Paper Topics

So I know this is supposed to be a knitting blog, but there's been no visible progress on the knitting...the orange alpaca is larger lovelier and orangeier than it was yesterday, but it's not photo-worthy yet.

In the spirit of developing better blogging habits, however, I've decided to share my final paper topics for the quarter with you since they are what will be dominating my mentality for the next week and a half.

1)  Imagining Paris through the films Code Inconnu, Chats Perchés, and Entre les Murs; discussing particularly the problems of immigrants, miscommunication, and attempting to create change.  I am really excited about this paper.  It's for my film class on European cinema of the past ten years, so everything is very fresh and current.

2)  Analyzing Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha through the lens of the performative and spatial turns.  In this case I'm arguing that the use of space in the novella reflects the stages of ritual present in performative analysis.  This is for my class on cultural turns taught by the inimitable Doris Bachmann-Medick who literally wrote the book on "turns".

3)  Establishing Thomas Mann's Tod in Venedig as world literature, especially considering its incarnations as film (Visconti) and operetta (Britten) by arguing that in each version it portrays intercultural interaction, there are universal themes, and there is exoticism.  This is for a class on defining world literature also taught by Dr. Bachmann-Medick.

Overall I'm really excited to write about and proud of all my topics, but I'm a little worried that I won't have time to do them all justice.  In an ideal world I'd go back and revisit them and rewrite them into articles perhaps for publication, but in the real world if I don't produce something semi-decent before next Thursday I will never pick up any of these ideas again.

So...think of me furiously writing...and if anyone would like to discuss any of the above further/wants more info/clarification let me know and I'd be thrilled to elaborate :)