Victory!

[labellementeuse]

An email exchange:

ME: Kia ora [Person I was hoping would be my Honours supervisor], I was hoping to enrol in the summer/first semester research essay paper, although I know it's very late [because summer school started today]! The topic I'd
like to engage on is looking at the motherly girl in young adult
fiction, particularly the classic English adventure stories (for
example, the respective Susans from Narnia and Ransome's "Swallows and
Amazons" series), and how these roles can be interrogated in more
modern stories that nevertheless retain a similar "feel" - I'm
thinking particularly of some of the young women in Diana Wynne Jones'
more recent novels (Arianrhod Hyde and Charmain Baker, if you happen
to be familiar with those books.) To get more to the point, I was
hoping that you would be willing to supervise me.

SAID PERSON: That sounds really interesting! I'd be keen to supervise a
dissertation/honours essay on this subject.


\o/ WHEW/YAY.

Comments

[aimeesworld.livejournal.com]

Anna is just about the most adorable person ever. Enjoy! Out of curiousity what are you taking for your other courses? I need to find a fourth paper and am having trouble justifying NZ and Canadian Lit to myself in a children's lit specialisation.

[labellementeuse.livejournal.com]

That's good to hear, because I don't really know her! For my other courses, I guess I'm taking NZ kidlit and Edwardian/Victorian adolescent fiction (and may I just say, other than post-colonial writing, the Vic English department is really stuck back in time? A jillion papers on medieval studies! Another billion on renaissance! The only thing I'm sad about leaving behind here is the Young Adult literature paper Anna Smith is teaching at Hons level, esp. because I love that Anna, but also because it teaches only stuff written since Catcher in the Rye.) My fourth, I don't know, I'm sort of thinking about checking out gender studies or something and seeing if there's something about women's work and women's roles. (OK, I guess I'm really going to miss the other thing offered at UC which is called "directed reading and writing", which basically allows you to study in an area that the department doesn't offer through a selection of primary and secondary readings recommended to you, and which for me would probably be women's roles in the media - which, by the way, is also not offered in media studies. G*ddammnit.)

[aimeesworld.livejournal.com]

She's really adorable and incredibly enthusiastic. I know people who find her irritating but Katie and I adore her.
So, we're going to be in two classes together. I really need to decide on a fourth. I'm tempted to take "Sex and Gender in Greece and Rome" and pretend it's totally related to my English research essay. I don't know. I love your research essay idea. I have no idea even where to begin with mine.
Vic is really stuck in the past in a bulk of honours English, which is such a shame because there's so much variety in the undergrad courses.

[jo-nzl.livejournal.com]

Random comment from random person, but... you should totally take Mark's sex/gender paper! I know of at least one other person who is doing it along with honours papers in Old English (and possibly English lit as well, I'm not sure). He's super enthusiastic about the course, and the people enrolled are also pretty awesome. We're all having paroxysms of excitement, in short.