I should also clarify that the term “monograph” can have a broader meaning than the one we have used here. A monograph is the study of a single topic, and as such it is opposed to a “history of,” a manual, and an encyclopedia. A monograph can analyze many writers, but only from the perspective of a specific theme. For example, a monograph could appropriately be titled “The Theme of ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ in Medieval Writers,” and it could explore the paradox in which fish can fly, birds can swim, and so on. The student could write an excellent monograph on this topic if he worked rigorously. However, this topic would include a vast amount of readings, as the student would need to familiarize himself with all the writers who treated the subject, however minor or obscure. The student might do well to narrow his scope to “The Theme of ‘The World Turned Upside Down’ in Carolingian Poets.”
A student may consider a survey more exciting than a monograph, if only because focusing on the same author for one, two, or more years may seem boring. But the student should understand that a strict monograph also involves the author’s cultural and historical context. A thesis on Beppe Fenoglio’s fiction requires reading related writers such as Cesare Pavese or Elio Vittorini, reading the American writers whom Fenoglio read and translated, and examining Italian realism in general. It is only possible to understand and interpret an author within his wider cultural context. However, it is one thing for a portraitist to paint a landscape for his subject’s background, and it is another thing to paint a complete, detailed landscape painting. The portrait of a gentleman might contain the countryside with a river in the background, but a landscape contains fields, valleys, and rivers, all in fine detail. The technique or, in photographic terms, the focus must change between the two. In a monograph, the landscape can even be somewhat out of focus, incomplete, or unoriginal.
Finally, remember this fundamental principle: the more you narrow the field, the better and more safely you will work. Always prefer a monograph to a survey. It is better for your thesis to resemble an essay than a complete history or an encyclopedia.
2.2 Historical or Theoretical?
This choice only applies to certain subjects. A thesis in history of mathematics, Romance philology, history of German literature, and other similar subjects can only be historical. A thesis on experimental subjects such as architectural composition, nuclear reactor physics, or comparative anatomy is usually theoretical. But there are other subjects such as theoretical philosophy, sociology, cultural anthropology, aesthetics, philosophy of law, pedagogy, or international law that allow a thesis of both kinds.
In a theoretical thesis, a student confronts an abstract problem upon which other works may or may not have already reflected: the nature of human will, the concept of freedom, the notion of social role, the existence of God, or the genetic code. Considered together, such topics may elicit smiles, as they require the writer to compose what Antonio Gramsci called “brief notes on the universe.” And yet illustrious thinkers have devoted themselves to such topics. However, they usually did so after decades of reflection.
In the hands of less experienced students, these topics can generate two outcomes. The first and less worrisome is a survey like the one defined in the previous section, on which I have already provided observations. For example, the student tackles the concept of social role as it appears in the writings of a chosen set of authors. The second outcome is more tragic, because the candidate presumes he can solve the question of God or define the concept of freedom, within only a few pages. My experience is that a thesis like this usually turns out to be short and unorganized, and resembles more a lyric poem than an academic study. Usually, when the committee objects to the candidate’s argument as too personalized, generic, informal, and lacking in historiographic verification and evidence, the candidate responds that he has been misunderstood, and that his thesis is more intelligent than other banal literature surveys.
This may be true, but this answer usually comes from a candidate with confused ideas, one who lacks academic humility and communicative skills. I will define academic humility (which requires pride, and is not a virtue for the weak) in section 4.2.4. This candidate may indeed be a genius who has acquired a lifetime of knowledge in a mere 22 years, and let it be clear that I am presenting this hypothesis without any shade of irony. However, it takes a long time for mankind to notice that such a genius has appeared on the Earth’s crust, and his work must be read and digested for a certain number of years before its greatness is grasped. How can we expect that the busy committee, responsible for so many students, should grasp at first sight the greatness of this lone runner?
Let us hypothesize that the student believes he has understood an important problem. Since nothing is born from nothing, the student must have developed his thoughts under a particular author’s influence. In this case, he should transform his theoretical thesis into a historiographic thesis. In other words, he should not discuss the problem of being, the notion of freedom, or the concept of social action; but develop a topic such as “The Question of Being in Early Heidegger,” “The Notion of Freedom in Kant,” or “The Concept of Social Action in Parsons.” His original ideas will emerge as he grapples with his author’s ideas, as it is possible to say new things about freedom while studying an author’s work on the concept. If he is ambitious, he can transform the theoretical thesis that he originally conceived into the final chapter of his historiographic thesis. Consequently, readers will understand his original ideas in the context of a previous thinker, and the concepts he proposes will gain support from their proper frame of reference.
Even the brightest young writer will find it difficult to work in a vacuum and establish an argument ab initio. He must find a foothold in past scholarship, especially for questions as vague as the notions of being and freedom. Even if someone is a genius, and especially if someone is a genius, he will never be diminished by starting from another author’s work. Building on a previous author’s work does not mean a student must fetishize, adore, or swear by that author, and in fact the student can demonstrate the author’s errors and limits. Medieval writers saw themselves as “dwarves” compared to the “giant” ancients they revered, and yet they could see further than the ancients because they were “dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants.”
Not all of these observations are valid for applied and laboratory-based subjects. In psychology for example, the alternative to “The Question of Perception in Piaget” is not “The Question of Perception,” even if there were a student reckless enough to attempt such a dangerously generic topic.
The alternative to the first topic’s historiographic approach is rather an experimental approach, such as “The Perception of Colors in a Group of Handicapped Children.” This is a different story, because the student has the right to approach a question through experimentation, provided he has a sound research method, adequate laboratory conditions, and the necessary assistance. But a good laboratory researcher will not begin an experiment without having compiled a literature review that examines the results of similar experiments. He would otherwise risk reinventing the wheel by proving something that has already been amply proven, or by applying methods that have already failed (although the new verification of a heretofore unsuccessful method could provide the foundation for a successful thesis). Therefore an experimental thesis requires library research, laboratory work, and an established research method. Here the student should follow the examples of the medieval authors and climb onto the shoulders of a giant, at least one of modest height, or even onto another dwarf. The student will always have the chance to develop his own original ideas later in his career.
2.3 Ancient or Contemporary?
Here I am not attempting to revive the age-old quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns.
Instead I am here using the term “ancient” in the most general sense of “very old,” referring to authors whose works have survived and been studied by scholars. The choice between an ancient and a contemporary author does not apply to subjects such as the history of contemporary Italian literature, although even a thesis in Latin could involve both Horace and the state of Horatian studies in the last two decades. Nevertheless, Italian students frequently prefer contemporary authors, like Cesare Pavese, Giorgio Bassani, and Edoardo Sanguineti, to the sixteenth-century Petrarchan or the eighteenth-century Arcadian poets suggested by their advisors. Sometimes the student chooses a poet out of an authentic love for his work, and this is a choice that is difficult to challenge. Other times the student is under the false conviction that a contemporary author is easier and more fun.
Let us state from the outset that a thesis on a contemporary author is always more difficult. It may be true that scholarship on a contemporary author generally involves a smaller bibliography of easily accessible texts, and that the student can accomplish the first phase of the research by reading a good novel on the beach, rather than sitting in a library. The problem arises when the student begins to comment on the author, considering that the thesis
