English 455, Final Research Project
15-20 pages
Week of November 15:
Bibliography and Project Description Due
Conferences 208 Roberts
November 29-December 10
Presentations on Research Project
December 14
Project Due
For your research project, I would like you to apply one of the theoretical approaches that we have (or will have) discussed to an analysis of a topic of your own choosing. Your approach might be based, for example, in psychoanalytical or feminist theory, or you might approach your topic from the perspective of queer theory or disability studies or cultural studies. I would suggest that as a means of focusing your approach that you choose one of the theorists (e.g., Zizek, Cixous, Thomson, etc.) we have read as your primary example of that particular theoretical approach. As I would like your essay to provide a thorough discussion (4-5 pages) of your central theoretical concepts, your reading and research should take us beyond the work of the primary theorist (and beyond the theory that we have read in class). At the end of each author introduction in our anthology, there’s a long bibliography of suggested further readings. That bibliography should provide a jumping off point for your further exploration of a particular theoretical method. You also might look at other related readings in the anthology.
Ultimately, the paper should be an example of practical criticism, of theory applied to the analysis of a particular text or texts. You could use one of the texts we have examined in class, or you could use this paper to explore a topic that you’ve always wanted to write about–film, music, popular magazines, advertising, an author you love but have never encountered in one of your literature classes, etc. I will place no limits on your choice of topic, except to note that I will be most useful to you as a reader of your work if I have some knowledge of your topic, or, if I can at least get some sort of working knowledge of that topic as the semester progresses. If you want to do something that seems particularly avant-garde, that seems likely to be outside of my area of (presumed) expertise, or something (such as a book) that is really really long, let me know what you’re thinking about as soon as possible so I can try to acquire some background knowledge.
By the time we get to the presentations in December, your project should be fairly well developed. The presentations should have the polish of a mini-version of the longer paper.
Presentation Schedule for Literary Theory and Cultural Studies (Fall 2008)
December 2
202 Ricker Addition
Heather Ingraham-Quimby, “Looking at Jewett’s The Country of the Pointed Firs through the Ecocritical Lens: Three Levels of Ecological Terrain”
Jacques Rancourt, “The Search for the Pearl—Lacanian Desire within On the Road.”
Emily Coffill, “Disability in Flannery O’Connor’s ‘Good Country People’”
Ty Thurlow, “Gettin’ some in the ‘Suck’: Sexuality & the Preoccupation of Masturbation in Jarhead”
December 9
207 Ricker Addition
David Caron, “Fooly Cooly: Deconstructing Worlds and Reconstructing Identities or How Anime Became A Poststructural Endeavor”
Ashlee Page, “‘The Real’ in Hunter S. Thompson’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
Emily Palmer, “The Role of the Reader in Phenomenology and ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’”
Emmanuelle Renaud, “Women’s Bodies in Desperate Housewives and Ugly Betty”
Derry Salewski, “Sometimes a Wand is More Than a Wand: He Who Must Not be Named and the Uncanny”
Hanna Welch, “Disability Studies and Modern American Freak Shows” (web-based presentation)
December 11
Common Ground (11:45-1:15)
Student Union, NDH-C
Stanley Brown, “A Lacanian Interpretation of Video Games”
Christine Davis, “Monstrous Beauty Queens: Reality Television and the Quest for Ideal Beauty through Disfigurement”
William Roy, “Innocence as Truth: A Lacanian Interpretation of Pan’s Labyrinth”
