dimanche0829 Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 (edited) I think I've seen a few threads where someone eventually ask about another's focus, so I figured we should have a thread for it! I'm interested in studying the rise of the novel, but am especially interested in focusing on Laurence Sterne/Tristram Shandy. Edited October 18, 2011 by dimanche0829 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HunkyDory Posted October 18, 2011 Share Posted October 18, 2011 I'm interested in 20th and 21st century poetry and poetics--especially Pound and his effects on contemporary and digital poetics. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
and...and...and... Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 I'm interested in 18th Century studies and gay and lesbian fictions! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timshel Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 My interests are in psychoanalysis, specifically trauma studies and literary testimony, in contemporary lit, especially in relation to collective and cultural trauma in ethnic literature. I wish I could say that more succinctly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TripWillis Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 African-American literature (particularly Queer Black Studies), dirty realism, literature and the environment (particularly the redefinition of the nature/human divide in the postmodern and globalized era). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bdon19 Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 (edited) My focus is on novel theory and the history of the novel. For applications that require me to choose a period, I'm calling myself an 18th-centuryist, but I'm more interested in the development of the form from its rise in 1740 through the early Modernist period. I'm particularly interested in studying the novel from a Bakhtinian perspective, looking at the ways in which different types of novelistic discourse play with one another in a formal/generic sense as well as a socio-historical sense. I'm also interested in issues of canonicity regarding the history of the novel. Edited to clarify my research interests and adjust it more towards what I plan to write in my SOP. Edited December 23, 2011 by bdon19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bfat Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 I won't be applying until next fall (since I won't finish my MA until next December), but if all goes well, I plan to study 20th C American literature and film, with an emphasis on cultural studies and theory (bridging between film and literature--especially postmodernism, psychoanalysis, and feminist theory). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jbarks Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 Late medieval literature, medievalism and popular culture, temporality, and psychoanalytic theory Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rems Posted October 19, 2011 Share Posted October 19, 2011 20th century Modernism -- specifically James Joyce -- and, gender theory, pop culture and digital humanities. Visual studies sometimes. Oh, and sometimes poetry... but only sometimes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimanche0829 Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 20th century Modernism -- specifically James Joyce -- and, gender theory, pop culture and digital humanities. Visual studies sometimes. Oh, and sometimes poetry... but only sometimes... I was just reading Joyce's raunchy love letters to Nora the other week. Explains so much... JeremiahParadise 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ComeBackZinc Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 Vertical integration between high school and college writing pedagogy, college achievement for minority and low SES students, institutional critique, and research methodology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indalomena Posted October 20, 2011 Share Posted October 20, 2011 early modern science, music, cosmography, intellectual history, mathematics, poetry. They were polymaths, why can't I be one too? All this is bound up in a study of the imagination across the disciplines. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
perrykm2 Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Trauma theory, postmodernism. I like Delillo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Horatio Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Postcolonial theory / Transnationalism and 20th Century English and Anglophone Literatures. Also Modernism. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cquin Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Women & Gender Studies, Feminist Literary Theory, Psychoanalytic Theory, 20th-century American/British lit (and maybe a little late 19th-century lit, as well). Anyone else here struggle to narrow down their interests? The aforementioned subjects are the most interesting to me and the ones in which I have the most experience, but there are still so many other, very unrelated topics I'd love to look into! Maybe this is why I'm better off getting my MA first... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timshel Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 Trauma theory, postmodernism. I like Delillo. I did my Master's thesis on trauma and DeLillo. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grunty DaGnome Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I did my Master's thesis on trauma and DeLillo. I'd vote for him as greatest living writer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cquin Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I'd vote for him as greatest living writer. DeLillo has always been on my list of "Authors I Will Get Into One Day Soon." You have now piqued my interest. Which book would you recommend starting with? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Two Espressos Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 DeLillo has always been on my list of "Authors I Will Get Into One Day Soon." You have now piqued my interest. Which book would you recommend starting with? I know very little about DeLillo, but I was told that White Noise is a good starting point. It's not nearly as lengthy or as complicated as Underworld or his other hefty tomes. I read White Noise last year and loved it. It's extremely funny and profound, not necessarily in that order though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cquin Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I know very little about DeLillo, but I was told that White Noise is a good starting point. It's not nearly as lengthy or as complicated as Underworld or his other hefty tomes. I read White Noise last year and loved it. It's extremely funny and profound, not necessarily in that order though. Thanks! I'll check that one out. Though lord knows I won't have time for lesiure reading until around February... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TripWillis Posted October 28, 2011 Share Posted October 28, 2011 I know very little about DeLillo, but I was told that White Noise is a good starting point. It's not nearly as lengthy or as complicated as Underworld or his other hefty tomes. I read White Noise last year and loved it. It's extremely funny and profound, not necessarily in that order though. I gotta come out and be the one to say I hated White Noise, but it's definitely representative of a "type" of literature I don't like, so I wouldn't let that stop anyone else... I also don't care for Pynchon *ducks people throwing objects* hey! Easy! Two Espressos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Two Espressos Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 (edited) I gotta come out and be the one to say I hated White Noise, but it's definitely representative of a "type" of literature I don't like, so I wouldn't let that stop anyone else... I also don't care for Pynchon *ducks people throwing objects* hey! Easy! Out of curiosity and despite the risk of derailing this thread, why did you hate White Noise? I've never met someone who disliked it. As for Pynchon, a beautiful, unread copy of Gravity's Rainbow perennially sits on my bookshelf. If only I had the time to read it. . . Edited October 29, 2011 by Two Espressos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
truckbasket Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 As for Pynchon, a beautiful, unread copy of Gravity's Rainbow perennially sits on my bookshelf. If only I had the time to read it. . . It's a beast, but it kicks White Noise's ass on every level. The first 150 or so pages are an uphill battle, but then it levels out a bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Timshel Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 The Crying of Lot 49 is amazing. Also, if you like Pynchon, read David Foster Wallace! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TripWillis Posted October 29, 2011 Share Posted October 29, 2011 (edited) Out of curiosity and despite the risk of derailing this thread, why did you hate White Noise? I've never met someone who disliked it. As for Pynchon, a beautiful, unread copy of Gravity's Rainbow perennially sits on my bookshelf. If only I had the time to read it. . . I found White Noise to be a very smarmy book, but the thing is, I think that's what people like about it. I just can't digest so much character scorn and pretentious humor over the course of a whole book. But, I have some weird principles when it comes to my personal taste that everyone else should just ignore: I don't like to read about rich/aristocrat people, I don't like to read about writers, I don't like to read about the intelligentsia, I don't like overbearing amounts of pop culture references, I don't like an assumption of the reader's leftism (although I am left), and I don't like archetypal female characters. *phew* nice to get all that off my chest. Oh, and I also have a tough time with political commentary on consumerism in books because rarely do I find that the author (no matter how good they are at the act of writing) has a particularly nuanced view of the issue. Edited October 29, 2011 by TripWillis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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