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[cynthia_arrow]

Just finished a rough outline of my PhD dissertation prospectus. (A 'prospectus,' in American secondary ed terms, is a formal plan for your book-length research project in your field, called a 'dissertation.') Will start writing it this week. Eek. It's tiring just to think about writing this 15 page document. I can't imagine generating

Comments

[ella_bee]

For the record, I find this very interesting, and I hope you keep us updated on what / how you're doing! It's a little bit (a LOT) out of my realm of knowledge, but I have practice. My best friend is in her final year of her English Ph.D.

Plus, this is kind of interesting, and it's going to be a HUGE part of your life for the next 1-2 years. So share!

[cynthia_arrow]

Talking about my ideas with people outside my field is enormously helpful to me. I approach literature awfully pragmatically. I've never wanted to be one of those academics who writes about things so highly specialized that they don't matter to the outside world (I mean, what's the use of that?), so I like to be able to explain my concepts to non-academics and non-literature scholars (or to my college sophomores, lol). I'm sure I'll be blathering about it from time to time, but mostly just with general updates on my progress, which is mostly all you guys want to know, yes? :)

I'm interested to know how things are with you, how you're dealing with your crazy job-away-from-home, now that you've been into it a little longer. We should IM sometime or something. (I would say we should call each other, but I have no idea if that's economically feasible.) Anyway, *TACKLEHUGS*

[trovia]

I don't tend to comment on your LJ since we aren't mutual LJ friends, but being about to start writing a dissertation on literature myself, I couldn't resist. :)

In Germany, where I'm from, some people use to identify a genre by the expectations that readers have for a genre. People were annoyed with James Frey because they were informed it's an autobiography and they expected it to be about true events. No matter some researchers could tell them that there isn't much of a difference between describing "true" and "made-up" events (as proposed by Hayden White originally). Most readers aren't researchers and so their expectations were unaffected by this. Autobiography should be "true". Hence, you can argue against the literary critics very easily by pointing out that this is not how these words are perceived in the general public. It doesn't work in every case but it certainly does work for, say, the section in your paper where you define the word "short story cycle" (actually, I did the very thing in my graduate thesis, giving a

[cynthia_arrow]

You know, I have no idea if there's one common approach to genre in Academia in this country. I tend to be reader-oriented, focused on the making of textual meaning in the act of reading, which might account for my approach

[boom_queen]

As a former lit student, and a current librarian, I will always have an ear for your dissertation rants and ideas :D

[cynthia_arrow]

I'm such a failure at replying lately. Sorry.

Thanks so much for the offer of an ear. I had forgotten you were a librarian. :)

[eponine119]

This is really interesting. I think you've picked a great topic!

"Short story cycle" is a better term than "interconnected stories" or "short story novel...thing" definitely.

[cynthia_arrow]

This is me being a failure at replying lately, but making an effort to go back and do it, even when it's embarrassingly late.

I would be greatly shocked if this was actually interesting to anybody but me, but then again, I apparently underestimate the geeky curiosity of my flist. :)

[fosfomifira]

This sounds really interesting. I know next to nothing about literary theory -I've never taken a university level literature course-, but I'd love to hear more.

A short story cycle, that sounds like different fics written in the same 'verse, or am I getting it wrong?

Good luck!

[cynthia_arrow]

Sorry for the late reply. I swear, replying to comments faster/at all is going to be my new years resolution.

I'm going to try to keep people updated on my ideas, because apparently people are interested, and I can never pass up an opportunity to prove that the academic study of literature doesn't have to be something that intelligent people outside the field can't understand.

A short story cycle, that sounds like different fics written in the same 'verse, or am I getting it wrong?

That's a good way to see it, separate stories that are connected to each other but could stand alone, especially as opposed to a single multichapter story, which works like a novel.

The new analogy I'm going with is that a mere short story collection is like a regular album (collection of one artist's work), whereas a short story cycle is like a concept album, more unified but still composed of separate songs.