Dissertation question

[seroquelled]

What happens when, after having your dissertation topic approved and deciding on which direction to take, theoretical and otherwise, you find something very similar recently published (in the humanities, English in particular). In this very similar, recently published piece, there are a bunch of your arguments, some of your theoretical

Comments

[max_ambiguity]

What you do is go talk to your advisor ASAP, because how you proceed primarily depends on his or her approval. You may have to significantly redirect your topic, or you may be able to simply cite the new source and continue more or less as planned, but only someone familiar with your work can say.

[cheez_ball]

+1 on this.

[gobsmacked]

Yes, go directly to your advisor.

[knut_hamson]

That happened to me. "A lot" is different from "all." Work in the space that was not covered, correct what was mistaken, and clarify what was left unclear.

[kaygigi]

What it means is that there is an audience for the kind of work you are doing. So check to make sure you can move forward, using it as a foil or interloper in your own work. There exists a book that basically outlines my general theoretical arguments, but it has plenty of space for my critique of that work, my own research/field work, and ways to use that work to bolster my own. While reading it literally derailed my dissertation by weeks if not months, realizing that all was not lost and it should be seen as an opening not a foreclosure has given me more motivation to move forward.
As my advisor keeps repeating, noone has already written your dissertation.

[starrbear]

Perhaps you need to tweak the study methods and see if you get the same results? Either way talking to your Adviser is likely the best current course of action.

Do not just redo the other person's work - even though it was your idea, it doesn't really add anything to the field if you just redo what is now viewed as "someone else's study"

[kaygigi]

Not necessarily in the social sciences or humanities. In sociology and poli sci, where there are an awful lot of dissertations based off of the same common data sets, even slightly different methods can produce interestingly different results with different stories to tell. And as an English grad student complained earlier this evening, as we celebrated a mutual friend's passing of her comps, everyone is still arguing with Kant, isn't it time to move on? Surely with the recent Botulism debacle in France, people will finally stop arguing with Kant, but boy were there a lot of dissertations on Kant before that! (and people will still continue to argue with Kant, anyway). Being scooped or what have you isn't as detrimental as it might be in the hard/natural sciences.

[saciel]

What Botulism debacle are you referring to? I'm genuinely interested because I suffer from opression by Kant-sledgehammerism ;)

[kaygigi]

Frederic Pages (apologies for the lack of accents) wrote two books spoofing Kant under the name Jean-Baptiste Botul, founding the "Botulism" school of Kant critique. Most understood that it was parody, but apparently Bernard-Henri Levy took it seriously in his new book on philosophy.
Perhaps because I am a fan of French post-structuralism that I particularly detest BHL's so-called philosophy (I call it "philosophomisizing"), but I thought it was hilarious that an "emminent" philosopher would use parody as serious critique. I think it trumps the Sokol Affair in Social Texts, in large part because BHL theoretically has editors to catch these things and Botulism is a relatively well-known parody (Social Texts was not, at the time, peer reviewed, and few people had brazenly spoofed a journal before, so it was unexpected). Plus if you say it out loud, you quickly realize that Botulism is a disease, not a school of critique, and that works in the French as well as the English.

[posthumanthony]

I got scooped constantly. Definitely talk to your advisor, then take a deep breath and READ the other piece carefully, noting exactly how/where your arguments are different. Even if you agree 99% with the other author has said, it's the 1% where you're different that will be your bread & butter, so to speak.

A strategic use of footnotes in the finished dissertation could also make all the difference.

[paralyticmuse]

I just wanted to say I love your icon. My favorite Twighlight Zone ever. "There was time enough, at last..."