Planning to buy, looks really comprehensive

Ive recently finished his Utopia and already had a background knowledge of his relationship with Henry 8 and Erasmus. I am aware of the literary features of his time, that the language of sciences was Latin and such... Well, In his Utopia too, he suggests that education must be free and open to everyone that are eager to learn, taking knowledge from the possesion of the powerful or the high class and giving it to everyone. Great thing.

But I dont understand why such an influential guy did not write his book in the vernacular so everyone could comprehend his work? Isn't this also contradicting with his utopian education system? Given the fact that he died 20 years later after the publication of the book, he also had pretty much time, no? Am i missing something?

Let us know what you have been reading lately, what you have finished up, any recommendations you have or want, etc. Also, use this thread for any questions that don’t need an entire post for themselves (see rule 4).

What do you think of novels, graphic novels, or manga and animes, that talks about troubled youth, or youth, kids or teens in the middle of some kind of tragedy, are they usually depressing?

Sorry, this is a bit long.

I'm looking for some advice about the next steps to take in Literary studies.

I (38F) recently completed my Master in Literature and Creative Writing. I finished with a 4.0 GPA including getting a High Distinction on my thesis. My thesis focused on a new approach to read to Gaelic protest poetry of 18th and 19th century writers. I really loved the topic and it's something I want to continue studying. The challenge I'm having is I don't have a bachelor's degree.

I was accepted to post-grad study after 15 years freelance writing experience. I started with a graduate certificate, then used the grades I achieved in that qualification to gain entry to my Master's.

I'm not sure what my next step would be. To continue my current research, a PhD in Scotland makes the most sense. I'm Australian but also a dual UK citizen so I could apply as such to University of Glasgow which has my dream archives and Celtic Literary Studies department. But it is very expensive to live in the UK and I doubt I'd get in without a bachelor's. They may also argue that I don't have the translation experience - even though my thesis required me to translate Gaelic poetry.

I have some other options too.

1. I could do a Bachelor's focused on translation in Australia but this would add to my student debt - it would however fill the gap in my academic CV.
2. I am currently living in Buenos Aires and have permanent residency. This gives me access to free education. I could do a Master's here in Comparative Literature in Foreign Languages (English and Spanish - or even Gaelic to Spanish) but my Master's would be in Spanish. I'm not sure that I could get into a PhD here but haven't looked too deeply into it.

I'm a bit lost about what my next steps should be given I have the Bachelor's gap and that I have the opportunity here to study for free. The Master's here is 2 years.

Any ideas?

Thank you for your time.

Edit: My career goals are to publish books and work as a researcher. I'm prepared to teach as that is often required but working in archives, collections and/or the Public Trust/ Museums/National Libraries also appeals to me greatly.

TL;DR - I can't decide between a second Master's (this time in Buenos Aires), trying for PhD in Scotland without a Bachelor's degree, or a translation degree in Australia.

i am doing my second bachelor degree in data science. it is an applied math, stat and a little bit of computer usage( not computer science!). it is getting me depression, mainly the mundane of calculus courses. i love literature, history, sociology and political science. but these majors are gonna get me homeless. however, i never rule out the chance to do research in literature (or related fields). how ppl who get into the field make a living? i am on my own canada, which is the main reason i come here, expecting to have life autonomy.

Hi everyone, a while back I chose my thesis topic (I'm in an EU country, not native English speaker, but studying English), my choice was the gothic as a space for queerness, which is a little vague, but I thought that was better at the time.

Now here comes the issue, while I have plenty of secondary sources, I'm not sure where to start with my primary sources. My thesis advisor is nice enough, but she's the type to leave everything up to me, so when asked what I could write about aside from Carmilla and the well of loneliness, she didn't really give me much except 'look around online'.

So I'm asking here, if any of you are familiar with the topic, do you have any novel recommendations for it? Hopefully I'm not being too confusing in this post, I am infact running on 3 hours of sleep after working a shift and doing schoolwork lol.

hi, I was recently thinking about which books have sections set in a tunnel or something similar (e.g. the path through Moria) - or let it be something somewhat similar above ground (like the library in The Name of the Rose; or the trains and, if you're really bold, the narrow alleys in The Sheltering Sky). In principle, as far as the content is concerned: a closed, narrow corridor/room in which the directions of the possible, literal path are restricted and predetermined for the characters; the characters can only choose from a limited number of paths (sometimes only one path), and yet: they have to move forward. but with the addition regarding the position of the tunnel passage in the structure of the entire book, that the stay there only takes up one passage or one chapter or only a small part of the novel. comparable to the snow in the snow chapter in The Magic Mountain. The Magic Mountain doesn't just take place in the snow; Similarly, the tunnel is not meant to be the permanent setting of such books with tunnels I am looking for. The tunnel appears much like a notable and memorable supporting character in a film.

What I would also be interested in is if anyone knows of any serious scientific works from the field of literary studies on tunnels in books.

Hello!

I’ll soon be writing my MA thesis and have been reflecting a lot on the significance of female companionship in Persuasion. Do you have any recommendations for comparative books, supplementary reading, or insights into the broader concept of female companionship? I’d appreciate any suggestions!

