Masters dissertation advice?

Hey,

I guess this is for anyone who has done one, or to those who are going to do one.

It's coming to that dreaded time - I need to come up with my proposal within a couple of weeks. I have a few ideas circulating in my head - but I'm worried it will run the risk of being unoriginal. I was thinking (it's a sketchy idea) of focusing on some aspect of Marxism/Leninism, or Stalinism as a political doctrine. However, I know that these topics would have been done to death, but obviously one of the good things about doing a popular, well researched topics is the amount of literature there is on the matter.

To any one who has done a Masters dissertation - is it worthwhile to stick with something typical, or did you try to come up with something original and a topic which has rarely been focused on?

Any tips would be appreciated.

Thanks

I agree with the other posters. If you can do something original then do that. If you cannot then it is about striking a balance between something being generic, where there is too much literature to engage with, and doing some so specific that it ends up being rather trite and meaningless (the representation of washing lines in foreign-national writers based in Russia in the first half of 1961).

The obvious choice would be to pick someone who is relatively important but who has not been covered all that well for whatever reason (usually methodological reasons, but sometimes other figures - like Marx, Lenin and Stalin, for that matter - draw critics attention). There are always characters like this in every period I have looked at. I do not know much about Russian politics in the 20th century (more of a 19th century man myself) so I cannot help you more specifically unfortunately.