The American Literature Pillow Fort

[tingdeh]

I'm taking inspiration from ArthurianChaucerian's Medievalist thread on this one (thanks, pal!) Here is a place for all American Literature students--or more broadly, because we have so many pillows and lovely faces, for all Literature of the Americas folks.

Talk about your interests, your current reading list and projects, graduate school statuses, and anything else that tickles your fancy.

I'm on a bus right now and typing this makes me dizzy, but I'll recover in time to post my own.

[NowMoreSerious]

I'm taking inspiration from ArthurianChaucerian's Medievalist thread on this one (thanks, pal!) Here is a place for all American Literature students--or more broadly, because we have so many pillows and lovely faces, for all Literature of the Americas folks.

Talk about your interests, your current reading list and projects, graduate school statuses, and anything else that tickles your fancy.

I'm on a bus right now and typing this makes me dizzy, but I'll recover in time to post my own.

 

I feel Americanists party harder and drink more.  And I feel this is a good thing.  

 

I do long 19th century and early 20th century up to about 1945ish.  

[toasterazzi]

My people!

 

Honestly, I can rock with most American except I'm not really into Early American Lit. I do tend to gravitate toward more mid-to-late 20th Century and 21st Century stuff though. I have particular preferences for Ethnic American Lit. and Young Adult Lit. My thesis that will hopefully be done within the next month or so is focused on YA. Honestly, YA is like my lifeforce right now. It's almost all of what I'm reading outside of class these days.

[wreckofthehope]

Americanists Unite!

 

I do post-45 stuff: cultural history, fiction, film.

 

I'm mid-degree now, I guess (final qualifying exam this semester), yikes.

[NowMoreSerious]

Even though I have no evidence, I'm also going to say our love lives are better.

 

I've now written 3 term papers and a thesis chapter on Henry James.  

 

My joke is I do the short 19th century.  Melville to Henry James.  But seriously, folks. 

[toasterazzi]

Oh I guess I should also mention that my main focus is pop culture, especially television studies w/ healthy growing interests in film and social media thrown in for good measure.

[TDazzle]

I think I count as half an Americanist? I intend to follow Wallace Stevens into "avant-garde" American poetry while mapping that development onto its influences and resonances within 20th Century French poetry (maybe a little 19th, with Mallarme). So transatlantic modernism, primarily poetry, primarily the avant-garde/shit that makes no sense.

 

Currently working on Francis Ponge's La Bougie, its English translation(s), and how it itself translates material, real candles. Which doesn't sound all that American now that I say it...

[Ozymandias Melancholia]

Even though I have no evidence, I'm also going to say our love lives are better.

 

 

Romanticist here. Must disagree. Our field symptomatically trains us in the art of seduction. 

[tingdeh]

Finally getting around to writing this out!

 

Ethnic American Lit here and anything post-WWII, though the whole tradition is my homie. I've done early German-American and contemporary Nigerian-American here and there, and even some French-Canadian, but my main focus is Asian American literature and culture.

 

I started off with multiculturalism models (melting-pot, mosaic, etc.) and the Filipino community in Honolulu, but now I'm working towards the publication history of ethnic groups' literary anthologies and other writing.

[ke6904]

I love this!

 

Right now I'm working on my undergraduate thesis-- it started out on Kate Chopin's The Awakening (seemingly cliche, I know) but focused mostly on the literary criticism of her novel, especially the way in which it was recovered. This project has evolved now to discuss E.D.E.N. Southworth, Michel Foucault, Theodore Roosevelt... etc. etc. etc. But, basically, as of right now, I'm interested in the invisible power (and "unfreedom) circulating throughout our country and the ways in which so many American novelists touch on that power through avenues of race, gender, sexuality, etc. 

 

It seems I'm mostly focusing on 19th Century authors right now, but I'm a huge Faulkner lover. 

Edited February 19, 2014 by karlianneseri

[wreckofthehope]

Even though I have no evidence, I'm also going to say our love lives are better.

I've now written 3 term papers and a thesis chapter on Henry James.

