As a lecturer at the English Department (University of Bucharest), I can supervise BA and MA graduation papers written by students of the department, provided that their subjects are compatible with my area of expertise (see my description and publications). If you would like me to be your supervisor, please read the information below detailing our potential collaboration.
I. PREPARING THE PROPOSAL
Step 1: Corpus, goal, methodology
I usually grant students the freedom to choose the corpus they want to work on, although I may object if the corpus of choice lies outside my expertise.* The corpus should be clearly defined and relate to a small number of texts/films/comics/games which will then allow the student to provide in-depth analyses of selected fragments. Students should opt for a corpus that they are already very familiar with. The body of texts forming the corpus should have a common thread that will allow the students to identify a research goal.
*In principle, students may also write more theoretical graduation papers where the bulk of the work consists of the students’ theoretical contribution and where the corpus is less important. However, my suggestion is that students try to master existing theories and maybe analyse new, unconventional texts that test the limits of existing theories.
Step 2: Goal
After deciding upon a corpus, students must identify a research goal. Based on their knowledge of the corpus and the knowledge and skills developed in their studies, students must think of one main issue that can be the focus of critical insight. In other words, students must think of an aspect of the corpus about which they can articulate one main idea that can be supported with the help of a critical method.
Step 3: Methodology
A methodology is theoretical perspective consisting of a series of assumptions and concepts that students can use to shed light upon a corpus of texts. Students are free to choose whatever methodology they prefer as long as it is compatible with the corpus and goal.
For example, rhetorical narrative theory reveals offers a toolkit (time, place, narration, implied author, voice, character, etc.) that enable us to explain how and why a text communicates the way it does.
How this works #1:
Students can use rhetorical narrative theory to explain why, when reading Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis, readers are likely not to take the narrator’s discourse at face value and to understand the exact opposite. In order to achieve this research goal, students can employ the concepts of narrator and implied author. The argumentation would go as follows: Babbitt is the eponymous character of the novel. Although written in third person, the narrator employs free indirect speech in order to highlight the protagonist’s views on the state and unfolding of the events. In the novel, Babbitt is a middle-class American who often expresses his appreciation and praise of Midwestern America in the twenties. Besides the narrator and the character, in the novel there is also the presence of the implied author. As the name of the concept suggests, this is not the real author, but an image of the author that the reader constructs in accordance with the text written by the real author. Although the implied author does not speak, it does function as a yardstick for judging the truth value of what happens and is said in a novel. The specific way in which the text is written cues the reader to infer an implied author who contradicts the narration of Babbitt. Because of the implied author, readers are likely to treat the narrator’s discourse with distrust and infer that actually Midwestern America in the twenties is not such a great place.
Corpus: Babbitt by Sinclar Lewis
Research goal: showing that novel cues oppositional reading
Method: Rhetorical narratology (narrator, implied author)
Another critical method is, for instance, postcolonialism, which is interested in how the content of a text is ‘determined’ by Western prejudices concerning exotic spaces and their populations.
How this works #2
Students can use postcolonialism to analyse gameplay in the most recent Tomb Raider trilogy (Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider). In such a paper, students can examine the gameplay and the simulation of space with the help of the concepts of “colonial discourse” and “colonial gaze.” The way in which the player interacts with game space and the native populations are indicative a colonial bias that confirms Western expectations concerning otherness. Through gameplay, the player aids the playable character to assume the role of colonial saviour whose providential intervention is necessary for the welfare of the exotic spaces and populations. Consequently, gameplay in the recent Tomb Raider games is revealed to be the simulation of a civilising mission that hinges on the colonial bias that non-white populations and non-Western spaces are always already in a state of passive helplessness that calls for the civilising intervention of the agentive white Westerner.
Corpus: Tomb Raider, Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider
Research goal: Revealing the colonial bias structuring the games
Method: postcolonialism (colonial discourse, colonial gaze)
Step 4: Writing the paper proposal
Having established the corpus, method, and goal, your task it to write a 500-600 word paper proposal similar to the examples provided above. Make sure you also include a bibliography written in Chicago Style 17th ed., or MLA style if you are an American Studies student. Please send your proposal to andrei.nae@lls.unibuc.ro If I do not confirm the receipt of your proposal within 48 hours, please write to me again. Moreoever, if I do not get back to you with a reply as to whether I agree to supervise your paper within a week from the confirmation of receipt, please send me a reminder.
Unfortunately, I can supervise only a limited number of graduation papers, so do write to me well in advance. I go by a first come, first served principle, which means that there is no deadline for submitting your proposal, but also that if you write to me during the second semester, I may have no spots left for any more students.
At the same time, please do your research before you submit your proposal. Although I am inclined to make suggestions for improving the proposal, I will not consider proposals which do not meet the word limit and are not backed by proper research.