For my project I am using images from my primary text which is a graphic novel. So how do I intext cite and cite it in works cited page? So far what i have done under the image is

Fig 1: description of image (author last name page no)

And at work cited I didn't cite it again as my primary text is already cited Also i have made a collage of an image from my text and one from online. How do I cite it?

Hi, I am looking for book suggestions. I have a final project for my Grade 12 AP English course, and my thesis is about how the freedom of female sexuality is negatively represented in literature to propagate it as a threat to the patriarchy and heteronormative society. The project requires I have at least 3 fiction novels to create an argumentative essay that proves my statement and shows a change in how the idea is represented over time. 

My teacher approved Carmilla(1872). The theme of female "sexual deviancy" and the archetype of the "predatory lesbian character" are prevalent in the plot and message. I had initially looked into 1950s-1960s pulp fiction, specifically, "Satan Was a Lesbian"(1966) by Fred Haley. However, it is much too much erotica for my Catholic high school. For my text predating Carmilla, I found The New Atlantis(1709) by Delarivier Manley; however, there is no trace of the novel anywhere (unless I'm willing to pay $80 for a partial edition.)

I am coming here at a loss; I have tried scouring every corner of the internet to find 2 novels written pre and post-Carmilla that fit into my thesis. So, I would like to turn to your interests and expertise to help me with any suggestions that come to mind.

What are the best expressionist and impressionist novels? I want to explore these movements in literary forms.

Hi everyone, I’m 22 and I’m currently pursuing my MBA and I think I will major in Marketing along with a minor in finance. I live in India and my bachelors is also the field of management. The thing is, I’ve always wanted to study literature or journalism. But I couldn’t due to parental pressure. Now that I’ve gotten into an MBA program, I plan to get a second masters as soon as I’m done with it in some field of my choice. I’ve always been and avid reader and love drawing elaborate analysis for characters in my head. I’m from India and I want to use this opportunity to do a second masters to become an international student (partial to European countries, USA too.) I just want to understand if doing a masters degree in lit without any background will even be beneficial in some way? Could I maybe relate it to my marketing and leverage them somehow? And even if I can, what is my realistic chance of getting into any good universities? I’ve always felt like I was meant to do something like journalism or lit but just feeling like I was meant to do something isn’t enough reason for me to jump into something. So please help me and answer my questions above 🥹 -S

Hi, everyone. I’m a master’s student. I study translation studies. For one of my final papers, I will work on the untranslatability of puns/wordplays. But soon I need to find a novel to analyze. I need something with low-middle page count (since i don’t have so much time). And it would be better if the novel was appropriate, relatively contemporary (70s to today), and really humorous. Please help me I’m about to go crazy.

Hi there, I'm making a survey of Russian literature from Pushkin to Chekhov, and I'd be interested in reading a 200-400 page secondary study of the period which gives an overview of the main historical and artistic currents. Does anyone have any recommendations?

I've heard it said that the short Joseph Frank Dostoevsky biography serves that function to a certain degree and do plan to eventually read it, but I'm also looking for something shorter and more general. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Looking for more books written by culture critics? Really enjoyed Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror, Kyle Chayka's Filterworld, Claire Dederer's Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma; and not so much written by culture critics but I also recently read Naomi Kline's Doppelganger, Autocracy Inc by Anne Applebaum, & Quiet Damage by Jesselyn Cook. I found them riveting. So yeah, guess I'm looking for interesting books written by culture critics, journalists, & thinkers covering a broad range of culture, politics, society, gender, and so on. Any recommendations?

Looking for more books written by culture critics? Really enjoyed Jia Tolentino's Trick Mirror, Kyle Chayka's Filterworld, Claire Dederer's Monsters: A Fan's Dilemma; and not so much written by culture critics but I also recently read Naomi Kline's Doppelganger, Autocracy Inc by Anne Applebaum, & Quiet Damage by Jesselyn Cook. I found them riveting. So yeah, guess I'm looking for interesting books written by culture critics, journalists, & thinkers covering a broad range of culture, politics, society, gender, and so on. Any recommendations?

I have also been curious about why so many people vote 'Leave' and I hope I could get some insights from writers, who usually have a more acute observation of the society. But I was disappointed by my readings.

There are a lot of satirical novels probing into populist rhetorics, politicians' hypocrisy; and also there are novels like Ali Smith's Autumn and Jonathan Coe's Middle England looking into the psyche of normal people, who tries to navigate their differences in political affiliations and reconcile with each other.

But the characters, at least in my eyes, are highly stereotypical. They often fall into a dichotomic division between 'uneducated/ordinary people' and an 'educated liberal cosmopolitan.' Many of the 'Leave' voters are depicted as racist and xenophobic. However, according to Router Institute's media report, the topic of 'economy' has always been the main focus. But the conflict on "economy" issues is rarely represented in the novels.

What makes people vote 'Leave'?? Am I missing something here when reading Brexit Literature?

Considering that writers are often educated liberals, when we try to find answers from BrexLit, are we falling into an echo chamber as well??

