Blogging a Thesis

"How would you feel about me turning my thesis on pilgrimage into a blog?"  This was the question that I posed to my degree advisor at the beginning of this year, to her surprise. I knew that blogging was an unconventional medium for an academic presentation, but I also knew that it would allow me to explore the concept of pilgrimage in ways that would be impossible within a paper format.  Academic papers assume that you know all the answers; they are a polemic, not a discussion.  When I started my project, however, I knew that I didn't have all the answers; what I had were a lot of questions. That is why I proposed the blog.  It was a way for me to present my findings in a way that invited dialogue.  It was also a forum where I could discuss my ideas with a public audience, so that I could be challenged in my own assumptions and learn more through the wisdom, experience and questions of others. This blog is still academic, but it is also a platform for a greater learning experience that can only come through discussion and not just research.

Blogging this thesis has been a journey of its own for me. When I wrote my first entry I admitted that I had no idea about what pilgrimage was. I remember how excited I felt when I first realized that the common thread to pilgrimage in all traditions was the search for the transcendent.  Every entry I have written along the way has both challenged and informed me in some way, as I'm sure my conclusion has proven.  I also really appreciated those who took the time to provide comments and feedback on my work along the way.  They forced me to think outside the box of what I had presented and really utilize what I have learned. They brought up some really thoughtful and poignant points, and I am grateful that they chose to participate in this journey with me.

There was another reason why I really wanted to do this blog: I wanted it to be a platform for an ongoing learning experience that would continue even after I handed in the "official" part of my thesis. Now that I have done research on what pilgrimage is, I want to be able to learn about it first hand through its physical practice.  This May I am going to take a small pilgrimage in the form of a road trip to Vancouver. One day I hope to take a pilgrimage across the whole of Canada, provided I can scrape together enough time, money and maybe a companion or two.  When I go on these journeys, I hope to be able to blog about them here so that I can explore the experiences in the context of my research.  I'm sure that doing pilgrimage is a lot different than writing about it based off of others experiences, and that there is a lot more that I have to learn about this discipline than what I have presented here thus far.