The Musings of a Hamilton Aca-Fan

Recently, a friend and colleague posted a TikTok that mentioned Barthes’ “death of the author.” I realized that would be really useful for my conclusion chapter. So I found the work where he introduces the concept and started reading it. But it wasn’t quite clicking, which was getting frustrating since I’m trying to get things finished! Last night I was working on what I could, just getting…

One thing that my second job is good for is giving me time to process things away from everything else. I realized something really important. I’ve been having issues with my feedback because of my second job. My bosses at that job are not great at communicating with me as a neurodiverse person. I have asked for clarification and not received it. I have cited my ADHD but they refuse to try to…

I am stuck. I read over my chair’s feedback on chapter 2 and I don’t know where to go with it. He made a good point that I do want to bring into the chapter, but I don’t know how much he wants me to try to go in that direction in the time I have. I’ve e-mailed him asking about it, but I feel like I can’t really work on it until I get clarification from him. I guess I could look over the chapter…

I was going to go to bed, but I saw I had an e-mail from my chair with feedback on a dissertation chapter. I opened it and saw the best sentence I have ever received (at least academically): “So far this is a strong chapter and I have no major revision recommendations.” I’m surprised my squee didn’t wake my hubby up. I have a feeling the feedback for the rest of the chapter will be similar.…

Growing up, my parents told my sister and I over and over again, “Do as I say, not as I do when you pick a major in college.” They both graduated from college. Both have bachelor’s degrees that they do not use. My mom studied to be a high school speech and debate teacher. No one told her that those positions are rarely hiring. My dad has a BA in history. He knew he needed to get a master’s in…

I have always struggled with editing my work. I go back over it and just want to start over. I’m there right now. I’m going over chapter 1 and seeing all sorts of holes and I’m trying to plug them, or simply add citations, and I’m finding I didn’t type up notes that I know I took. It is really frustrating. I just want to sit down and read over chapters of books so I can properly cite them and…

Now that I’m in the editing phase of my dissertation, I’m starting to look out beyond Hamilton to musicals in general, so there’s probably going to be more posts about musical theater showing up here. But they’re all connected anyway, so it works for me! This is one of those musicals that I knew was out there but really didn’t care about. I never was discouraged from listening to it or anything.…

I am almost done with the first draft of my dissertation! That means I’m probably going to start posting here more. I haven’t been writing because I’ve been trying to just channel everything into the dissertation. But as I was writing, I realized there was a bunch of stuff I wanted to write that didn’t have a place there and was more suited for here. I just didn’t have time to do it. So probably…

I’ve written about this before. I am ADHD. I have always been ADHD. I just got an official diagnosis a little under a year ago. That made grad school harder than it probably should have been. It also reinforced some bad ways of thinking. Like the ADHD need for pressure to actually get something done. Honestly, that is near the top of the list of reasons why my dissertation isn’t done yet. My…

I have finally figured out how I was tripping myself up with chapter 2! Chapter 2 is examining how Hamilton uses hip-hop in a way that connects with theater audiences. I’ve finally gotten over my urge to give a brief history of the early days of hip-hop, but I was struggling to figure out exactly what this chapter was about. Then, last night I was working on notes from a really good book on rap…

I finally have progress to report! I sent my chair the draft of chapter 1 at the beginning of April. Finally. Now I’m trying to get Chapter 2’s draft finished. I have to admit, the ADHD meds are really helping. I’m not second-guessing myself and I’m actually able to take what I’ve already written and revise it. I haven’t always been great at that. I had a tendency to simply start over with…

I’ve recently realized something important about my research practice. I’ve been treating this like a paper or a journal article: something I can do most of the research for up front and then sit down and write it. I need to focus on one chapter at a time and get this thing done. I’ve already done a lot of research for this as a whole, but I’m realizing I need to go back over the articles and…

I realize that I really need to post more positive things on here instead of just problems. But right now, I have problems! I’ve recently realized that I do need to change my approach to the dissertation because I’m not doing interviews and making it autoethnographic. That means I need to come from my own experience for this. It has unlocked blocks for me, which is great. It’s reminded me to do…

In case I haven’t mentioned it here before, I have ADHD. Which means many, many things. But right now, it means having time blindness and rumination. I am trying to get myself refocused and really motivated to get a solid draft of my dissertation finished. Then I start thinking about why I am doing the chapter on music first and the chapter on theater second. Eventually the answer floats to the…

I am currently re-reading an article a historian wrote about Hamilton and how it is a part of “Founders chic.” He is talking about how Hamilton is simply a part of a legacy that can date back to 1776 but has been very popular since 2000 of following this “Founders chic” genre. He talks about how “Founders chic” reduces a lot of the Revolution to a few beats and stereotypes. The first time I read…

I keep overthinking things and getting stuck. I really want to get this done this year, however, at this rate it’s not going to happen. I keep second-guessing what I should be writing. Granted, moving hasn’t helped this past month. I don’t think I’ve touched it since I started writing. I know what I want to make chapter 1 about, but I feel like I have to start over. I’m horrible at taking what…