I'm pretty lazy. Sometimes, I can flog myself until I do some work, and on some of those occasions, I can manage something decent. Sometimes though, you just have to admire the drive of people like Mary Daly, the controversial radical theologian who died recently. Her obituary includes the casual phrases 'she was awarded her first PhD' and 'acquiring further doctorates'.
Doing a PhD is a major undertaking, as several of my readers know. It takes several years of dedicated study and writing. At least in the humanities, it means isolation and poverty. One is quite enough - several is insane.
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My PhD supervisor's wife had 2 doctorates. One she did in America in the '60s and one here. She didn't end up working at a university either - she was head of English at a school. My supervisor's PhD looked fabulous. He had moved between London and Ithaca Uni in New York while he was doing it, and he had typed it up (no word processors in them there days sonny) on lots of different machines using different types of paper. As a result it was about a foot thick (it was both very long and bulky) and looked like a papyrus rainbow when viewed edge on. It had so much strangeness and charm I read it when I house-sat for him once, and it took me a week. I think he submitted it in a wheelbarrow. We've got it easy nowadays. Mine is a sleek pamphlet by comparison.
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