My joke is I do the short 19th century. Melville to Henry James. But seriously, folks.

I reckon American Modernists have the most sex, but that it's probably faintly unfulfilling.

[Kamisha]

I reckon American Modernists have the most sex, but that it's probably faintly unfulfilling.

 

This comment is everything. 

[Kamisha]

Oh I guess I should also mention that my main focus is pop culture, especially television studies w/ healthy growing interests in film and social media thrown in for good measure.

 

You and I are very similar in our interests

[toasterazzi]

Ya know what they say about great minds...

[NowMoreSerious]

Romanticist here. Must disagree. Our field symptomatically trains us in the art of seduction. 

 

You all read and write about seduction.  We're too busy practicing it.  

[despejado]

I love this!

Right now I'm working on my undergraduate thesis-- it started out on Kate Chopin's The Awakening (seemingly cliche, I know) but focused mostly on the literary criticism of her novel, especially the way in which it was recovered. This project has evolved now to discuss E.D.E.N. Southworth, Michel Foucault, Theodore Roosevelt... etc. etc. etc. But, basically, as of right now, I'm interested in the invisible power (and "unfreedom) circulating throughout our country and the ways in which so many American novelists touch on that power through avenues of race, gender, sexuality, etc.

It seems I'm mostly focusing on 19th Century authors right now, but I'm a huge Faulkner lover.

I'm a Faulkner lover as well! Let's be friends.

[Nyctophile]

You all read and write about seduction.  We're too busy practicing it.  

I am waiting until my daily quota of upvotes renew so I can come back for this one...

[ke6904]

I'm a Faulkner lover as well! Let's be friends.

 

Yes! It takes a certain kind of person to be a Faulkner lover

[despejado]

Yes! It takes a certain kind of person to be a Faulkner lover

Haha you're not kidding... Someone should do a personality study on that some day.

[ke6904]

Haha you're not kidding... Someone should do a personality study on that some day.

 

Haha you're right, although I may be afraid of the findings..

 

What are your research interests?

[despejado]

Haha you're right, although I may be afraid of the findings..

What are your research interests?

American Southern Literature, particularly tracing changes in the perception and actions of masculinity from turn-of-the-century agrarianism to modernism and industrialism. I've also started to look at the role of moral injury (or the lack thereof) in reconciliation after the Civil War Edited February 20, 2014 by despejado

[toasterazzi]

Yes! It takes a certain kind of person to be a Faulkner lover

 

I just read Sanctuary for the first time...

 

[NowMoreSerious]

19 C Americanists do it better.  That is all.  

 

Yes, I bumped this thread. 

Edited March 8, 2015 by NowMoreSerious

[silenus_thescribe]

20th and 21st century American drama is my jam. David Mamet is my main author of interest within this field; my one PhD acceptance, UT Austin, has his complete papers in their humanities library, which is just... tremendous. Suzan Lori-Parks, Tony Kushner, and Eugene O'Neill are some other favorites. (I highly recommend Parks' TopDog/UnderDog to everyone here; a tremendous play on race and American history. Mos Def and Jeffrey Wright were the leads when the play was first performed, which is also cool.)

 

The main research project I (briefly) outlined in my SOP is how American playwrights like Mamet and Parks stage a fragmented epistemology. This ties into the figure of the confidence artist, which is replete in Mamet's body of work and a main theme in TopDog/Underdog. I'm interested in how plays involving confidence games, ones that usually have "twist" or "reveal" endings, usurp traditional epistemological expectations. I have an inkling that this will involve reader/audience response theory, particularly with regard to horizon of expectations. 

Edited March 8, 2015 by silenus_thescribe

[greenmt]

(I highly recommend Parks' TopDog/UnderDog to everyone here; a tremendous play on race and American history. Mos Def and Jeffrey Wright were the leads when the play was first performed, which is also cool.)

 

Yes!  I saw this in the first run, in New York, with this cast.  Magic Johnson was in the audience.  OMG.  Parks is utterly fearless.