I'm returning piles of stuff to the library. Here are some that I should maybe get back to.
Claus Offe, Modernity and the State, East, West. MIT Press, 1996. Collection of essays about poli ec of eastern Europe. Part 1 has two essays on modernity - one on Weberian ideas of liberty, the other on civil society.
David Herbert and Colin Thomas. 1990. Cities in space, city as place. Not sure why I borrowed this. It's sort of like an English textbook for urban geography. If I need that infill, I can come back to it, esp Ch 1 on urban geog, Ch 2 on emergence of urban forms, Ch 5 theories of the city. There might be other, better ways to get this information.
Then there's the Faludi Reader in Planning Theory. It has the Davidoff essay but otherwise seems a little dated.
Planning Theory in the 1980s. Burchell and Steinleib, eds. 1978. Again, too old; I need to read newer literatures.
Theories of urban politics, Judge, Stoker and Wolman, eds. 1995. Useful chaps on urban social movements (Fainstein and Hirst) and regulation theory, post-Fordism and urban politics (Joe Painter). JS 78 T54 1995.
I am sorting through huge piles of library books trying to decide what can be returned, what I'll need soon, what I should take on our trip tomorrow.
I have had some eureka moments relating my theory reading to my past life in city planning, while reading an essay on the history of planning history. Planning is an activity with its own internal tensions: between physical planning (with overtones of environmental determinism) and equity planning; and between economic development (a variation on the "rising tide lifts all boats" routine) and social equity planning.
What I want to read over the next two weeks is something that will really spur creative thinking about what kind of dissertation project I should do. I have gotten too hung up on reading "everything" and have no focus. It frustrates me and I'm sure my committee members as well.
I met with R last Thursday and got my degree program form signed. It was a logistics meeting, nothing more.
When I come back I have to see H and then J. I was hoping to bring a stack of H's stuff to read, but I don't know whether I will have time to make copies of all of it.
First the bad news. Talked with H briefly last Friday, and she said (inter alia) that she thought I should wait until fall for her prelim. I don't have a final reading list and more particularly I don't have much in the way of a proposal, which should be structuring my reading list.
Then today, the good news: I got an award letter for funding through 05-06, with spring contingent on being ABD by the end of fall. That's ok: that's the motivation I need to get it done. It's more than I expected in terms of the department being ok with my not having met my original schedule.
I also met with J today. The usual mixed up conversation. I have no idea where his list is going, but his whole empirical positivist take on the world is running counter to my "prelims as thinktank" routine. I guess I need to be farther along with him too.
I'm having trouble separating out "things I think I ought to read" with "things that relate directly to my dissertation." And since my committee members each think I'm doing a different kind of project, there might be trouble down the road if I can't get my act together really soon.
I meet with H next in early June. I should meet with J about then too. I meet with R. tomorrow.
I hate the thought of being obligated to this school an additional semester, but I guess I am happy that I have more time to think through what it is I am trying to do. I did some freewriting on that earlier today when I was stuck on the blasted disciplinarity essay.
I must set up a summer schedule, with goals and milestones, and more or less stick to it.