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(2014
midterm assignment) Sample Student Midterm Answers 2014 #4: Research Proposals |
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(alphabetical order)
Jon Anderson (grad student)
Listening for the Echoes of Authentic
Early American Frontier Experience in the European Gothic Novel
and
Why is Paradise to the West?
For my first research post, I’d like to investigate the
possibility of links between American captivity narratives and the development
of the Gothic aesthetic in European fiction. As we’ve seen in Rowlandson’s
account, proto-Gothic tropes seem to result from the use of Biblical imagery to
help articulate the experience of real anxiety or terror. We have also discussed
the immense popularity of captivity narratives with early American readers.
Knowing that there was correspondence back and forth across the Atlantic, I’m
curious whether these exciting and dramatic texts ever made their way into the
hands of European authors who were, in turn, inspired to imagine more exciting
and dramatic fictions.
From our brief conversation on this topic,
I’d like to start my search with a look at the French writers of the time
(especially Chateaubriand) for evidence that they were at least aware of the
literature coming out of the American frontier. Of course I’ll also take a look
at what the English were reading of their countrymen (and women) as well.
My second idea occurred to me in the first
couple of weeks of class when we were discussing origin stories: Genesis gives
us the pattern of a paradise to the west, which Europeans seem to literalize in
their explorations across the Atlantic. Columbus definitely seems to participate
in the “recovery of paradise” script in his first letter; the Pilgrims and
Puritans seem explicitly to seek to invoke a return to Judeo-Christian utopia in
their journey west. In addition, at least some forms of the Atlantis myth place
the lost (and fantastically accomplished) civilization to the west in the
Atlantic Ocean (In disregard for what seems obvious etymology, other versions of
the myth argue for a location to the west of California.)
I’d like to know where this idea of a
western paradise originates. It seems to come to our period from further back
than the Bible. Is it related to the daily solar cycle? Is it a coincidence of
geography that the west (across the Atlantic Ocean, over what was once thought
to be the edge of a flat world) represents the Unknown? Why does the idea have
the staying power that it appears to have (compare popular conceptions of East
Coast to West Coast)? One lead in beginning this search (as you mentioned in our
email correspondence) is Turner’s Frontier Thesis. I also plan to research
concepts of paradise in early (European) culture.
Josh Cobb
5 Feb. 2014
Research Proposal
For my research proposal, I intend to focus
on the founding fathers of the American union. I would like to trace their
inspirations and discuss their political and social ideologies. I have always
been interested in the lives of the fathers, due to the fact that they were able
to realize the potential to create new government out of the political vacuum of
North America.
I feel that perhaps by intensely studying
their roots and inspirations, I can learn something that may be applicable for
the future. Their texts are widely read, but, I believe, seldom understood. With
the massive amount of misinformation floating around in the digital ether, I
believe it is necessary for a bit of fact-checking and discovery.
Thomas Dion
Can I be a Mestizo too?
We hear so much about the conversion of the First nation’s
conversion to Christianity, but what about the Europeans who adapted to the
Indigenous lifestyle? Who are these people? What did they see in their cause?
Did they fight or try and have a peaceful resolution? Obviously the French took
up trade with many of them, should we forget about these individuals and the
impact they had on our society? Instead of hearing only why the English fought
the French and Indian war, should we also learn why the other side fought? What
does this do to our perspective and the way we go about conducting ourselves if
we gave “the other” the same time of day to explain their actions?
Amanda Duarte
Post 1
For the first research post I wanted to learn more about Spanish baroque
Literature. Since I wrote about Sor Juana de Cruz’s poem “You Men”, my curiosity
of the subject was sparked. On the terms page for baroque, there isn’t anything
that pertains to Spanish baroque literature. This form is part of our objectives
as well as a part of the term baroque. I think that I could find more
information on this style, though there may not be much, it could be useful to
students taking the course to better connect Sor Juana to North American
literature and culture.
Post 2
I would like to research early feminism in the seventeenth century and find more
women writers and how they use their knowledge to speak out for women’s issues.
I could possibly even narrow the search down to women who used the baroque
style/form in their writing in the seventeenth century, but that would be a
stretch. If that doesn’t work out, I would like to know if there were any men
that wrote about the issue of women’s rights in the seventeenth century. I think
that I need a little more guidance on this second research post!
