Apara's Thesis Interests

1. Feminism: the treatment and empowerment of women in different eras and situations; some book ideas I had for this were A Thousand Splendid Suns (by Khaled Hosseini) and A Doll's House (by Henrik Ibsen). 
2. How a novel/written work is adapted into a musical; I could look at Fun Home (Alison Bechdel), The Color Purple (Alice Walker), War and Peace/Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Tolstoy/Dave Malloy)

Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 17, 2018 at 12:26 PM

    For your topic about feminism have you thought about using poetry as well as novels? There's alot of poetry out about feminism and it might be really interesting to compare the two. I just finished reading Milk and Honey by Rupi Kaur. I haven't read it but theres another book called The Princess Saves Herself in this One by Amanda Lovelace.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousJanuary 17, 2018 at 5:14 PM

    There are a lot of great poems by Maya Angelou including "Phenomenal Woman" and "Still I Rise" and "Caged Bird". I've read all of these and I think them may help with your feminism topic.

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJanuary 18, 2018 at 12:24 AM

    I think The Help is also a really good representation about both the treatment and empowerment of women during the 1960s.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Emma's Topic and Foci

Topic: How women are depicted in fantasy literature Focus: Do the descriptions of women and men vary when written by male or female authors? I would compare Eragon and Harry Potter because they are both series with a male protagonist and villain but Eragon was written by a boy and Harry Potter was written by a woman. In Eragon, the prominent female characters are Saphira, Arya, and Angela. In Harry Potter, there are far more but I would probably focus on Hermione, Luna, Mrs. Weasly, and Bellatrix. The number of female characters in each series in itself is interesting. Focus: The depiction of powerful women (by female authors) and the relationships they have with men and other women. I would use Harry Potter, The Naming (Alison Croggon) and Throne of Glass (Sarah J. Maas). I want to focus on how all of these books pass the Bechdel test. Even though it is arbitrary and not usually applied to literature. I also want to look into how women in each of these series are tre...
Read more

Apara's Topic and Foci

Topic: Women and their relationship with their families Focus 1: The idea of house vs. home and what it means and how it evolves for Alison in Fun Home and Nora in A Doll's House. Fun Home follows Alison through a large portion of her childhood and adolescence, while A Doll's House takes place over the course of a few days. It would also be interesting to examine the events that trigger Alison's and Nora's changes in perspective. Focus 2: How both girls/women (again in A Doll's House and Fun Home) cope with the treatment of the men in their life: Alison has an overbearing father, and Nora's husband is also very strongly paternal. Both women eventually manage to at least make steps towards becoming their own person, and I could look at the effects these men have in their life and how these relationships change over time (as well as what prompts these changes).
Read more

Lily's Topic and Foci

Topic: women with mental illness Focus 1: The differences in how women with mental illnesses were treated in 3 different time periods (50s, 60s, now) using The Bell Jar , Girl, Interrupted , and OCD Love Story .  This includes stigmas around mental illness, as well as approaches and attitudes of doctors.  The Bell Jar  and Girl, Interrupted  include characters at the same mental hospital, so it will be interesting to compare their experiences 10 years apart.  Although the character in OCD Love Story  is not admitted to a mental hospital, she battles with OCD and anxiety in modern times (2010s).  In  The Bell Jar , the main character's doctor is "unsympathetic" and fails to listen to her as he prescribes unnecessary treatments.  She faces stigmas surrounding her gender and her mental illness.   In Girl, Interrupted  the doctors use ineffective and damaging treatments, and the protagonist faces discrimination due to the stigma ...
Read more