Sorry in advance for the rant, everyone, but I do feel like punching a brick wall. I've been at my PhD research for a couple of months now, and am really, really worried about this whole originality business.

I thought I had lots of great ideas, but now, the more I read, the more they seem to pop up in other people's work. I know this is an issue for many of us, and was hoping any kind folk who have been at their PhDs for a while might be able to advise me on a couple of things.
My PhD is in the arts, and I'm looking at theories of intertextuality and authorship alongside the work of a current French director. A couple of writers have already brought up these issues with regard to this director, though not in any huge amount of depth.

Would it be sufficient for me to apply different theories of authorship and intertextuality to the ones used elsewhere and come up with different reasons for doing so/conclusions?

Or, is it unadvisable for me to utilise theoretical approaches whuch haven't been tackled before, but in the end come to some conclusions that other people might have reached using different approaches?

Och, I know I'm being a dafty and the originality will all come in time, but I am just very worried and fed up. If anyone might offer wise words, I'd be so grateful...

Thank you. :-)

Hi Jenny,

This issue did not really come up for me during the course of my own PhD but another guy in my seminar group had the same issues that you have written about above. I was quite close to this guy as we were both writing about contemporary French philosophical thought and he was told something close to the following. It is perfectly legitimate to attend yourself to the same general subject and field of questions as others, even if the same methods are employed, as long as your work adds meaningfully to the current state of knowledge. That is, when building on these previous thinkers you are expected to engage critically with their work and, as you might imagine, this could take many forms. For example, a robust criticism of their shortcomings or the more gentle criticism that there work, while interesting, has somehow pulled up short of something really vital; this latter you would obviously detail yourself.

Having said that I think that you will find what my friend found. That is, as you go on, you cannot help but be original as your ideas take a more definite form. In fact he eventually ended up like me; once we had submitted we both worried that we had been too original and were too out there.

Hi!

Maybe you can refer to this thread:
http://www.postgraduateforum.com/threadViewer.aspx?TID=11941

originality=novelty?

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