Dawn Iven
I would
like to do my first research topic on The Salem Witch Trials, especially Abigail
Williams and Betty Parrish. I want
to explore the similarities of what really happened to how it was portrayed in
The Crucible and maybe another movie; I am not sure which one yet. I also want
to find out what happened to the girls who initiated the hysterias.
I have always been fascinated with the Salem Witch Trials.
One of the things on my bucket list is to visit Salem, go through the
museums, and see where everything happened.
I keep hoping my mother’s genealogy searches will produce a connection to
someone that was there.
For my second research
topic, I want to do something on Romanticism or Gothic.
Since we have not covered either in detail yet, I am not exactly positive
what the topic will entail. I
believe the Gothic will be interesting because it will easily go along with the
Salem Witch Trials.
Cohen Landry
My research objectives are to see how the Enlightenment
period effected the Native Americans and their spiritual transformations. There
is not much Indian resistance to religious change in the text we have studied so
far. I would love to do some additional research to see how gender, social
status in a tribe, and lineage, determined who could convert and who could not.
Also, I will research about how the idea of Syncretism play in the conversions
of Indians? Most Indians tribes are spiritually connected with nature, and
different deities and supernatural beings, through coercion, and manipulation
many were forced to convert their spiritual beliefs to be accepted socially.
It would be interesting to see how Christian’s missionary
camps and churches, manipulated, controlled, and coerced, the Indians into
converting to Christianity. The majority of them were probably women and
children, who feared for their children’s lives. The transition from one
spiritual beliefs system to the next was extremely difficult to the Indians.
Cristen Lauck (graduate student)
Transatlantic Revolutionary: Thomas Paine
As you know, we have discussed the topic of my thesis throughout this semester
and as I continue my research on Thomas Paine and define my specific question
regarding Paine, I will incorporate my findings and present them in my research
posts. One article I have found that has greatly helped me to define my thesis
was a review of a Thomas Paine conference in 2013. This article titled
“International Society for the Study of Thomas Paine Conference” highlights the
questions and debates that arose from this conference and details what the
current scholarly research is finding out about Paine. Two main questions were
identified in this conference and these are the questions that I will be
researching for my posts.
One
of the two main questions or issues that arose from this conference is why have
different countries focused on a particular side of Paine. For instance, the
British tend to see Paine mostly as a political activist who wrote
Rights of Man,
the Americans focus on his role in the American Revolution and his contributions
in Common
Sense, and the French tend to focus on his
Age of
Reason. The question that was debated in the
conference is why different countries tend to focus on different aspects of
Paine and how can modern scholars reconcile these differences.
Another
question from the conference is why Paine’s
Common Sense
has been such an important document in American History and the Revolution. In
other words, why do we remember this work when there were numerous other
pamphleteers writing at the same time? One explanation that was presented in the
conference was that although Paine’s political pamphlets were not unique, the
way he wrote them was.
For instance, he used different literary forms to
present his message, used specific imagery, mentions God less frequently than
other pamphleteers, avoided words of morality, and used monetary and economic
language more frequently than other writers. The conference presents these finds
as possible explanations for why we still remember Paine and I will continue
this debate in the thesis and present my on-going findings in my research posts.
Danielle Meza
Every American knows the name Benedict Arnold.
At this point in time it is essentially
synonymous to the term “traitor”. For my
first research plan I would like to write about Benedict Arnold and research
what his background and reasons were and whether he was justified for switching
sides during the American Revelation.
As a Texan living relatively nearby the city of Galveston,
the name Jean Lafitte is not completely foreign to me.
They say that his treasure is still
hidden away somewhere around Galveston or New Orleans.
I don’t know whether or not that is true,
but it makes for an interesting myth. For
my second research project I would like to research Jean Lafitte, his life and
career as a pirate.
Stephen Rodwell
The Salem Witch Trials: How Mass Hysteria Gave Way to Common Sense
Having only heard about the Witch Trials, and never studying about them in any
forum, I was quite delighted when, Prof. White chose me to give the class
reading review over, Cotton Mather’s “The Wonders of The invisible World,” and
the Salem Witch Trials, web review. Although it is common knowledge that the
Trials were a sham, and that no witchcraft ever occurred, it is interesting to
me how people can fall prey to mass hysteria, and how educated men can be the
leading advocates of the hysteria.
