Arduosly I struggled to pay attention at a Sataurday seminar prepping all the research higher degree kids for the next few years of their lives. In the end I was quite glad that I did because I actually learnt something. One of the presenters, Rob Elson of the History department, spoke about how you shouldn't think about a topic but a problem. Phrase your area of reseach in a way that makes it a problem which needs to be resolved then propose a well thought out and argued resolution via your thesis. This way of looking at things has become the talk of the offices and proved quite useful in stimulating even the jaded RHD candidates who are nearing their submission dates.
As a way of getting ready for my impending meet-up with the advisors I had a crack at the process, and here's the result: How does popular culture (specifically science-fiction TV) inform out understanding of the effceets of science on religion? For a fairly general and over-arching issue of debate it's not too bad and has alreday started me down the road of defining me scope. Now that I have that I can also situate my reasearch in the areas to which it pertains: science and religion, science and popular culture, religion and popular culture, televisual studies, cultural history, etc.
I've never been one to start off looking through a very narrow frame of refernce, prefering as I do to begin with something big then whittle it down into a workable object. And that's exactly what I'll be off to do right now. I think I'll start with some analysis of "primary documents"...so, should I watch the X-Files or Stargate?