II. WRITING THE GRADUATION PAPER
After we agree on the corpus, method, and goal, you can begin writing your paper. Your paper will contain the following chapters:
- Introduction: you announce the topic, methodology, goal, and stages of the argumentation
- Literature review: you must consult as many of the available academic sources on the topic and organise and synthesise the state-of-the-art knowledge on the respective topic with focus on the connection to your paper. In other words, if you are writing a paper on a video game, you cover as much of the existing articles and chapters on that game, find common approaches and see whether there is any consensus. The point of this is to show how your research advances knowledge on the respective topic. (PS: Some sources many not be open. Go to our university library [BCU] or use alternative means to obtain access to articles and chapters blocked by paywalls.)
- Methodology: here you will present the theories that you employ for your analysis. This chapter take into account the most relevant sources and highlights the critical concepts that you will use in your corpus analysis (see also I.3)
- Corpus analyis: this can be split into more than one chapter depending on the corpus and the lenght of the previous chapters. Here you employ the theoretical framework in order to challenge or contribute to the existing findings on your topic and reach the research goal announced in the introduction.
You must send me each chapter once it is done and I will get back to you with feedback that you are obliged to consider. All changes made to the text must be highlighted in yellow. In terms of citation style, you are asked to employ the Chicago Style Manual, 17th edition with footnotes. In my view, this citation style is the most adequate for reading graduation papers because it provides me with quick access to your sources and enables me to comment on them more easily. Please avoid using MLA, APA, Harvard, or any other citation style. (This does not apply to students of the American Studies programme, who must use the MLA citation style.) Please also be aware that I will not consider papers submitted only a few days before the graduation defence registration deadline.
Finally, if you fail to deliver a satisfactory paper by the end of the second term, you will have to find another supervisor for the next graduation paper defence session.
III. DOS AND DON’TS
1. Avoid simplistic quantitative approaches based first and foremost on counting identities, measuring body parts, etc.
If you have a background in philology or cultural studies, as a BA or MA student it unlikely that you should have the skillset necessary for quantitative research (a type of research based on quantifying data). In other words, if you discuss sexism in a text, then the number of female characters can be relevant, but you should avoid basing your argument just on that. By the same token, when discussing sexism in visual media, the representation of women and other genders is indeed important, but I suggest that you avoid basing your argument merely on the size of various body parts.
2. Avoid arguments that are too descriptive and state the obvious
Sometimes students have the tendency to explain what happens in a narrative, rather than provide critical insight. Make sure that your graduation paper is not a detailed rewriting of the plot and, if you’re doing cultural studies, that you have a critical attitude with respect to the text’s perspective on whatever issue you choose to approach. This also applies to texts that claim to be feminist, anti-racist, eco-critical, etc. The idea is for you to use a theoretical approach that enables you to question to what extent your corpus really is feminist, anti-racist, eco-critical, etc. By just repeating the arguments of the text, you risk stating the obvious.
For example, I suggest that if the topic of your graduation paper is “Anti-Racism in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Americanah”, you do not reiterate the critique of racism overtly expressed in the novel. What you could do if you choose such a topic, is identify the critique of racism in the novel and discuss how it relates to a particular historical way of looking at race and criticising racism.
3. Avoid Jungian psychoanalysis
While I do not dismiss Jungian psychoanalysis, this is a critical method I am not comfortable with due to its universalist assumptions. If you would like me to be your supervisor, please avoid Jungian psychoanalysis.
4. Make sure you always support your claim with textual proof and analysis
When doing corpus analysis, you must always back your arguments with textual evidence. This can be done either by paraphrasing your source text or by inserting quotations/images from the source text that you then comment on. Do not leave quotations unanalysed.
5. Make sure you always consult the sources that have already discussed the corpus
Unless it is a very recently published work, it is highly unlikely that nothing should have been written about the texts you analyse. Make sure you use look into databases for articles, chapters, conference papers, and books that discuss your corpus. The Central University Library provides access to several research databases. Do your best to provide a personal contribution to the existing literature on the topic. I evidently do not expect you to find all existing resources on the topic of your graduation paper, but there must be an acknowledgement of what has already been written. You cannot bring a contribution to a topic if do not know what has already been written about it.
7. Make sure you do have enough secondary sources for your theoretical chapter
Of course you can focus on one theoretical text, but your theoretical chapter must also take into consideration other works that comment on the theoretical text you have chosen. Your theoretical chapter must not be a simple retelling of an existing theoretical work.
8. Do not name authors and books, but methods and concepts when announcing your methodology
When sending me your graduation paper proposal, it is important that you prove that you are more or less familiar with the theory you plan on using. Instead of dropping the names of the theoretical texts that you will be using, briefly explain the assumptions, main concepts, and goals of your theory of choice. For example, if you want to employ Judith Butler’s concept of gender performativity, do not simply list the name of the author and the title of the book. Explain what the concept entails and how this concept is relevant for your argument. Evidently, in this case you would reference Butler’s work accordingly.
9. Avoid inserting quotations from secondary sources unless the aim is to critically comment on them
It is mandatory that your theoretical chapter prove that you have digested the secondary sources that inform your critical method. In order to do so, it is highly advisable that you avoid inserting quotations from the secondary sources, unless you want to convey a critique of the said sources. While duly and rigurously observing citation norms, do paraphrase your secondary sources and seamlessly integrate them in your overall theoretical argument.
Andrei Nae. Lecturer, University of Bucharest 