plan of attack

I should also add something about my timeline. Currently, I'm going through my favorite theoretical works, looking for insights, neat stuff. Next, I plan to go through some of the theory that I will attack, including (the one I dread) Frederick Jameson (for anyone interested in why I hate this guy, Collins, in Common Cultures, does a pretty good job deconstructing his arguments (121-128)). Then I get down to the writing process.

Theory gets moved to the end, re-cast through an examination of cyberpunk fiction...well, Neuromancer and Snow Crash mostly...and then into complexity theory and emergence. Not entirely sure how much of this I can use, but I have idea on how to get more in-depth on all this in upcoming papers, maybe even another book...that is, assuming I get a tenure-track job and can do scholarship as part of my actual work. This might be the first it of rewriting I do. What this will necessitate, though, is me being very careful how much of my theoretical approach I "give away" in the rest of the book.

I then have a "Reaganism after Reagan" chapter to write. This won't be as daunting as it could be, because I have my material from my Reagan's dead essay and a conference presentation on uses of Reagan by conservatives.

What is getting significant work is what was the lit review chapter...I'm going to re-cast it as "this is what Reaganism is, and this is what identity-creating discourses it was up against." This will be a major part where I have to watch the language and avoid academic gear-head talk--the publisher suggested I should write with my parents as audience.

I will be keeping the three big analysis chapters pretty much where they are. I do plan to polish, of course, and there are one or two places in each of them where I think I need to expand stuff a little (in the comics chapter, on other comic book vigilantes, for instance). The language on these is also much clearer than other parts of the diss. This will be one of my last tasks.

After that, I just get to try and make everything work together. Easy, no?