Woo-ee

Done my live-blogging of my paper reading. See? See? The Internet is good for homework.

Tomorrow I'll work on an actual response paper and read the rest of the readings for the week XD

Pondering a PhD

So, some of you probably know it took me about two years to figure out what it was I wanted to do for my MA degree.

This program is only one year. By the end of August I am expected to be done, completed.

I'm not sure what the project will actually end up looking like. For one, it's a Research Project, so it doesn't have to be a thesis. Will doing a non-thesis thing mean I have less of a chance getting into a PhD program?

My idea is this:
1) Read up on lots of theory (so far, race, postcolonialism, postmodernism, performativity)
2) Do a lit review of early proto-steampunk works (Edisonade, Victorian pulp, Gothic lit) and other writings from the Victorian era in the English-speaking work that deal with the racialized Other (I have a couple of books of missionary stories).
3) Analyse how racialized bodies are written about then.
4) Compare how racialized characters are written now, within the new boom of steampunk lit of the last, oh, 5 years or so.
5) Ideally, end with a general framework for RaceFail Avoidance in Steampunk. Alternatively, embark on a creative writing project of my own (I can do this.)

Still not quite sure how the theory is going to play into this. I'm focusing on the lit, although I've got a couple of recs on performativity theory.

Thoughts?

With all this, I've got to decide at the very least if I'm staying in Canada after my MA. I could go home to figure out my PhD except then I'd have to go through the hassle of moving my shit all the way across the world. I could try to stay here to find a job, although I'm not sure as what (maybe a lecturer... I kinda think I would do okay with that; but I might score a lecturing job at home too).

My dad wants to go cycling in Belgium in September, since my flight will take me through Amsterdam Schipol. So I gotta figure out what's going to happen to my stuff here and how long I'll be gone for.

I just had the idea of maybe analysing South East Asian myths and folklore. Not just Malay literature, but also comparing with myths and folklore from other SEA countries too, to see how they compare, similarities and divergences. The thing is, I don't know what they would fall under? And I have zero background in that kind of ethnographic type stuff.

I would eventually like to return to Malaysia.

Anyways, that's thinky thoughts for now.