular research area. For sociology my research interest is more about identity, especially identity and group process for marginalized groups.

    I feel like after the various options I had going in to this year I have become lost in my previous research and have not spent enough time evaluating new directions or new ideas. I am still growing as a scholar and I need to spend more time in breadth and allow myself to narrow down as I get closer to the PhD. I started work last year in WGST and Cognitive Science with the intention of being in the counseling program this year. As such I was utilizing the year to work on things that were important to me before diving in to a more structured program. Once I was denied entry to counseling and was waitlisted for sociology I went to my backup plan of using the MALS program, which would basically extend the certificate in WGST to a full degree program. After admission to sociology it seems as though I have forgotten to re-evaluate my research interests in any serious way. I have listed my interests, but I have not taken efforts to refocus my efforts on selecting the best possible topic for my thesis. Diving in to the first assignment in Pro-Seminar I selected BDSM and Sadomasochism as terms to begin my search for abstracts of articles that will one day form my literature review which will lead directly into my thesis.

    My current plan based on these new thoughts is to move my specific BDSM topics to a tutorial class (utilizing my last tutorial space) and making my thesis more about marginalized identity, but of course including relevant elements from the tutorial.

    As with any plan that I formulate, there is a backup plan (at least one). Other thoughts I have had involve a project on family structures and an analysis of alternative family structures and their “outcomes”. I may perhaps be able to toss a bit of religion in there as well. It even crossed my mind to do a project involving the structures involved in policy formation in ICANN, IANA, etc that lead to changes in the experience of the Internet’s constituency. 

  • Potential Thesis Topic: Contextual Sadomasochist Identity

    Presented below is one potential idea for a thesis topic. It is merely a notion of an idea that I have that has been thrown into a basic abstract format for simplicity and clarity (and potentially future use in a thesis proposal). It is still very sketchy, but it is an idea I would like to run with.

    ABSTRACT: This thesis explores the social context in which sadomasochism exists. The sadomasochist identity is dual homed in being a viable alternative sexuality and in being classified as a deviant identity. Sadomasochistic identity carries with it negative social sanctions, just as sadomasochistic behavior can carry legal sanctions. Despite external negative reactions, participants in mutual consenting sadomasochistic relationships report positive attitudes. The objective of this thesis is to explore existing literature of both positive and negative interpretations of sadomasochism and identify symbolic relationships between the deviant identity and the values of mainstream culture.

    Sociology: Social Psychology: Identity: Deviant Identity: Sadomasochist: Social Context

  • Making Sense of Identity

    I have been struggling for the past 3 weeks to establish the baseline for my work toward my thesis as well as the more current pressing matter of my directed readings project. Trying to assemble these thoughts I have come up with the following paragraph:

    At the core of a social life is the construct of identity. Identity is the vessel in which each individual stores a sense of self, established through internal thoughts and feelings as well as external interactions. A large component of individual identity is group affiliation. Such affiliations are established through social connections, in-group behavior and out-group presentation. Identity is not only a construction of the sum of experiences and social attributes, but also by determining what attributes do not describe the person. Social psychology involves the use of various theories to describe and define how these identities are formed, whether by symbolic interactions, controls of affect in interpersonal interaction or some other means. Regardless of the theory used a common trait of all interpretations is the identification with a specific category, label or strata of social experience. Group process is a large part of identity, but it is far from all of it and there is nearly always more than one in-group identity to which each person belongs.

  • A Postmodern Sociology

    During my year in the Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies graduate certificate program I encountered critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism numerous times. It just goes with the territory. It is difficult to study gender or sexuality without being able to deconstruct it and the best tools for that are provided by postmodern thought. Deconstructing the history that has been created is carried out through Derrida. Deconstructing the language that backs that history is carried out through Foucault. Deconstructing the performance of the history and the linguistic elements are carried out through Butler.

    Now, on the first day of my second week of the Master of Arts in Sociology I am reviewing articles related to my potential thesis topics and discover that all four of the articles that I pulled make some reference to critical theory or postmodern thought. It seems that I have come across the area of theory that is actually applicable to my areas of interest. I react to this with both anxiety (because I am somewhat perplexed by critical theory) and relief (because this is one less new thing to learn).

    I have been contemplating what my actual area of interest is given that I identify most closely with social psychology (and came from a psychology program), and am intrigued by deviant behavior, gender and sexuality. After spending some time reading on one area of social psychology, identity, it seems that I’ve found where everything converges in a way that makes sense. The social psychology of identity is a broad enough topic to allow me to explore a large amount of my interests in a cohesive way.

    Currently I am thinking I would like to focus my research on the social construction of identities and separately on deviant identities. There are probably ways to approach these topics within the positivist and quantitative scopes, but I find myself drawn more to the theoretical aspects of postmodernism, they allow for something that I perceive to be more meaningful than generating statistics about a group or behavior set and then attempting to classify based on it. In my limited social training through gender studies I have found that creating classifications or separating people based on numbers leads to discrimination and attempts to prove that people in the numerical minority are somehow inappropriate or bad because they don’t conform to the same behaviors and thoughts as the majority. Critical theory, postmodernism and poststructuralism defy the constructions of rigid barriers and challenge the authority of the majority, calling into question their version of history and the linguistic constructions with which they attempt to define the world for everyone.

    At some point my mission in sociology became not one of social research or analysis of social institutions, but of constructing discourse which promotes greater social justice and breaks the barriers of power which currently deny the existence of so much of the social capital that exists.