A Dilemma

So, I'm at work on my third chapter (or, at least, I'm approximating "work" on my third chapter), and I've come to a bit of a crossroads. As I've worked on the first couple chapters, and talked them over with my advisor and others, the project -- and the style of the project -- have come into a clearer focus for me. I've determined that I can lay out the framework and arc of the project in a general introduction, and that each chapter can subsequently serve as an illustration of such-and-such aspect of my argument. This eliminates what my advisor has called "throat-clearing" from the chapters. That is, it keeps me from re-iterating the general ideas behind place and space, placing, senses of place, and so on in each chapter. It, in turn, trims the chapters down to a more "lean-and-mean" fighting weight. This is all good.

Now, the conundrum: the current chapter is one that I've known from the beginning would be a hard one. I know what aspect of "Placing the West" the chapter is meant to illustrate -- the "politics of place," i.e. the ways in which, in defining a place as a place, individuals and communities define also people and activities as either "in place" or "out of place," thereby enforcing ideologies through the process of placing, blah, blah, blah. As far as the "westernness" of the chapter, this is where I was to discuss how the West, despite common perception, was and remains an incredibly diverse landscape, and that those of different ethnicities, genders, sexualities, etc. have a part to play in defining Western spaces as places.

As one might guess, that's a lot of rambling. Trying to cover the literary ground of race, gender, sexuality, and any number of other "identities" could easily devolve into a jumble -- not to mention, it would take me for-freaking-ever to write. Thus, in the vein of the more lean-minded style, I'm trying to pare it down, and I've determined that I can do it all from the perspective of gender, using primarily Marilyn Robinson's Housekeeping and Terry Tempest Williams' Refuge. Goody, goody gumdrops.

But where does that leave me with the idea of racial/ethnic diversity in the West? Will it be irresponsible of me to leave that out? At the same time, if I mention it "in passing" in the new gender chapter, will that seem dismissive? Or, if I go back to the previous model where I try and take all comers, will that just leave me lost and unwinding in a vast ramble? I've got a lot to say on the subject, at least from the theoretical/historical aspect; but I also have little in the way of literary representations by these "minority" subjects (though I can work with other writers who at least write about ethnic enclaves, etc. in the landscapes of the West). When I first imagined the chapter, that was my plan -- and I had all sorts of big talk about racial and ethnic enclaves, Mormonism, women in the West, homosexualities (ala "Brokeback Mountain"), etc. But it can't be done. I know that. And I also just can't bring myself to add another, separate chapter to the pile.

So, this is where I be. Hemming and hawing. And on and on and on.

[And, in so doing, I've apparently also come unraveled when it comes to writing organized, cogent blog entries. Sorry about that.]