My dissertation is missing something....

Today I met with a diss writing group at the UofA. It's a group of good looking, smart, terrified dissertators. We exchange a piece of writing, any writing, every week. The need to submit writing is really frustrating, especially with the way I write (in big chunks), but after a very productive summer (140 pages productive), I have 3 chapters of material to submit.

So I submitted a chapter on representations of murderous women in ballads. It's a crunchy social historical chapter that is heavy on the descriptive, textual analysis, and consideration of the woman's voice (can the early modern woman mediated via a male-authored text, speak?). They liked it, I think, but they all had one question:

So, what's your argument?

Uh.

I should be able to answer this.

I have an answer, I swear!

I mean, I'm making a correction to the historiography...

And I think it has something to do with deviance...

And expectations of early modern women...

And negative examples or something like that...

Fuck.

I have 140 pages.

I have an argument, I know I do!

But I have no idea what it is.

And how this connects to my image stuff?

Uh... Can I call you back? There's a spot under my bed that's calling me....