I would appreciate any insight or criticism, either about my idea or the Brexit referendum. T-T

*EDIT: I think this article kind of resonates with my feeling: https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/january-2020/brexlit-and-the-decline-of-the-english-novel/

*I am not a British citizen nor a native English speaker. I am just a literature student. I'm sorry for any misunderstandings about the works and British culture or grammatical mistakes.

I want read about baudelaire's life and work which book would introduce me to both?

Anything would be great! Although specifically on it's relationship to "Anglophony," which is my personal term for English supremacy through the concept of literary expertise in relation to linguistic development (how many times have you heard someone tout English for it's "duel vocabulary-" germanic and latinate???) would be best. Although I'm unsure what if anything exists on that specific relationship! I'm very interesting in translatory flattening.

I went through a lot of the subreddit posts and comments about managing the draft stage of the essay writing process, and the tips were amazing. But my notes are everywhere, I’m working on a retrospective/analysis of an entire media (this is literary studies but where else can I ask)

Some said they kept it simple with Word or Google Docs, but honestly, managing everything there especially with screenshots and scrolling back and forth between quotes and images is kinda chaotic lol, it's not the worst but I would definitely appreciate a something else

Are there any apps designed for organising notes and analyses that handle both written quotes and visual references ? Google docs is what I'm using I just can't be assed scrolling up and down between images and text

Let us know what you have been reading lately, what you have finished up, any recommendations you have or want, etc. Also, use this thread for any questions that don’t need an entire post for themselves (see rule 4).

I want to start reading up on post modernism especially in the literary sense what are some books I should definitely read and use as introduction?

I apologize for not being able to word my question and description in the best way. I am having a difficult time placing the official term for my interest in not just literature but the idea of cultural studies.

Simply put, I enjoy the social context and historic relevance of culture when stories are made and when they are told. Simple examples go from the American political climate, its laws, historical events and how it interacts with and presents itself in American dystopian and science fiction stories and medieval stories (as well as 16th and 17th century literature) stuffing its prose with religious references that people found relevant at the time, to more complicated examples such as the historical primary texts written by historians, scholars, or even other writers around the time a book or text was made.

For example, what can be said about Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island regarding not just Caribbean culture but how British culture perceived itself? An author by the name of Matthew X. Vernon published a book studying the influence of medieval studies on African-American thought, and that type of intersection is half of my interests.

What is this? Is this New Historicism? Study of book technology? Or something else entirely?

Trying to see if I can't patch together an informal intellectual history of Russian Realism. For instance, I came to the tentative conclusion recently that Gogol created his style by combining the High Sentimentalism of Laurence Sterne (via Karamzin) with the depth of German Romantics like Hoffman and Tieck, and the Cossack folk myths of his native Ukraine. Now I'm onto Dostoevsky, and that's where things go rogue. Everyone and their mother has an opinion and none of them match. Is he drawing mainly from Gogol, from Hugo, from Dickens or Balzac or from things too Russian to trace in the west? Where did he come by that style of utter vivacity in amid the comparatively procedural literary culture of mid-19th century Europe? Did the guns of that mock execution send him down a rabbit hole of ptsd religiosity of which his style was the only possible aesthetic consequence?

Hi all

I’m a PhD student in CompLit, and I had my ‘upgrade’ interview last week. In the meeting - which otherwise went well - my examiners suggested I read some Marxist lit crit to get a better handle on theories about the relation between literary form and culture.

They specifically mentioned Raymond Williams, Frederic Jameson, Terry Eagleton.

Does anybody have an idea about which texts I should start with? Or any other recommendations? They suggested I go back to Marxist criticism because I’m quite heavy-handed in the connections I draw connections between literary forms and wider political/cultural contexts.

Gist of my thesis: I’m looking at poets who have incorporated different kinds of media (beyond just words) into their poetic works across global contexts of anti-imperialist resistance.

Thanks in advance

Hi, i am very intrested in Books that explore the genre of fantasy. I have read Cambridge's companion to Fantasy, Michael Moorcock's Writing, A to Z of Fantasy Literature by Stableford, Encyclopedia of Fantasy by Clute and and Fantsy literature by Apter.

Would love to hear more recommendations.

P.S- if. You have books exploring the evolution of a hero etc in any genre, I'll love to hear that too.

Joseph Campbell really intruiges me on a personal level, specifically in terms of the way he is able to derive spiritual / mystical meaning from religion (even while treating religions as metaphorical in nature).

I am just starting to dig into his work properly. I read elsewhere that his approach can be aligned with structualism ... Are there any theorists who have developed his spiritual ideas to be more relevant today, after postmodernism? Is this a naive question?

Thank you!

I know that Shakespeare & Lord Byron are among them, but who else?

Hi all, I was wondering what exactly counts as revolution period literature in the USA. During that time frame i see a lot of influential thinkers and founding fathers' works like bunch of essays by Ben Franklin, "common sense" by Thomas Paine and such. Can we count other important work dealing with the issue of revolution after the actual time period as "Revolutionary Period Literature", or is it just works that was written during that time period?