Praxis, Thesis, or Literature Review?

I have a decision to make. Maybe a week ago I mentioned that I woke up at 4 am with my praxis/thesis topic and emailed a potential advisor about it. Since then I have spoken to others about it and so far it seems to have legs, and I have been given an unofficial go-ahead. We have the choice of doing an aesthetic praxis (a kind of artistic project that demonstrates what you've learned about a topic, which includes some writing) or a thesis (you research a topic in your profession and write about it - but it's much harder than it sounds..see below) or a basic literature review.

At my school, people lean toward literature reviews because they're easier to do. A literature review is where you read up on all of the research that has been done on a vary narrow topic, say "smoking habits of Latino youth from 1980 to the present" and you write a summary of that research (based on the articles you find)...usually the point of this is to lead up to a reason for new research to be conducted, or to introduce your own new research that relates to that topic. This is usually the first step of any research project, whether or not you officially include the full review in your actual research article. (ie: you will do this informally when thinking about researching any topic, but you may not necessarily write up a formal review) One of the reasons this is the top choice for students here is because, unlike other grad programs, we are not given any "time off" (meaning a semester without classes) to do a thesis...whatever project you choose, you will be writing/working on it while you are taking about 5 or 6 classes, and a lit review is the choice most conducive to this situation. You can think of a lit review as the first step of a thesis.

Some people do opt to do a thesis. A thesis is usually written at the end of a masters program to qualify for the degree. Often times you finish writing it after course work is done, but some do it concurrently. It is one (big) step beyond a lit review in that you submit an original idea as the research. There is more than one way to go about this, but for the sake of ease (and my limited time) I'll just say you can do a research project that involves you actually going out an collecting qualitative or quantitative data clinically (ie: interviewing 20-somethings about their choice to have an abortion or keeping track of the number of 17 year olds who have abortions in a specific county over a 6 month period) or you can review data from sources like the US Census or Education Trust Foundation and draw new conclusions about the data they provide. The downside to this project is that it takes a LOT of work - and you still basically have to do a lit review before you get started! And also, we have to do this while we are in (hard) classes. But there are reasons I would choose this project, among them:

1. It's a great way to start your PhD dissertation (if you stick to the same topic, almost half the work is done).
2. It's a published bound work for which you are the sole author.
3. It's respected...serious scholars write theses, and I can't imagine applying to doctoral programs without having done it.

Let me add: Lit reviews are respected as well, and they, too, can be published in journals. But I do think there is a difference!

Lastly, there is the aesthetic praxis. This is what I woke up that morning thinking I would do. A student who is graduating this year did hers on pregnant women and dancing in which (I'm guessing) she reviewed the literature on dancing as exercise or therapeutic for pregnancy and she (I know) choreographed a dance to go with it. Another is doing something with pregnancy photography. I woke up at 4 am saying I'm doing a story quilt on the history of black midwives, a la Faith Ringgold. This would require me to narrow down a specific aspect of this history (ie: history of use of superstition or faith based protocols by black midwives) and review the literature about it (lit review) and then to construct a quilt that includes pictures/painting and the text that I write, especially the connection between quilting and black midwifery. The upside to this project is that I get to combine more than one of my interests and have fun while doing a something that could otherwise be very daunting. If I have to spend over a year of my life with this thing, I want to enjoy the process! But there are down sides, mainly there is the question of whether this is a "respectable" project for someone who is going to continue on to a doctoral program? Although I recognize the work that this project entails, is a doctoral admissions committee going to see it? Or is it going to look like I took an easy, fun way out? Further, is it going to be too black to be universally respected among an academic midwifery audience? In the grand scheme of things this is only one of many, many more research projects to come, but it also my first research project, and I want to be taken seriously.

I don't like that I have to ask these questions. I don't like knowing that if I choose the aesthetic project I am going to have to fight to prove its value (even though this is the whole point of these projects) to a whole bunch of people who won't see it. I don't like feeling like I have to do the hardest project just to prove that I'm supposed to be here. I don't like that we value quantitative or qualitative, sciences over humanities. I don't like how we don't really value art in this country and the resulting obligation I feel to do something more "academic" because of it.