In my research I stumbled upon the web site of, The University of Virginia which
offers the most comprehensive collection, of original documents related to the
witch trials. It is here that I read about Cotton Mather’s obsession with
witchcraft, and his observations of the Goodwin family of Boston, prior to the
outbreak of supposed witches in Salem.
I would also like to research the effect, the witch trials had on the American
Judicial system; Did the trials have any positive aspects to them in
retrospect?
Finally I would like to learn about Cotton Mather after the trials, and what
effect do the trials have on Salem and the American psyche today
Bibliography
http://salem.lib.virginia.edu/people/c_mather.html
Various, and "Famous American Trials: Salem Witchcraft Trials 1692." Salem
Witchcraft Trials. University of Kansas-Missouri City, n.d. Web. 21 Mar 2010.
<http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/salem.htm>.
Campbell, Donna M. "The Salem Witch Trials." Literary Movements. Dept. of
English, Washington State University
“The Wonders of The Invisible World,” Cotton Mather, 1692
Elizabeth Sorensen
Cynthia Ann Parker and Her Legacy
I found the captivity stories very
intriguing. I remembered learning about Cynthia Ann Parker in my History of
Texas class but I would really like to know more. I know she was captured very
young but I really would like to know how she assimilated and why it was so easy
to let her old life go.
Even if I can’t find the answers to those questions, I still
would like to know what happened to her and what happened to her children. I
have heard that she was the mother of a chief of the tribe she was brought into
so maybe I could find something written about him.
Zachary Thomas
Research Proposal: Why are Slave
Narratives Important to the Dominant Culture?
I looked through the course outline to see
that we are going to be reading different slave narratives and that intrigued
me. The difference in literary elements and in scenarios as opposed to captivity
narratives will invoke more pleasure for me. There is only so much I can read of
women complaining about their circumstances. I find it so much more admirable to
see a people who were taken from their home and brought thousands of miles away
to become slaves and somehow get to play their own part in literature. The
hardships they faced were very evident in their writing and eventually how they
would seek to live in a free nation. I am amazed at how much work had to have
been done in order for literature to come out of the blacks.
My focus will mostly be on their
interpretation of the New World and how they look back at living in Africa and
how they have to survive here. For hundreds of years they were ripped apart by
the Europeans and still they kept fighting to get to a nation of equality. I
would like to research more on the early slave authors of this time, yet also
other authors who became educated after they were freed.
Brenda Trejo
The Texas Karankawas
This semester my main focus has been Native Americans and Indigenous Indians
from Mexico, and I would like to focus on the Indians who are mentioned in De
Vaca’s narrative La Relacion as the Karankawas, I was aware that we had many
Native Americans but I was taken by surprise that they were so close to home,
right here in Galveston Island. I want to know what happen to them. Did they
relocate? What made them leave? Where did they go? I would like to know what
were their customs and beliefs. Who did they fight with? What did their clothing
look like? I hope I can find answers to my questions and more.
Matthew Trcezinski
I’m interested in looking up and researching Charles Brockden
Brown, seeing as you have told us that he is one of the first American writers
to use the gothic in a fictional book. Seeing as latter writers, such as Edgar
Allan Poe and Nathaniel Hawthorne, regard Brown as a influential predecessor to
allow them to write what they did.
Cassandra Rea
A Tale of Two Women
Throughout the readings of the semester so far, I have found
it absolutely fascinating as to how there is a good number of women writers that
represent the time period that they lived in. For both parts of my research
posts, I would like to focus on two writers in particular from the same era to
understand the similarities and differences of that point in time. My plan in
general would be to do a research post per woman writer.
The first research post would be surrounded
by Phillis Wheatley and how she influenced the Revolutionary Era. She is a
notable woman writer that has contributed greatly to Early American Literature.
She is so notable because not only was she a great writer but she was a woman
and an African American, which was uncommon at the time. With that in mind it
would allow me to research the African American side to our Early American
Literature class. Since we have already looked at the Puritans, the Pilgrims,
and the Native Americans, I feel that this allows me to get another perspective
to a different culture that was present during this time.
The second research post would be about Abigail Adams and how
she contributed as a woman writer in the Revolutionary Era. She deems important
for me because she was the wife of one of the founding fathers of America as
well as he was the President. Researching her as a writer compared to Wheatley
will hopefully show how two different woman from very different backgrounds can
have such an impact on that time period as well as shaping the role for woman’s
writing for Literature as well.
